math-and-meta

[ashen girder]

I'm sure there's.. ways..

But yeah, what we do know for certain is they're storing the liquid contents, as m3, as float.

[prisma kraken]

short of disassembly or stepping through in a debugger

which isn't bad

float is adequate for the range 0-whatever that represents the volume of fluid in a pipe segment with max length of 50? meters

[ashen girder]

I.. mean.

Double precision floats are adequate for anything through e308. 😂

I'm actually not sure what the max volume is on a pipe. The minimum is 5.

[prisma kraken]

it would be better and faster if they stored the representation as integral milliliters or something

[ashen girder]

Which they don't.

[prisma kraken]

with pipe welding idk if there's a max

[ashen girder]

Best we can hope for is maybe they do math on Liters instead of m3.

[prisma kraken]

well, i mean, that's pretty much x/1000

[ashen girder]

Casts to int, too.

[prisma kraken]

i have no doubt that there's precision problems in it all

[cloud tree]

we are getting there :3

[hexed spruce]

1440 aluminium scrap pm complete, now time to save scum hard drives till i get pure ingot alt

[prisma kraken]

but as with all things involving fp math, where the problems actually lie is always very non-obvious

[ashen girder]

Yeep. The scale is also interesting.

I could see FP error accruing causing pipe networks to very slowly fill or empty.

Very slowly.

[prisma kraken]

i've observed that

[ashen girder]

Are you sure that's what you observed, though?

Pipes also have hidden volume.

So they're damned liars about what's actually in them.

[prisma kraken]

wasted a lot of time in the u5-u6 era looking at that stuff

[ashen girder]

Fair.

[prisma kraken]

the code has changed a bit since, but those things are still around

there's a reason i build pipes a certain way and follow some unwritten rules

i have a set of solutions that work and don't rely on voodoo

ofc, power stutter from the hoverpack just blows it all to crap

[ashen girder]

That's mostly just "don't recycle" and "don't rely on 600 throughput".

You do those two things, it's very easy to have reliable pipes.

[prisma kraken]

i do recycle, but pipes at 600/min need special care

[ashen girder]

If you do recycle, I'd bet money you've baked the voodoo into your unwritten rules.

It's sneaky voodoo.

[prisma kraken]

top feed only and only use mk1 pipes for it 😉

[ashen girder]

Those aren't unwritten, you just wrote them.

Bear in mind, things as simple as "how you connect pipes together, and in what order, and with what structures" can invoke the voodoo.

My working theory is that people that never have issues, build their pipe networks intuitively in a way that invokes the voodoo.

Also things like "top-feeding" are simple robustness measures. Shouldn't make a substantial difference for this conversation.

[prisma kraken]

i think what screws a lot of people is that there's some form of 'memory' that pipes have when you start reconfiguring them - same thing you build may work differently if you had other things on a pipe network and changed it

what those hidden variables are is beyond me

[ashen girder]

Not as much as you'd think, actually.

[prisma kraken]

but if you have experience, you're building it once in a manner that works and not doing any monkeying around with it after you initially flood the pipes

i suspect that something of that happens with many problems

[cloud tree]

which out without signals it sais station unreachable?

i replaced the tracks

[wind spade]

it needs to come from right side to the station

[ashen girder]

Your station is backwards I think.

[wind spade]

the locomotive needs to dock into the station

[cloud tree]

isnt that correct?

[ashen girder]

Take a top down picture.

[cloud tree]

ur correct the station was flipped

thanks!!!!!!!!!

i feel so dumdum

[wind spade]

@somber venture see #math-and-meta message for alt recipe choices

[strange rain]

Anyone that can tell me if this is a bug or something im not aware of. im working Rocket Fuel, and as you can see my buffer is full with 2400 in it, but it only takes out 468 / 600 ? and i try to put a valve on it becuase it is a gas so it dosent go back up, is it becuase a gas as rocket fuel can move with 600 pr min ? or is there something im not aware of? im asking becuase i have set up around 1700 fuel generator for it, but the pipes only go with 468, and becuase of that, not all of them are getting the amount i have calculeted :/ Hope it makes sens what i mean 😄

[ashen girder]

Buffers don't work well with gasses.

