why is my oil and petroleum production decrease over time?

[JapaneseMom]

Ok, but, whatever. Just use storage tanks to your liking and explore what happens.

hahaha why are you mad? im just asking because for some items, like rails for example where I need it in bulk, I feel like its less hassle to store it on chest rather than wait for the assembling machine

[Yoyobuae]

but what if I need sulfur or plastic to craft something?

These are the uses for plastic:

• Advanced circuit = 5 seconds to craft
• Cannon shells/Explosive cannon shells = 8 seconds to craft
• Low Density Structure = 20 seconds to craft

Things which use sulfur:

• Chemical science pack = 24 seconds to craft
• Explosives = produced in Chem plant only
• Sulfuric acid = produced in Chem plant only

They all take a long time to craft or have to be crafted in a chem plant, which means that you will automate their production if you need them. When you automate production of some item the machine will produce just as much as it is needed to for consumption, plus some extra to fill the transport belts and input buffers in machines. Chests are unnecessary.

also why is people so anti with storage tank? how else am I going to store it without storage tank?

You don't store it in storage tanks.

Pipes already store a small amount of fluid. Also the machines that use fluid store a small amount on their input buffers. Most of the time that's all the buffer you'll ever need.

One case where you will want storage tanks is for the outputs of refineries. Refineries work a bit slow so it may make sense to have some petroleum gas ready to go when demand increases. And once you start using Advanced Oil Processing you will need to balance out the consumption of the oil products, which is easier to do when each product has one storage tank.

[Yoyobuae]

Ok, but, whatever. Just use storage tanks to your liking and explore what happens.

hahaha why are you mad? im just asking because for some items, like rails for example where I need it in bulk, I feel like its less hassle to store it on chest rather than wait for the assembling machine

That's one good example of storage chest use. Rails can be immediately used by yourself, so it makes sense to have some ready to pickup. Same applies with other base building items like inserters, belts, splitters, underground belts, pipes, assembly machines, miners, etc.

But some intermediate materials will normally not be directly used by yourself. You don't store plastic in chests, instead you store some advanced circuits. Advanced circuits are used in many recipes which you could find yourself crafting. You don't store sulfur in chests, instead you store some explosives. Explosives are used in several recipes you might find yourself crafting.

It's about working smart. You only buffer what you really need.

[TheRangerLOL]

Ok, but, whatever. Just use storage tanks to your liking and explore what happens.

hahaha why are you mad? im just asking because for some items, like rails for example where I need it in bulk, I feel like its less hassle to store it on chest rather than wait for the assembling machine

xD

Just do your thing imo. Your factory looks fun but it's not how I would do things either.

Instead of telling you how to do things, I want to know...where is all your sulfur going?

[jodokus31]

Ok, but, whatever. Just use storage tanks to your liking and explore what happens.

hahaha why are you mad? im just asking because for some items, like rails for example where I need it in bulk, I feel like its less hassle to store it on chest rather than wait for the assembling machine

No, I'm not mad I just wanted to encourage to experiment and don't get lost in theoretical discussions. Sometimes it's good to just observe it.

And like @Yoyobuae said: frequently used end products can of course be stored to a certain amount, if needed. Although, they also can cost very much. f.e. nuclear reactors. Rails or belts is a good example to have thousands stored. Also some intermediates like gears and circuits are nice to support handcrafting, if you don't have everything automated

[JapaneseMom]

You don't store it in storage tanks.

Pipes already store a small amount of fluid. Also the machines that use fluid store a small amount on their input buffers. Most of the time that's all the buffer you'll ever need.

One case where you will want storage tanks is for the outputs of refineries. Refineries work a bit slow so it may make sense to have some petroleum gas ready to go when demand increases. And once you start using Advanced Oil Processing you will need to balance out the consumption of the oil products, which is easier to do when each product has one storage tank.

how about transporting oil from far away places, like by train? should I store it to tank or just connect the pipe directly to the main pipe?

[JapaneseMom]

But some intermediate materials will normally not be directly used by yourself. You don't store plastic in chests, instead you store some advanced circuits. Advanced circuits are used in many recipes which you could find yourself crafting. You don't store sulfur in chests, instead you store some explosives. Explosives are used in several recipes you might find yourself crafting.

It's about working smart. You only buffer what you really need.

ahh yeah, now that you mention it, it does makes sense

[JapaneseMom]

Instead of telling you how to do things, I want to know...where is all your sulfur going?

I'm not sure myself. I keep on pumping oil, build chemical, try to build something, then ended up reloading my save before processing oil because I dont know what to do with it. planned to create solar base power plant but the process of creating of accumulator is really, really long I can even feel it. its annoyingly long

[astroshak]

You don't store it in storage tanks.

Pipes already store a small amount of fluid. Also the machines that use fluid store a small amount on their input buffers. Most of the time that's all the buffer you'll ever need.

One case where you will want storage tanks is for the outputs of refineries. Refineries work a bit slow so it may make sense to have some petroleum gas ready to go when demand increases. And once you start using Advanced Oil Processing you will need to balance out the consumption of the oil products, which is easier to do when each product has one storage tank.

how about transporting oil from far away places, like by train? should I store it to tank or just connect the pipe directly to the main pipe?

One Storage Tank can hold 25,000 units of fluid. One Tank Wagon can hold that same amount. It is often a good idea to collect Crude Oil in Storage Tanks lined up to pump right into the train when it arrives.

One Pump can transfer oil from a storage tank to a tank wagon in short order. How quickly does the storage tank refill? That depends on the output of the Pumpjacks. If their output is low, you may not even realize it, because your use of crude is low enough that the storage tanks refill by the time the train gets back for another load. If you are simply pumping straight from the pumpjacks to the train, if their output is low it may take a while for the train to fill up - time that your refineries may be using to run out of locally stored oil.

Pumpjacks->Storage Tanks (one per wagon)->train->Storage Tanks (one per wagon)->refineries.

Storage Tanks are also good for use after the refineries, especially when using Coal Liquifaction or Advanced Oil Processing, because you will likely want to use wire-controlled pumps to determine when you want Heavy Oil and Light Oil to go to their one specific use, or to cracking.

[DisRuptive1]

Your problem can be solved by putting pumps in between pipes and tanks. The game does unintuitive stuff when you add two pipes together that have different capacities. The game treats the storage tank as a pipe that can hold 25,000 units of liquid so by connecting it to a pipe which doesn't have a 25k capacity, you get throughput problems. Those problems were hidden because you started with a full storage tank.

[jodokus31]

Your problem can be solved by putting pumps in between pipes and tanks. The game does unintuitive stuff when you add two pipes together that have different capacities. The game treats the storage tank as a pipe that can hold 25,000 units of liquid so by connecting it to a pipe which doesn't have a 25k capacity, you get throughput problems. Those problems were hidden because you started with a full storage tank.

I have to disagree. The problem was always, that one refinery does not produce enough for one sulfur plant. The tanks on the output are not connected.
I guess, the left refinery filled the storage tank to a certain degree before the sulfur plant was connected. So the first couple of minutes, it ran from the buffered gas fullspeed and then production declined