Turbofuel problem again : FIXED?

[Yurk]

I've been playing a new save. Made my turbo fuel factory on top of a 3 story structure. Using the original diluted fuel recipes with the packagers. Dropped my fuel input from 600 to 585. Output should be 487.5 turbofuel. Enough for 108.333 fuel generators. Can't seem to make it stable above 101 generators. Headlift is not a problem because the turbofuel is going down 12 meters to the next floor. Have I done something wrong with my math, or is it the game?

[RiceOfStrength]

Have you added enough empty canisters to the system given the buffer in refineries and packers?
The last time I built a plant using packaged diluted fuel, I needed over 5000 canisters for steady production, even though the calculator said to add only 900

[Reason]

Also if you package turbofuel for personal consumption, dont forget it reduces the total amount of turbofuel for the fuel generators.

[Yurk]

I've got plenty of canisters, they never run out. I think it's something with the 600ppm and the pipes. Not sure though. I start running out of fuel first. And I don't pull anything out of the system for personal use. Actually between floors is 42 m. It's weird because I have part of the plant making straight turbofuel, enough for 55.55 Fuel burners, and it's working perfectly. Maybe I need to tear it out and go with blenders. Lots of work though. I say it can't keep up, but it takes a few hours to start falling off. Really strange.

[Mr.America]

Check the final machine of each partial production for % of uptime, then if it's sth below 99% it should be clear that it's lacking either input components or output space, e.g. at that point you made a mistake.

Also, dealing with fluid pipes, make sure you only use one type of pipe for one network. If you feed Mk1 pipes into a Mk2 pipe network, fun stuff happens. Either go full Mk1 or full Mk2.

[Yurk]

I THINK IT'S FINALLY FIXED:
TL;DR: Use pumps, not valves.

Okay, so I had 10 refineries making packaged diluted fuel, feeding 10 packagers making fuel. Each was it's own chain, 1:1. The final 10 ended in a pipe manifold feeding the refineries making turbofuel. Some of you probably see the problem already.

So, I realized the stubs coming from my packagers weren't emptying into the main line correctly. Tried valves, but it only prolonged the time until the problem (not enough fuel in main line to feed turbofuel refineries) would show up. Did some research, valves are bugged right now, and if the pipe they are on is not completely full behind them they won't allow liquid to flow correctly. At 60ppm per stub, this was never going to happen.

Finally replaced the valves with pumps, basically sucking all the fuel out of the stubs into the main line. So far running 109 Fuel generators with no problems. Going to add the last 2.11 generators and see if it keeps up.

So that's it. Just wanted to give an update on what worked for me, maybe it will help someone else.

[Yurk]

Huh. So I have enough fuel for my Turbo Fuel Refineries. 600ppm. Refineries should be putting out 500ppm. Which equates to 111.11 Fuel Burners. But I can't sustain over 109. Really strange.

[Keverta]

Oh satisfactory pipes. I had to watch several videos about how to get a generator setup to work correctly but here is basically the solve for getting all generators working properly and up full time. Will work for all types of fluid fuels. Setup your refineries and let them run until the fluid line is full and they shut off. You will probably have to SINK off excess solids to achieve this. Then setup your second line of refineries and again wait until the fluid lines are full and the refineries shut off. Then setup your 3rd line of refineries and again let them run until they are full and shut down. Next step is to build all your generators. DO NOT add the pipes yet. Do setup your power lines to all of them. Then set them all to standby. If you use a blueprint for this step you can plop them down in standby mode already. Once all generators are setup, add your pipes and connect the fuel to them. They will start to fill up one by one as the fuel hits each manifold. You are going to be tempted to turn them on when they max out at 50, but resist this urge until every last generator in the run is full. Now go down the line starting from the back turning on each generator from the standby mode.

TLDR--> Pipes literally put in as they use up in a 1 to 1 ratio, but everything has to be full of fluid before you light off your generators. All refineries, all blenders, all pipes and fluid buffers and finally the generators. Your refineries and blenders maybe cycling on and off, but that is nothing compared to having a 3rd of your generators cycling on and off. Hope this helps out some people.

EXTRA INFO-> This also work with coal power plants. Setup your coal power plants first, add the power lines and connect to existing power network, put all of them into standby mode, hook up the water and make sure its completely full, add your coal product until those reserves are full then come back by and once both internal storage containers are full turn them on one by one starting at the farthest one from the water source. Solids on conveyors with splitters work much better than fluids in that it is predictable.