[wind spade]

don't use buffers and valves

[strange rain]

hmm, so my problem is a im using trains to move all of this rocket fuel..

[ashen girder]

If you want to do that, package it.

[strange rain]

ROger

[ashen girder]

Buffer it with containers, then unpackage it into your generators.

[strange rain]

Shees that alot of packing to do xD

[ashen girder]

The long and short is that pipes can only move at full flow when they're full. Because they don't care about gravity, buffers can't produce full output until they're full.

It works fine with liquids because they can cover the output pipe easily.

[strange rain]

i see, i will try to remove the buffers and let it work from the train station only, and if that doesent work. i think i might need to look into packing all the gas :p

thanks alot for the help

[ashen girder]

That's going to be problematic too: train stations lock outputs while loading/unloading, that'll cause interruptions to your flow.

If you want to move gasses, your best bet's always going to be to package it.

Also why, generally, it's recommended to not try to haul gasses anywhere.

[brisk smelt]

gas package loop isnt that bad

[ashen girder]

I mean, I'm anti trying to haul fuel for my power generation anyway.

[quick prism]

Are the heavy oil residue + diluted fuel alt recipes more power effective than just making fuel?

[ashen girder]

Very much so, yes.

[quick prism]

Thank you

[wind spade]

if you just count the machine power draw, no

if you count the power generated from fuel as well, then yes

[quick prism]

I'm just interested in the total difference

[wind spade]

then yes, it makes much more power per oil

but if your goal was "make some fuel as cheaply (power-wise) as possible", then base recipe is the way to go

[robust vessel]

this is what we're aiming for 👀

[turbid plinth]

Dont really know guys, the fluid dynamics is what might kill the game for me..... 4 OC refineries, directly linked to 5 OC blenders, the last 2 blenders in the pipe do not get enough HOR , this is just poor mechanics...

[robust vessel]

@vapid gorge threw a single sloop in each rocket fuel blender to really overproduce and I think it's working? Starting to stabilize now that I did that and found (hopefully) the last production bottleneck

[cloud tree]

yay 100% ugly 20 hmf p min, was quite the journey

[robust vessel]

yeah pipe manifolds perform not nearly as well as belt manifolds especially when you get close to the max limit of the pipe

[turbid plinth]

the fun of the game for me is to get numbers in the lines of 4000 plastic and 4000 rubber in a single spot

and the system constantly crashes because of those pipe mechanics...

[robust vessel]

There are definitely limits to what is possible in the game 🙂

[turbid plinth]

I am sorry but the limit being fuild code mechanics is not something to enjoy,

[robust vessel]

No, that is not an artificial limit put in to increase player choice, it's a technical limit that the devs can't really do anything about

[ashen girder]

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhh.

[scenic cloud]

what's it with factory games and incomprehensible, janky, fluid mechanics.

[ashen girder]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COJV4Ubn1Ac

@robust vessel 👆 This was from May. It's definitely a choice they've made, and not really a technical limitation.

[robust vessel]

@vapid gorge looking really good now, about 20 min in

[ebon girder]

Anyone know how far a path signal reserves a path? Cause I cannot figure out if it's to the next block signal, to the next path signal or to the destination.

[worn heath]

Assuming constant elevation can a pipe be extended perpetually and continue to fill?

[royal yacht]

until the next signal

[ashen girder]

It reserves a path through to a block signal, including any intervening path signals.

[royal yacht]

block or path or EOL

[ebon girder]

And if that block signal is red, it does not move, right?

[ashen girder]

Correct.

[royal yacht]

yes

[ashen girder]

It can't reserve it until its exit block is available.

[ebon girder]

Thanks

So P->P->P->B(red)->station means it stops at the first or last P signal?

[ashen girder]

First.

[royal yacht]

can they not wait at paths then?

[ebon girder]

Cool, thx

[ashen girder]

I think, sort of?

If two trains are going to the same exit, then only one can reserve a path to that exit at a time.

[royal yacht]

I might have to go experiment

[ashen girder]

If two trains are going to two different blocks, I think they can both reserve paths, and whoever's second will go until it hits the first train's path, and once it clears that path, it'll continue to its exit.

