How often should I put pumps for fluids if I want to put fluids on the main bus?

[finite geode]

Basically the title, I know this really depends on how much of each fluid you need, but is there a good rule of thumb to use for the pipes that have justification to go on the main bus? (Petroleum Gas, Lubricant, Water, Sulfuric Acid)

[manic oak]

If you haven't launch a rocket yet, you probably don't need pumps, you are not moving enough fluid around to need them.

maybe just for the water, if it is coming from far away

[finite geode]

Noted, I haven't yet in this playthrough, I'm still debating the idea of even putting them on bus in the first place

[manic oak]

Personnaly I like a fluid bus, it keeps things tidy

like an item bus, but even easier

[finite geode]

sulfuric acid seem useful considering you need it for batteries, and blue circuits, water is useful for a ton of stuff, but petroleum and lubricant I'm not sold on

[manic oak]

Usually I do

• water
• petro
• light
• heavy, but replace with lubricant down the line
• acid

And every craft on the oil setup is it's own little sub factory that I can expand independently, taking full advantage of the bus.

[finite geode]

Really? I wouldn't have thought to put light or heavy on the line due to them only having one main usage. Thats interesting

[manic oak]

because refining and the two cracking recipes are done by separate factory, I use the bus to move them around.
And you need heavy for lubricant, which is in turn needed for yellow science / robots and blue belts
And you need light for the rocket fuel, and a lot of it, so I put it on the bus to keep thing tidy

Also, to elaborate on your first question, you have two ways to know if you need pumps

• Reactivly, when you see consumers being starved for a fluid, while producers saturate the pipes in front of them. In this case add a pumps along the ways, until the problem resolve
• Ahead of time, if you calculate how much fluid per seconds you need, and the length of the pipeline. You can them referer to this page to know if the pipe is too long to move that much fluid, and place pumps to divide the long pipeline into shorter ones that each can handle the throughout

+faq Pipe Throughput

[opal perch]

Pipe Throughput

The fluid amount on a pipe is how much is currently in THAT 1x1 pipe segment (same as a tank), not the rate of flow. (Pumps show actual flow rate if you want to see it.)

1. https://factoriocheatsheet.com/#fluid-wagon-transfer
2. https://wiki.factorio.com/Fluid_system#Pipelines
3. https://forums.factorio.com/19851
   In short: Use underground pipes as much as possible, separate your flows into multiple pipelines (avoid cross-linking pipes), and space pumps evenly through the entire line to maintain pressure gradients.
   Remember: As long as there is even a small amount of fluid reaching the consumers, that amount is available to them every tick, meaning they can get 60x that value per second. A gradient is required for flow, but the output of a pipe can be nearly empty and still satisfy everything along it.