In case you are wondering why the standby mode instructions, you cannot fill up the generators internal storage unless they are in standby mode and hooked up to the power grid.

[Keverta]

Side note, my big above post was intended as instructions for a brand new build from scratch so that you have 100% power as soon as you switch the generators out of standby mode with no power fluctuations and it assumes that you have done your math correctly and are burning exactly or slightly less fuel than you are producing.

If you are trying to get an existing power plant to running 100% up all the time with no generators blinking on and off, here are my suggestions.

First, double check all your math and make sure you are on a 1 to 1 consume vs produce.

2nd put about half your generators or if you have the patience for it all of them into standby mode and left everything fill up and then turn them back on. Should solve the problem you were having.

Again fluids are a funny inconsistent pressure free mess in Satisfactory.

[Yurk]

I agree that fluids act strangely in Satisfactory. I do as you say, build each section of the power plant, let it completely fill up, build the next stage, repeat. The only thing I see I may have done different is to start the generators too early before. Since my original post, I've added fluid buffers to the end of each of my turbofuel generator runs and let the buffers fill up before I turn the generators on. This seems to help, but if I let it run long enough (sometimes hours) I still start losing fluids (usually regular fuel first). Maybe I've miscalculated something, maybe it's the pipes. I haven't built one in awhile, I may have been mixing pipe types.

As far as coal generators, I find putting a fluid buffer at the end of each run of 8 generators and letting it fill with water before starting the system, I never have a problem. It can run forever. Solves weird problems with loading a save and running out of water too.

[Yurk]

Just to add, I think this problem started at update 5. Up until then, my turbofuel factories never had any problems. I don't know what changed, but it affected my play style, apparently.

[Keverta]

Yeah it was around update 5. The problem that many people have pointed out with the pipe systems is that there is head lift, which is for allowing fluid to move up the pipe vertically, but this is not to be confused with pipe pressure which does not exist. For example, in our municipal water systems, there are a number of giant pumps that the city pays to operate that keep a constant level of pressure in the pipes to keep them full. Satisfactory does not have that, the pumps we have do not add pressure to the system, just magically allow the water to go up. If they did provide a constant pressure, the problems we see would go away.

Adding a fuel buffer to the end of the lines might/will help. I personally put an industrial buffer on top of 4 block high 4m foundations, headlift the fuel to it from the blenders with a mark 2 pump and let if completely fill and then connect it to the pipe network of the generators and let gravity do the work of giving my system "pressure". Seems to work well and don't think I mentioned that in my above post. The fuel from the blenders in my case can only go up to the industrial buffer thanks to the pump and the fuel in the generator pipes can not slosh back up to the the buffer because it has no headlift. You might try it and see if it helps but it sounds to me like you might have still have a math problem. I literally just made a turbofuel factory the last two days that is up and stable using the method I outlined above.

And your right about the coal lines they are not as difficult to use as the fuel systems.

I upgraded one of my two coal plants over the weekend to prepare for the turbofuel plant because I needed quite a bit of power to operate the new refineries. Added compact coal to the mix of the coal plant and doubled or tripled my coal plants there. I can't remember exactly how many but I think I am running in excess of 200 coal plants there and some 75 water pumps to feed them. Its a glorious FU to the environmentalists that makes me chuckle every time I see it.

[apdsmith]

For reference, I ended up having do this to get the necessary stability in my turbofuel supply piping:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3243855110

Between this and the valve-limited input to the power rooms' overhead fuel tanks (limited at 75m³/min to a power room with 14 fuel generators running turbofuel, for a requirement of 63m³/min turbofuel) that's enough to keep the main turbofuel piping stable.

[Keverta]

Yeah that is similar to what I ended up doing as well. Gravity is the only way to pressurize the pipes.

[apdsmith]

Yup. In my case, helped by the design of New Seaview, in which the power rooms are on the floor underneath the refinery floor, and have their own fuel rack in the overhead holding 48,000m³ of turbofuel.

[Keverta]

I have never prettied up a refinery power plant to the degree you have but I like the clean look of the stacking you did. I tend to build it out over the water and make a rather large sprawling one level monstrosity where if something needs some elevation I just put it on some raised foundations. So if Ii am reading you right, the storage for the turbofuel is all the way on top. Blenders under the buffers and the generators are under the blenders? And pipe from the buffer rack all the way to the bottom floor to generator rooms?