Thank you for Fluid 2.0

[Kingdud]

I bought Space Age and I've finally gotten to Nuclear Power. My...disdain for the old fluid system is easily found, both in the mods I've made/used, and the forum posts I've made. On one hand, creative problem solving was a thing. On the other hand...what a PITA having to build over water and juggle all that landfill and...bleh.

But now, with Fluid 2.0, I've got a working 1.1 GW tilable reactor, with steam buffering, and I didn't have to do anything stupid. Moreover, it opens up absolutely bonkers ease of life features. Like, I prefer to play on maps with very little (but very large when they do happen) bodies of water. With Fluid 2.0, I can cover the entire perimeter of the lake with pumps congeal them down to a single pipeline, and supply my base with all its water needs from KM away if I so choose (and this scales better than having many water trains). I can have a single pipeline for flamethrower turrets and, as long as it stays full, I'm golden. I can build steam buffers into my reactor designs without needing pumps and with very simple control logic, allowing individual sections to turn on/off as demand needs.

This is glorious. Thank you. Thank you so much. Stuff, as you say 'just works'. My first impressions are glowing. Thank you!

[jamiechi1]

Yes. I like.

[Panzerknacker]

i can this, I can that, what does it matter. New fluid system imo is very boring and confusing at the same time, big step backwards if you ask me.

[TwoRibbons]

Agreed. I'm so grateful to have fluids basically just work, now.
The extent limit ruffled my feathers for a bit while setting up flamethrowers for a large base, but throwing pumps at it worked fine in the end.

[BlueTemplar]

Yeah, but with how OP flameturrets are, that might be a good thing ? (Also now requiring power for long walls.)

I can have a single pipeline for flamethrower turrets and, as long as it stays full, I'm golden.

I'm wondering what crazy-ass flameturret setups you built before 2.0 to need pumps ?!

Overall, it's not that fluids worked that badly (even back to 0.16) : you were unlikely to run into issues before the end of the game.
It's just that it probably wouldn't have been the case any more with Space Age I hear requiring much larger bases in the late game ?

(That 1.1GW reactor setup — is that something like 4x2 ? — especially a tileable one — being quite a bit past what was needed before SA.)

(Of course they were an issue for megabasers, not denying that.)

[MrSpreadsheet]

Yeah, but with how OP flameturrets are, that might be a good thing ? (Also now requiring power for long walls.)

A single solar panel and an accumulator can keep the pump running without interruptions, so the electricity requirement is kind of moot in terms of increasing complexity.

[BlueTemplar]

Good point, though there might be an awkward moment in the game where you don't have those yet.

(Which might matter on really hard settings / modpacks ? Solar panel is a relatively expensive tech... But then this is even more niche than megabases, so...)

[HadesSupreme]

Flame turrets feel a little unnecessary now for standard Deathworld Marathon with the removal of expensive mode. Granted you can always crank settings up as high as you want and set research multiplier to 100x if you want to make things as hard as possible. And previously even the smallest flow rather from a pipeline 1000 tiles long was enough to cover all your flame turret needs, so it is a bit of a nerf for them. But if you use either laser or gun turrets you probably have power nearby (for gun turrets, they need inserters to resupply), and if you're only using flame turrets you probably want bots to repair the walls, so pumps are more of just a small annoyance that you have to remember to place. A little PITA when you tile a blueprint too far without manually putting in your next pump.

For everything else the new fluid mechanics are certainly a big step up. My tileable nuclear setup is very convenient to manage.

[BlueTemplar]

You want static roboports eventually to repair/replace the walls. But you can do without for a long time, assuming the walls are outside of your pollution cloud.
Even in Space Age, you can use a tank remotely to fix walls where they start crumbling, though that's more clunky than doing it yourself (no potential train shuttle)... and does need enough radar range, which means power will be pretty close anyway.

Meanwhile both gun and laser need much more infrastructure and research (and in gun's case, resources for bullets) to become nearly as effective - laser and conbots aren't even available before blue science !