Tanks won't mix liquids so you could make a setup using the circuit network that maintains a small amount of liquid in the tank so that the tank will not allow liquids other then the original one placed in it to enter.

I did end up setting up a server on a free tier AWS box and it is working quite well. I never have more than a few friends on at the same time and currently haven't built up a very large map, but so far performance is good. My verdict is that this definitely appears to be a workable option for someo...

I run a server with a few friends (2-3 rarely 4) on a free tier AWS box (1Gb ram) and have no performance issues.

If you're technical and/or feeling adventurous you can set up your own server on an AWS box . I've had my own already running for a few weeks now and I'm quite happy with it. The main upside is that you have complete control over whatever you want to do assuming the dedicated server allows it. The d...

The suggestions about getting an AWS box sound promising. I looked at the pricing and it sounds very doable if I can keep the server off when I'm not using it and I can convince a few friends to help fund my efforts. For those curious my i686 machine I mentioned earlier had 1G of RAM a 1.5 Ghz proce...

Well... my little adventure came to an end with an "invalid instruction" error. I guess it turns out trying to run Factorio on a 20-year-old i686 machine isn't supported. As for the command line documentation that can be found on the wiki https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?title=GameClient

Found the command-line-option documentation. I guess I'll try that tomorrow.

Well, after an afternoon of tweaking I was suddenly reminded that the machine I was trying to run the server on is a 32 bit machine (the headless builds are 64 bit only). I'll try to think of something to do but in the meantime feel free to post if you can answer the original question.

Recently I have introduced several of my friends to Factorio and they are enjoying it greatly. I also have several older computers laying around and have been playing with idea of setting up a dedicated headless sever. I have done similar things before and believe I have the technical knowledge to m...