pumps and pipes

[HurkWurk]

currently pipes have a volume of 10 units a second. water pumps provide this without any power input (due to their early game use)

what i would propose is that all fluids without powered pumps or tanks stay at 10units per second, but that when you have storage tanks or pumps that you can force that to 50 units per second.

this would require a few redesigns, namely, you would have to be able to adjust the inputs on the tanks so that they are inputs (and the pressure of the tank doesnt stop fluid from entering)
currently tanks have 4 connections, 1 could be a dedicated input while the other 3 are dedicated outputs, using R on an already placed tank would change where the input is.

a full tank would provide 25 pressure to its outputs, bleeding down to 5 when the tank is empty.

pumps in game would provide 10 pressure each. each pump would need its own source of 10 pressure to pull from. or on a low use system, 5 pumps in line would eventually get the system up to 50 pressure, but that would drop as its used.

mostly i was trying to give a little more value to storage tank and pumps. pumps currently are only really used to direct the flow of tanks, or the occasional moving of a resource pool from one location to another.

[Deadly-Bagel]

Modders will tell you fluid mechanics start behaving strangely when you up the units per second. Hopefully a rewrite of the fluid system is planned but it's not too bad as it is now.

Storage tanks are okay where they are IMO, I usually only run with one tank per oil type with some buffer tanks for loading onto trains. I know many players prefer more storage but there should be an appropriate space requirement for that, not like space is a big premium in Factorio.

Pumps are quite useful for controlling flow and also for pipes over long distances, and can be used for certain complex setups where fluid motion starts working against you. Requiring them for simple setups would overly complicate the game IMO.

[JMark1]

Pipes have a volume of 10 units, but their maximum flow rate is actually 150 units per second (the equivalent of 5 small pumps in parallel).
But that flow rate decreases with the distance (mimicking flow resistance inside the pipe). You can keep it high by placing up to 5 pumps in parallel every X number of pipes, but for most people and most applications, it isn't required or it's prefered to run more pipes in parallel.

As it stands now, the fluids work in a way that feels realistic without trying to be overly complicated. If it needs a change is to fix the weird bugs and maybe be more UPS friendly, and not the opposite.

Also, pumps are already very valuable to me, they allow for very fine control over oil products by using circuit conditions and they make fine non-return valves too.
Storage tanks are just that, storage.. when is something that has "storage" in it's name ever been interesting? Well, it does allow for the circuit conditions i mentioned, so that is valuable enough for me

[HurkWurk]

i deal a bit with gravity fed water systems... storage tanks have far more than one use. the game doesnt really show that. giant water tanks on a hillside exist because its a free source of water pressure as well as a settling tank, as well as an aeration tank, etc.

the input being high up would allow the low outputs to have free pressure. every 10 feet is about 4psi. in game terms if the flow rate at a non-pumped source is 150 units per second, then that should be the flow rate of a storage tank at 10% capacity as well. every 4 psi is about twice the flow rate (assuming a 3 inch pipe, the bigger the pipe, the better this scales)

if we assume a standard 50 foot water tank that is full to 40 feet at any given moment, its output should be about 5 times as high pressure wise, than the basic game water pump.

Edit: or.... i can just do a feature request for a pressure tank i guess... as the poor mans early game pump.

[bobingabout]

Note: Offshore pump has a pressure of 1 unit of water per tick, that's 60 per second.

[HurkWurk]

so if the flow rate is actually 150, then it takes 2.5 offshore pumps to fill 1 pipe?
is that in the wiki some place?
nevermind, found the fluid dynamics thread.
https://wiki.factorio.com/Liquids/Pipe_ ... Throughput
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6066


revising this after getting a better understanding on the liquid system.

offshore pump is 60/s
small pump is 30/s
Distance - Speed
0 pipes - 240 fluid/sec
4 pipes - 150 fluid/sec
14 pipes - 120 fluid/sec
224 pipes - 90 fluid/sec
357 pipes - 60 fluid/sec
759 pipes - 30 fluid/sec
I could not find the fluid/sec of a storage tank. im assuming its 30.

I would propose the following change:
0-10 pipes 150/sec (shows as 10 in game pipe)
11-200 pipes 120/sec (shows as 8 in game)
201-500 pipes 90/sec (shows as 6 in game)
501+ pipes 60/sec (shows as 4 in game)

offshore (starter) pump: 4
small pump: 4
storage tank 5-0 (full to empty)

new items:
offshore electric pump: 2x2, 2 outputs, 10 flow rate split between them so 5 each with no resistance but up to 10 if one side is full
large pump: 2x2, 2 inputs 2 outputs, 10 flow rate split between them so 5 each with no resistance but up to 10 if one side is full

this would make it more obvious in game that pressure, rather than "fullness" is important, and add late game items to upgrade to.

[JMark1]

why do you assume it to be 30? that makes no sense. they have 4 connections, and you connect pipe on each, u should assume it to be the same as a pipe on each one or you can test it, its not that hard.

the visual indicator shows the quantity of fluid in that pipe. that's it.
the indicator changes u propose makes no sense, if the pipe is full (after some time of input bigger than the output) it shows you that the pipe is full and vice versa.