Oil Refinery RANT

[TehRaven]

I love this game and in fact I spend MANY hours playing it. BUT the biggest headache is the oil refinery. I think it should be able to continue producing each resource regardless of if heavy, light or petroleum is at full capacity. Honestly, with all of the automation available in the game THIS has to be a micromanagement issue???

[Tinyboss]

Every other producer in the game stops producing when the products back up. Why should the refinery be any different? Stuff has to go somewhere.

On a more helpful note, you could plan ahead with a few storage tanks for light and heavy oil. Advanced Oil Processing will make everything easier by letting you produce less light/heavy oil, and also convert each to petroleum gas, which is probably what you want more of.

[katyal]

If your light and heavy keep filling up get advanced oil processing and crack them. If petroleum is full, what's the problem? Seriously in every case I can think of its possible to design a layout with advanced oil processing where this never happens.

[Nova]

I would not like that, despite having myself problems with that. Wasting resources is something I can't stand at all.

Things wich help:

• Use tanks to store all three products.
• Use advanced petroleum processing to crack heavy into light oil and light oil into petroleum gas.
• As soon as you got advanced petroleum processing, use the advanced oil processing in the refineries.
• Process heavy and light oil into flame thrower fuel and solid fuel.

[bobingabout]

Bob's oil tips:

use heavy oil to make lubricant, use that to make electric engines, and maybe express belts.
use light oil to make fuel blocks, replace your coal fuel feed for fuel block feed.
use petrolium gas to make plastic and sulfur.
have storage tanks for all 6 fluids (Crude oil, heavy oil, light oil, petroleum gas, lubricant and sulfuric acid), and build them to excess (I usually build a 7x7 grid).
Build a heavy oil to light oil cracking plant, expend as needed.
build a light oil to gas cracking plant, expand as needed.



What the game needs is a fluid management system... A way to report how much of a fluid is in a (smart) pipe, or a (smart) storage tank, or even all fluid storage entities within the logistics network area etc.
Then, like the smart inserters to feed factories, a smart pipe, or smart valve can turn on/off the flow if more than a certain quantity exists, or even better: Flow if Heavy oil > Light oil. So far we can only use smart inserters to compare a resource to a number, it would be great if we could compare the quantity of one resource to the quantity of another.

[Align]

and build them to excess (I usually build a 7x7 grid).

Why?

[Koub]

Always good to have BIG spare to use as a buffer if you have a consumption peak. And apart from the metal to build sotrage tanks, they cost nothing.

[TehRaven]

I understand (and appreciate the tips) but building enormous fluid storage facilities is just irritating. I've struck a balance (somewhat with fluctuations) but like bobingabout mentioned we do need some sort of way to fine tune input/output of each fluid or at least a simplified way to "read" precise data on the consumption/production of each product to be able to strike a balance quickly and easily. Then again trial and error has taught me a lot about this game being on my fifth base now. Looking forward to future updates!

[User_Name]

If you are really want to get rid of heavy or light oil, dump it into steam engine.
Problem solved.

[ssilk]

https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... eam_engine

Second paragraph.

[Khyron]

I understand (and appreciate the tips) but building enormous fluid storage facilities is just irritating. I've struck a balance (somewhat with fluctuations) but like bobingabout mentioned we do need some sort of way to fine tune input/output of each fluid or at least a simplified way to "read" precise data on the consumption/production of each product to be able to strike a balance quickly and easily. Then again trial and error has taught me a lot about this game being on my fifth base now. Looking forward to future updates!

You really don't need to worry about precise consumption/production information for your factory. There's just a few things you need to consider and a bit of math to consider:

While you're stuck with Basic Oil processing, you can either convert the light and heavy oil to fuel or you can stockpile it. Those are your only options. That's probably why most people go for advanced oil pretty quick. I use one storage tank each for light and heavy oil and try to get advanced oil processing done before either is full. Note there's nothing stoping you from digging up a tank that is full of heavy or light oil and replacing it (it becomes an empty tank when it goes back to your inventory). Wasteful, but it's an alternative if you're frustrated with building heaps of tanks.

When you get advanced oil processing, you can convert heavy to light and light to gas, and gas is really the only thing you need. (You only need a tiny bit of heavy for lubricant, unless you go bonkers with blue belts.) So the main thing to understand at this point is the rate at which your refineries produce light oil, then build enough chemical plants to convert it to gas. It just becomes a matter of ratios:

Advanced oil processing:
+1.1 gas / second
+0.9 light oil / second
+0.2 heavy oil / second

Light oil cracking to petroleum gas:
3 light oil / 5 seconds * 1.25 productivity = - 0.75 light oil / second

So you need .9/.75 = 1.2 'light oil cracking to petroleum gas' chemical plants per refinery.

If you crack the heavy oil as well, one chemical plant can accommodate:
[4/5*1.25 = 1 heavy oil / second] / 0.2 heavy oil from each refinery = 5 refineries
.. and will add a maximum of 3/5*1.25 = 0.75 light oil per second, or more importantly: 0.15 light oil per refinery!
... which brings you up to 1.2 + .15 to nearly 1.35 chemical plant per refinery.