Electric purifier priority

[Arndok]

TLDR: how does device priority work on a parallel water system?

So on the fandom wiki page for the water pipes it reads: "Will prioritize the first entrance into a water system, meaning a system connected through a series of water tanks will drain the electric purifier connected to the beginning of the system".

This explanation only accounts for devices set up serially, not in parallel. This is more or less what i want to do:

1 1
|--- [E.P]-------[E.P]---|
| | |
|---------[E.P]---------|
|
2

(1: to animal pen sprinklers; 2: to garden sprinkler and water tank on prow)

The idea is that the front purifier would be the main one, with an easily accessible battery, and the two back ones, enclosed in a kind of maintenance room, would be auxiliary in order to keep the system working if the main battery ever runs out.

My problem is that i can't find out how to make the system drain the main battery first. It worked fine the first time i set it up, but then i changed the pipe layout and the system drains the starboard aux battery first. Both times i made it so the main purifier is both the first one placed and the closest one to every other device in terms of number of pipes.

Could anyone explain how does priority work in this situation? I know I could do a similar system using auxiliary water tanks instead of purifiers (this'd solve my problem and also has its own pros and cons). Also, now i think about it i guess i could remove some pipes to make the system serial... in any case, i'd like to understand how all this works before opting for another setup.

If you've reached this line, thx for your attention!

[Ancient Oldie]

I am not sure, but I think there is no fluid-mechanics on the tanks and pipes.

I think the game priotizes the first item placed. (for fuel tanks I am sure), it allways empties / uses the first tank or pump placed.

[Arndok]

Originally posted by Ancient Oldie:

I am not sure, but I think there is no fluid-mechanics on the tanks and pipes.

I think the game priotizes the first item placed. (for fuel tanks I am sure), it allways empties / uses the first tank or pump placed.

Not for water... I've removed and put again the auxiliary purifiers several times and nothing's changing.

I've also tried connecting the purifiers in series and it's not working either; both when putting my main purifier first and last, the animal pen sprinklers always drain one of the auxiliary purifiers.

[Xas]

Try ' elevating ' a connected Water Tank unit centered ' above ' the required outlets with pipe coming down.

Don't think too deep into water flow mechanism, assume it has ' Game Loading ' sequence priorities, followed by what you seeing during gameplay, progressive responses of the interactive tool/ pipes.
( When game is loading in the blue screen, objects of the raft, takes turn spawning, sequence might not be constant )
end of the day, as long as its connect.


*point to take note,
regards to pipes and water/fuel supply,
the interactive objects will fail to work for flow, if in extensive range from the original 2x2 focal point of the raft.

[Arndok]

Originally posted by Xas:

Try ' elevating ' a Water Tank unit centered ' above ' the required outlets with pipes coming down.

Curious, why is that? Anyway, if i'm going to use water tanks i can't do the auxiliary purifier thing.

Originally posted by Xas:

Don't think too deep into water flow mechanism, assume it has ' Game Loading ' sequence priorities,
( When game is loading in the blue screen, objects of the raft, takes turn spawning, sequence might not be constant )
end of the day, as long as its connect.

Hm, if that's the case i definitely can't do what i wanted to do. I think i recall seeing someone setting a similar system though. Well, i'll keep testing for a little while, see what happens. Using water tanks might be a better idea anyway.

[Xas]

The purifier should be actively filling its bottle and topping up the water tank, while
the elevated water tank, should evenly spread between the usage outlets.

Nonetheless, additional water pipes connections throughout the raft still would work.
Personally my floors, borders of raft are all laid with pipings.

Having multiple purifiers, its often noticed that one drains more than others.

[Arndok]

Originally posted by Xas:

The purifier should be actively filling its bottle and topping up the water tank, while
the elevated water tank, should evenly spread between the usage outlets.

Ok, but what happens if the tank's not elevated then? Wouldn't it also feed correctly every device connected to its outgoing pipe?

[Xas]

Elevated is just to conserve space, centered to shorten the relay or perhaps evenly spread.
personal perspective.

' as long as connected '.

