Fluid Tanker setup recommendations

[Valkyrie42]

Looking for a more efficient or speedy way to fill/empty a tanker. Took me close to an hour to empty a 34k liter tank using two large pumps attached to both a fluid connector and a fluid hose connector. I get the feeling I need more ports and/or pumps to increase flow rate without significantly increasing ship weight, but would prefer a more tried and true high-flow rate system so I dont have to wait forever to empty a smaller ship.

[GrumpyOldMan]

One hour for 34k liters is definitely a hint to some suboptimal piping.
On my WIP 35m tanker I managed to pull off 150l/s at the large oil rig, by connecting all 2 hoses and the fluid connector. Shipside there are pump directly behind the fluid anchors and right before the fill/drain ports.

It seems essential to flowrate to have pumps as close to the fluid port as possible.

You also want the drain ports at the bottom of the tank, and the fill ports at the top, so the pumps don't have to fight gravity/the tanks internal pressure.

I've also heard quite a few times that it's beneficial to have a single inlet/outlet per tank for maximum flowrate, haven't tested this yet.

Stacking pumps won't do much for flowrate, it's better to have parallel piping of port -> pump -> port.

[Valkyrie42]

Alright, thanks Grumpy, I will mess around with it for a bit and see what works. I already kinda used parallel ports and the whole fill at the top, empty at the bottom thing (it just makes sense)

[Valkyrie42]

So I rebuilt my system to have two pumps per port ( I am using 2 ports on my ship: Fluid Connector and Fluid Hose Anchor), each with its own pump at the Outlet, and one at the Port at the bottom of my tank.

This setup still only netted me less than 10 lps.

So now the question becomes: Do I need to use the large pumps, or are the smaller pumps fine for small ships?

[GrumpyOldMan]

Small pumps can overcome 10m altitude difference, large ones 100m, that's pretty much it.
If you have the space there's no reason to use anything else than the large pumps.
Small pumps can be useful for fuel pumps where you don't need the full 150l/s at all times, you can even adjust their power rating to match the maximum wanted consumption so if set to 10% the engine can never use more than 15l/s.
Unfortunately you can't adjust that on the fly, so the pumps will always run at full power if you adjust flowrate with a valve (which also hurts flowrate by merely existing)

You can always upload the ship to the workshop for someone to take a look at.

[Valkyrie42]

I would rather just find a good example of an existing ship that has a good flow rate. From what I understand, the fluid transfer speed from tank to tank is higher than a tank to sell-point. I have tested the ship I have and get close to 80 lps when transferring back and forth from the on-shore fuel tank at a dock and the ship itself, but once I take that exact same setup to a Fuel sell-point, the LPS rate drops to roughly 10.

[Wingnut]

Originally posted by GrumpyOldMan:

One hour for 34k liters is definitely a hint to some suboptimal piping.
On my WIP 35m tanker I managed to pull off 150l/s at the large oil rig, by connecting all 2 hoses and the fluid connector. Shipside there are pump directly behind the fluid anchors and right before the fill/drain ports.

It seems essential to flowrate to have pumps as close to the fluid port as possible.

You also want the drain ports at the bottom of the tank, and the fill ports at the top, so the pumps don't have to fight gravity/the tanks internal pressure.

I've also heard quite a few times that it's beneficial to have a single inlet/outlet per tank for maximum flowrate, haven't tested this yet.

Stacking pumps won't do much for flowrate, it's better to have parallel piping of port -> pump -> port.

Sorry for the necro.
When you say parallel piping do you mean multiple independent pipe networks or would having a single inlet port then multiple pipes to a single pump then multiple pipes to a single outlet port work?

[GrumpyOldMan]

Originally posted by Wingnut:

Sorry for the necro.
When you say parallel piping do you mean multiple independent pipe networks or would having a single inlet port then multiple pipes to a single pump then multiple pipes to a single outlet port work?

Multiple of single input -> single pipe-> single pump -> single output.
Expect to get around 75l/s at most, since patch 1.2.3 "fixed" steam turbines but essentially wrecked the rest of the fluid system.

Back in the days my tanker would cap out at 450l/s with all 3 hoses connected to the oil rig, each hose filling an individual tank on the ship. Now the same setup reaches 135l/s at most,
45l/s per pump. Pretty sure this was another untested, rushed out the window change unfortunately.