[royal yacht]

I was under the assumption that paths and blocks worked almost identically just that paths would allow a second train through if it would not collide with another train in the process

[ashen girder]

No, paths behave substantially differently than blocks.

[royal yacht]

ok

good to know then

[ashen girder]

When you have a path-block, as in a section of rail that has path signals entering it and block signals exiting it, any train that wants to cross it has to reserve a path successfully to do so.

And it can only reserve a path if it can exit.

[royal yacht]

true

ok that makes sense I think yeah

[ashen girder]

I'm not sure whether it can reserve intersection paths or not. I think wiki says it can't, and my memory says it can. 😂

[royal yacht]

might have to experiment a bit more about where they stop and when they reserve the path but I think I get what you're saying

[ashen girder]

So it's worth experimenting with that.

They definitely reserve the full path before they enter the first path signal.

[brisk smelt]

make the block before the path longer because it is considered a red signal and trains will brake 250m in adfance

[royal yacht]

if you have a 4 way intersection I know they can reserve multiple paths through it provided the paths have enough space

[ashen girder]

Actually as soon as they enter the block before the path signal.

[royal yacht]

so opposite corners or opposite straights

[ashen girder]

Yeah, it's all about exit blocks.

[robust vessel]

Yeah that's kind of what I meant. It's not like the devs are intentionally adding some weird thing that makes pipes not go to their full capacity, it's that the way fluid dynamics are implemented means that some ways people use pipes they end up with unexpected behavior that the devs can't really just "fix" by itself

[ashen girder]

This nuance trips people up, too: if you put a block signal too close to a path signal, trains will nearly stop before reserving a path.

[royal yacht]

oh ok

[ashen girder]

You can strategically prioritize paths by varying the lengths of the entry blocks that way.

[royal yacht]

I was thinking "would that make it best to do block then immediate path then junction then exit block" but between the two of you that is basically the worst thing you can do

[ashen girder]

Yep.

For example: I'll have a train coming down hill that I don't want to slow down, I'll make sure the whole hill is in a block signal, so it can reserve at the very top of the hill.

[vapid gorge]

how much are you over producing though? try putting it back to normal prod and see if it still balances out or if it starts starving

[ashen girder]

This means trains can't cross until it clears the intersection, but it also means it won't slow down.

[swift robin]

is there some kind of trick to getting an aluminum factory that recycles the water back into alumina machines to run at 100%? i got it going at around 90% but there is always a slight fluid backup for some reason

[brisk smelt]

are you recycling into input or into dedicated wastewater system

[turbid plinth]

I wasnt saying that this is a bug, i am just saying if this stays this way the enjoyment of the game for me will be gone and every time i want to load the game i think of the fluid stuff and makes me not want to load it

[royal yacht]

yeah you have some machines only use recycled and some machines only use fresh

the only recycled machines can use their own output in the case of it being uranium and sulphuric acid

[swift robin]

input

[brisk smelt]

burn the wastewater in a seperate system

[royal yacht]

the devs have said they will consider changing fluid dynamics to remove sloshing but that's not just an overnight change

[brisk smelt]

or just yeet it into a nuclear reactor lol

[swift robin]

wow we still havent evolved past this?

[turbid plinth]

instead of it being "Satisfactory" with perfect numbers and design, it is more of a chose trying to fix a feature that is not givign you correct output

[brisk smelt]

recycling into input is finnicky,

you need some pump bs, not worth the effort

[royal yacht]

the best choices are to sink it, use it in a generator or use it in a different system yep

[robust vessel]

Well with the sloops it doesn't matter, but by quite a bit lol (+25% over target)

[royal yacht]

there are methods to keep it all in one system but it's finnicky and breaks easily as you've discovered

[swift robin]

i never got it working in the first place lol

[royal yacht]

exactly

lemme grab a thing rq

https://satisfactory.wiki.gg/images/3/39/Pipeline_Manual.pdf

[swift robin]

yeah i have that

[royal yacht]

that is a really good guide to fluids in general, one of the pages descibes the VIP system which is what you want to keep it in one system

[swift robin]

i am using a VIP junction with the recycled on the lower pipe

[robust vessel]

Can't you just underfeed the system by however much water it produces?

