Swap input on chemical factory

[Peter34]

To be honest, I'd like it to remain as is. A huge part of Factorio's gameplay is figuring out small puzzles; little cookie-cutter patterns that are efficient. The fixed inputs serves to set the conditions of the puzzle. What does removing that add to the game?

The problem is that when I'm starting a new game, and setting up Basic Oil, I can't remember whether Advanced Oil wants the Water to come in from bottom left or bottom right. That's mildly annoying. I can remember that Advanced Oil wants both Crude Oil and Water, so I can set the Refineries up with a multi-Pipe maze in preparation for that. But it'd be slightly more efficient, and a bit more convenient, if I could somehow get advance information - in-game - about whether Water will eventually want the left or the right inlet.

[Shadowcaster]

So I've noticed frequently that the oil lines in the game are very complex to setup with all the pipes running in different angles and adjacent pipes auto connecting and sharing various fluids prior to the electric pump and circuit phase. So I have decided to ask the community and potentially the devs if a way to switch around the input slots on chemical plants and refineries could be implemented. I am aware of mods that do this, but similar to landfill and mine-able rocks, I believe this should be another vanilla change.

[OdinYggd]

It'd make sense to me if I could mirror the input and output layout. Right now it is very difficult to get any kind of compactness around the oil refineries due to the piping layout necessary and the tendency of the pipes to stick together. In fact the only layout I know of to be even remotely effective for it is a triple bus layout: crude and water, a row of refineries, gas light and heavy oils, another row of refineries, and then another row of crude and water.

Which needless to say takes up a lot of space, and only expands practically in one direction. Its even harder to maintain any kind of sensibility in the chemical processing section when you try to do more than 2 refineries worth of flow, and it is perpetually unbalanced in production quantities until you can make pumps to use as flow regulators turning on and off cracking units for a stable regulated output.

[Rockstar04]

I make heavy use of GDIW for this exact reason.

[ChurchOrganist]

One of the reasons I use the Fluid Barrel mod....

IMO Fluid handling is due for a major overhaul.

I'm hoping the devs will do something in 0.14

[Zeblote]

Any fluid input should accept any of the required fluid resources, just like inserters can place any resource from any side.

[dragontamer5788]

By the time Oil Processing comes around, I generally start my major military push and capture huge swaths of land. Compactness isn't a major issue IMO at this point of the game.

Oil Refining isn't significantly more difficult, it just takes some time and thought to plan it out, plus some space for the underground pipes to work their way around.

[taiiat]

being able to reverse the orders (so still can't mix but which order doesn't matter - Light Oil would be fixed though since it's the middle) is practical, yes.

the random nature of the ground can definitely make for some very strange looking pipe minefields if you must put your Refinery and Et Cetera 'opposite' to the most practical orientation.

[ssilk]

1. We have a suggestions board, where such ideas are suggested and discussed. There is no reason to have suggestions in the General board.

2. There is no reason for a poll about this. That's not, how suggestions can work ever: Good Ideas don't need democracy.

3. I added this thread to an already existing list of suggestions around this topic: viewtopic.php?f=80&t=15472 Swap input for fluids / Automatic input selection for fluids

4. This thread will be moved to Suggestions Board with a link left to General.


After re-reading the poll I must say, that it reflects quite well the current discussion (either good informed or just luck?) and will give it a try.

[MeduSalem]

I actually think about taking it a step further by asking what to do about the refinery outputs... because sometimes it would be nice to swap them too.

[FredHp]

One of the reasons I use the Fluid Barrel mod....

IMO Fluid handling is due for a major overhaul.

I'm hoping the devs will do something in 0.14

Something like "Fluid Barrel mod" should be in stock. Specially with the new flamethrower turret.

[Radioactive Pretzels]

Bonus: if the input/output pipe flavors can be switched, it also means blueprint flipping (mirror imaging) is viable for fluid setups. Currently it's not since a mirror imaged blueprint puts the fluids on the wrong inputs since there is no other option.

[ssilk]

@MeduSalem: A switch of the input side includes in my eyes also a switch on the output-side. That's just logical, but not needed in vanilla.

This was also the main point in the previous discussion (Auto-detection vs. Switching of inputs/outputs): An auto-detection of the input fluid is not possible for the output side. My opinion was, that you can do some harm to your factory setup, if you auto-switch and just mixup pipes in a row (which can happen easily).


@Radioactive Pretzels: The auto-rotation of the input/output if you rotate it in a blueprint is in my eyes also a logical conclusion of this suggestion. But I'm not quite sure about all possible side-effects.

[FunMaker]

I think it should stay as it is. i know there are situations where it is annoying but sometimes the game is kind of a puzzle...
My solution for many problems that evolve from input-output order of fluids attached. Chemical Plants can be handled in that way too...
Maybe the module beacons are not as effective as they could be but the pipes are no problem

[ssilk]

As already said: I think it cannot stay as it is, cause it makes rotation/flipping of blueprints useless. Puzzle with pipes is hard enough, I see no game-value if you need to plug a pipe always left or always right; it makes no difference, if you rotate that. The complexity is placing the pipes from source to target and not placing the pipes from right source to left target.

[Tricorius]

Something like "Fluid Barrel mod" should be in stock. Specially with the new flamethrower turret.

You have *no* idea how many times I've wanted to plug flamethrower ammo packs into flamethrower turrets...

[British_Petroleum]

Please leave it as it is... Setting up fluids is really fun. It's a nice puzzle to solve as mentioned by others. Why not just allow the player to craft petroleum out of nothing? That would be really convenient, but you lose all the fun.

[wvlad]

Is this still not implemented?

[steinio]

https://mods.factorio.com/mods/DaCyclops/GDIW

[Oktokolo]

Another idea that would make fluid input and output handling a lot more flexible:
Let the player place 1-tile input/output "pumps" to feed or remove liquids to and from fluid processing machines - just like inserters for non-fluids.
For outputs of machines, that create multiple types of fluid (only the refinery in vanilla), it would be neccessary to also select a filter to not mix the outputs.

User-placed inputs and outputs of fluid-handling machines are also a step towards enabling generic blueprint mirroring.