TL;DR
Add more challenge to fluids, but not changing the new fluid 2.0 system.What ?
As a process engineer I have done quite a few hydraulic calculation of flow through pipes of fluids. The pump in factorio visually represents a possitive displacement pump, more specific a plunger pump. The flowrate of possitive displacement pump will not change if you increase pipeline and therefore pump head pressure. As long as the pump has enough power (from the electic motor) and mechanical strenght, you can increase pipe length.To add a bit more challenge to the new fluid dynamics of factorio 2.0, I would suggest that the power a pump draws is depending on the total connected pipes. Irl this is a liniair function. If the pump doesn't have a minimum power draw, it won't matter if you use 1 pump of more for the same length of pipe. Adding a minimum power drain would only encourage to use as few pumps as possible. That why I would suggest to use a exponential relationship between pipe length and power draw.
If you would use 10kw * 1,03^pipelength, you would get the following results for power draw:
Additionally tanks, wagons, assembling machines, refineries etc, could all have a pipe length "representation". Each connected tank could be 10 "extra" pipe lengths for instance, maybe assembling machines/refineries/chemicalplants 20 pipe lengths and nuclear reactors 50.
Why ?
This will add more challenge to fluid dynamics, without being complicated. Pumps could even show how "much" total pipe length is connected too clearify to players.Results of this change:
- be efficient with pipe layout and get rewarded with less power draw.
- trains stay best long distance solution.
- still have high flowrate to large amount of assembling machines/refineries/chemical plants in late-/endgame if you provide enough power.
