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pipe/pump filters

Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2018 3:32 am
by LUF2K14
Hi!
im playing for a while and i wanted to get a way to like filter fluids from machines(example reverse factory mod) and i would like to see a piper/pump filter (i know that is hard becuase of the fuilds system) so if it could be possible ...

thanks in advance...

Re: pipe/pump filters

Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2018 8:34 pm
by Pebble
Hi LUF,

I've been playing a while too, and I've done quite a bit of IRL oil and gas work. How I'd like to see Factorio implement valves is a single valve which can be manually turned, or controlled by circuit network, as well as a "transmitter", implemented the same way hooking up a belt to circuit network is done.
Transmitters should hook up to a pipe, and look alot like an iconized version of these: http://www.eastsensor.com/wp-content/up ... itters.jpg

If the implementer wants these features to have a cost;
* realistically 1 green circuit, 1 steel plate for a transmitter
* 1 steel plate, 2 iron plates, and a green circuit for a valve
* Tech something like Fluid Control, Advanced Fluid Control or the one with advanced oil.

In industry, we call these "PTs", or "TTs" for temperature.

You should be able to read either pressure or temperature from this connection, and that should be sufficient for game mechanics.

From that pair of features (the valve and the transmitter) you can set up SR latches and control systems on fluids. It's also very much like reality. TBH, these are basic features that are far far far simpler than anything like dropping a "refinery" in real life.

To be clear, in reality, we do not have any way to measure what kind of fluid is in a pipe, and FTs (flow transmitters) are much less used, less reliable, and harder for game mechanics, and I think being able to do so is detrimental to gameplay along with having too many control mechanisms.

Re: pipe/pump filters

Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2018 8:42 am
by bobingabout
I once asked for an entity with 1 pipe input and 2 pipe outputs, with a filter. The filtered fluid coming out of the filter output, everything else the other output. Use case: using the same pipe for multiple fluids, such as unloading a train station.

They told me not to ask for stupid things, and just use the pump.

Re: pipe/pump filters

Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2018 11:44 am
by eradicator
bobingabout wrote:I once asked for an entity with 1 pipe input and 2 pipe outputs, with a filter. The filtered fluid coming out of the filter output, everything else the other output. Use case: using the same pipe for multiple fluids, such as unloading a train station.

They told me not to ask for stupid things, and just use the pump.
The underlying problem is rather that a single pipe can not transport multiple fluids. As there is no proper way to make a pipe actually "empty". Pipes tend to have 0.000001 fluid left inside which prevents any other fluid from entering in the first place. Which is probably realistic if you imagine pumping water through a pipe that just had raw oil in it a few seconds earlier :P.

Re: pipe/pump filters

Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2018 12:14 pm
by Asanda_Nima
eradicator wrote:
bobingabout wrote:I once asked for an entity with 1 pipe input and 2 pipe outputs, with a filter. The filtered fluid coming out of the filter output, everything else the other output. Use case: using the same pipe for multiple fluids, such as unloading a train station.

They told me not to ask for stupid things, and just use the pump.
The underlying problem is rather that a single pipe can not transport multiple fluids. As there is no proper way to make a pipe actually "empty". Pipes tend to have 0.000001 fluid left inside which prevents any other fluid from entering in the first place. Which is probably realistic if you imagine pumping water through a pipe that just had raw oil in it a few seconds earlier :P.

But would it not be possible to make the outgoing pipes work as a pump?

In this case the outgoing pipes would "suck" the incoming pipe dry in anycase.
And if it's the filtered liquid/gas it goes that way, all other the other way?
This way you would at least avoid the pipes being blocked by rest-liquid.

You just need to make sure that the rest of your systems is "clean" and homogeneous.

Re: pipe/pump filters

Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2018 12:28 pm
by mrvn
Asanda_Nima wrote:
eradicator wrote:
bobingabout wrote:I once asked for an entity with 1 pipe input and 2 pipe outputs, with a filter. The filtered fluid coming out of the filter output, everything else the other output. Use case: using the same pipe for multiple fluids, such as unloading a train station.

They told me not to ask for stupid things, and just use the pump.
The underlying problem is rather that a single pipe can not transport multiple fluids. As there is no proper way to make a pipe actually "empty". Pipes tend to have 0.000001 fluid left inside which prevents any other fluid from entering in the first place. Which is probably realistic if you imagine pumping water through a pipe that just had raw oil in it a few seconds earlier :P.

But would it not be possible to make the outgoing pipes work as a pump?

In this case the outgoing pipes would "suck" the incoming pipe dry in anycase.
And if it's the filtered liquid/gas it goes that way, all other the other way?
This way you would at least avoid the pipes being blocked by rest-liquid.

You just need to make sure that the rest of your systems is "clean" and homogeneous.
The problem is that the pump input side fills up with the fluid that comes in. Even if you set it to pump only water any oil in the pipe will flood the input side. And then when water comes in the multi purpose pipe the pump already has oil in it.

For multi purpose pipes to work a new filter pump is needed that only accepts one liquid.

Re: pipe/pump filters

Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2018 6:53 pm
by eradicator
mrvn wrote:For multi purpose pipes to work a new filter pump is needed that only accepts one liquid.
This is a feature already in game. There's just no GUI to set the filter. And even if there was it wouldn't solve the problem as per above.

@asada_nima: You can't make random fluid boxes "work as pumps", and if you could you would have directionality for pumpjacks again. It might be possible to have one side of a pumpjack be "input only" and one side "output only" but you would have no gui indication of which side is which because the arrows don't work correctly with that type of manipulation. And you wouldn't have easily connectable pumpjacks either because you'd need to care about direction again.

Re: pipe/pump filters

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2018 8:29 am
by L0771
I think this is what you asked

Cursed Programable Filters

Re: pipe/pump filters

Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2018 8:47 am
by bobingabout
L0771 wrote:I think this is what you asked

Cursed Programable Filters
new mod created 1 days ago. lovely


I've been playing Oxygen not included again. Both the fluid transport, and air transport systems have a filter like what I'm sugesting. Fluid goes in the pump's input fluid box, if Fluid A, go to output fluid box 1, else go to output fluid box 2.

eradicator wrote:The underlying problem is rather that a single pipe can not transport multiple fluids. As there is no proper way to make a pipe actually "empty". Pipes tend to have 0.000001 fluid left inside which prevents any other fluid from entering in the first place. Which is probably realistic if you imagine pumping water through a pipe that just had raw oil in it a few seconds earlier :P.
when you put a fluid (say, water) into a pipe that just had another fluid (say oil) in it a moment ago, the new fluid (water) will push the low quantity old fluid (oil) into the pump. With the current pumps in the game then ceases up because it contains the wrong fluid, and is turned off.

However, with a new filter pump with 2 outputs, the pump would pump this 0.000001 unit of oil into the appropriate output side and the water can then flow into the input box to come out of it's appropriate side (it could be opposite sides if you're trying to filter out oil/water, or the same side if you're trying to filter out something else)
Since they're fluid splitters, not filters, you could then chain them, like boilers, except instead of each output being steam, they'd each be a different filtered fluid.


I could probably actually mod a boiler to do this already, except due to the way boilers work, first, I'd need a unique boiler entity defining for every type of fluid you'd want to filter (I don't think you can change what it accepts or produces via script like you can with the pump), and on top of that, since the boiler is designed to heat a fluid, temperature would be an issue.


Which is why I repeat my earlier request for a new fluid splitter entity (I mean, we have belt splitter filters now, so why not?)