[MartyS]

The priority seems somewhat random to me, I usually put 2 or 3 purifiers on a raft and while playing the game I've had different batteries drain first. So I think it does have something to do with how your raft loads when you start a session. But even while playing and I change out all the batteries I never know which one will be the next to drain.

FYI: If you have a lone water tank at the end of a line and want it as a reserve for sprinklers to use be sure to connect the in and out sides together.

[Arndok]

Originally posted by Xas:

Elevated is just to conserve space, centered to shorten the relay or perhaps evenly spread.
personal perspective.

' as long as connected '.

Oh, ok then! It's below the sprinklers in my case :) Given that I had to elevate the animal pen in order to prevent them from glitching away in rough waters, i've just repurposed the space below as a maintenance duct.

[Arndok]

Originally posted by MartyS:

The priority seems somewhat random to me, I usually put 2 or 3 purifiers on a raft and while playing the game I've had different batteries drain first. So I think it does have something to do with how your raft loads when you start a session. But even while playing and I change out all the batteries I never know which one will be the next to drain.

Yeah, it seems pretty random. I think we might be able to implement an auxiliary purifier system by connecting each purifier to its own water tank and then daisy chaining the tanks, but then again... in this situation, i know the tanks are prioritized among themselves, but i do not know if they're prioritized over purifiers. And i'm not gonna dump more time and platinum on this xD in the end, i'm opting for water tanks, even just one, as a buffer, which is clearly what the game's prepared for and probably a way better solution in any case.

Originally posted by MartyS:

FYI: If you have a lone water tank at the end of a line and want it as a reserve for sprinklers to use be sure to connect the in and out sides together.

Why is that? I'm not bypassing in to out in my setup and it seems to be working fine. Purifier feeds water tank, then water tank feeds sprinklers, then purifier feeds water tank again. The tank only starts to empty if the purifier stops working. Also, if you do bypass the water tank, again, can you control priority between the tank and the purifier?

[MartyS]

Originally posted by Arndok:

Why is that? I'm not bypassing in to out in my setup and it seems to be working fine. Purifier feeds water tank, then water tank feeds sprinklers, then purifier feeds water tank again. The tank only starts to empty if the purifier stops working. Also, if you do bypass the water tank, again, can you control priority between the tank and the purifier?

Yes that's how it works if you feed them in a row that way, but if you put tanks in the middle or at the end and the purifiers run empty the water will only flow upstream from the tanks.

So, if you have a layout where it goes purifiers-sprinklers- tank and only have the tank connected at the "in" side, it won't feed water back down the pipe to the sprinklers if the purifiers run out of power and go empty. In this case the only way to use the tank as a backup water source is to connect the in to the out with a loop of pipe.

[Arndok]

Originally posted by MartyS:

Originally posted by Arndok:

So, if you have a layout where it goes purifiers-sprinklers- tank and only have the tank connected at the "in" side, it won't feed water back down the pipe to the sprinklers if the purifiers run out of power and go empty. In this case the only way to use the tank as a backup water source is to connect the in to the out with a loop of pipe.

Ooooh, gotcha! I didn't register the "end of the line" part, sorry. Yeah yeah, so then you could do something like having a purifier on the stern, feeding a sprinkler on the middle of the raft and THEN a tank on the prow which served as a drinking reserve and doubled down as backup for the sprinkler without riddling everything with pipes... that's nice!

[Arndok]

... It's not just nice, it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awesome! That idea has improved both my water system's functionality and design a lot, so thank you very much, MartyS!!

What i had at this point was a purifier at the stern feeding two independent lines:
- One connected to a reserved tank which fed my two animal pen sprinklers
- The other one connected to my garden sprinkler and then to my tank at the prow, which was used basically as a faucet to refill my canteen. I didn't care about a reserve tank for the garden because it's not as urgent or demanding as the animal pen.

And just by putting the second line at the end of the first one and shorting the prow tank i get:
- A much neater pipe network
- Two reserve tanks for every sprinkler
- If i ever fall to my second reserve without noticing (which i will not), i can see that immediately from the prow, which is my most common navigation and boarding area.

Note that (once again) while we cannot control purifier priority, we can control tank priority by daisy chaining them. So i know that my prow tank will always drain last.

I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ LOVE my current setup! :)