[swift robin]

was thinking maybe adding flow equalizers to the fluid loops would help?

[royal yacht]

it's super unstable still

[robust vessel]

Like if you get 30/min wastewater just cut the required water by that much 🤔 I never check my aluminum system for efficiency tho. 100% efficiency when fluid is involved is a fool's errand

[royal yacht]

like you would think that's it but nope fluids

[royal yacht]

I would just go with solution 2 on page 14

[vapid gorge]

oh sure, but for the sake of science, it woudl be good to know if properly flooding a system would keep it stable w/o having to always over produce

[vapid gorge]

wdym mean 'evolve past'? It's the most robust system.

by far the most reliable, and basically unbreakable

[spare jolt]

how can you just "burn the wastewater"? like, packaging and sinking it, or putting into a reactor?

[turbid plinth]

best is if you can get a limestone node nearby and make a wet concrete recipie and sink that

[royal yacht]

that or making a seperate production line only running on it

[swift robin]

or burn it with some petcoke in a coal gen

[vapid gorge]

it's effectively teh same thing as using waste water in a seperate bauxite process, except needing extra materials taht you usually sink instead to use

[spare jolt]

that's a choice as well, but I usually don't consider people running coal gens after they get fuel and nuclear

[swift robin]

people usually limit their options through weird preconceptions, yes

[vapid gorge]

and people for some reason don't avoid the issue entirely by simply reusing it xD

[ebon girder]

Speaking of sinking, when you use a sushi-belt, do you always need sinks to kill overflow so stuff doesnt get stuck?

[vapid gorge]

at least at the very start you generally do

once it stabalises you don't. Though if you're particularly paranoid you might want to leave a single over flow for yoru whole factory in case accidental item dupes on the belt eventually causes an issue

though it's unclear if that happens anymore

[ebon girder]

but you always gotta have perfect ratios, right?

or huuuge buffers

[wind spade]

if you build sushi correctly, overflow isn't required

[spare jolt]

not necessarily always

ah, the sushi belt

[ebon girder]

I mean, otherwise it will clog up

[spare jolt]

yea for sushi you may need it

[ebon girder]

I wish we had a flow valve for belts

Then I would do more sushi

[robust vessel]

For sure, will do a bit more testing later

[vapid gorge]

perfect ratios are easy though with clocking,

not buffers

[wind spade]

machines are literally flow valves

[vapid gorge]

you have perfect flow control of what goes on belts

[ebon girder]

I know, but we got the valve, which is also unnecessary, right through that arguement.

[wind spade]

valve is literally unnecessary tho

[ebon girder]

Just some consistency here would be nice

[vapid gorge]

the fluid valve is also pointless because the consuming machines control the flow

a bette argument would be to get rid of the fluid valve

[ebon girder]

That's what I said. "which is also unnecessary"

[robust vessel]

If the fluid problems persist I kind of hope they add something like a pressurization tank. Something sized about the size of a regular fluid buffer or maybe a bit smaller. Give it 10mw of power and it will act like a packager/unpackager and give you a "pure" source of fluid

Makes sense that just stringing a bunch of pipes in spaghetti wouldn't work, but there should be options to make it work if players are smart about it

[turbid plinth]

I dont really know.... it is just something that 600 in does not equal 600 out for me is just not Satisfactory

[wind spade]

or you built it wrong 🙂

[ashen girder]

Not that the game bothers even remotely suggesting what you did wrong or anything.

[turbid plinth]

I am building it 7.5 Refineries into 6 blenders, single pipe horizontaly, if that is wrong....

[wind spade]

looped the pipe? fed from above?

[turbid plinth]

one level not a santimeeter going up or down

4 meters from eachother, not a finle pump, valve, floor hole nothing

[wind spade]

looped the pipe?

[turbid plinth]

looping the pipe???????

that is a thing now?

[wind spade]

always was

[ashen girder]

See, the trick when trying to use 600 in a pipe, is to not use 600 in a pipe by instead splitting it in two and using 300 in two pipes.

[wind spade]

fluid bounces back when it reaches dead end, which reduces flow

looping the pipe makes sure that there's no "wrong way" for the fluid to go

[turbid plinth]

ok let see if it solves it, I am willing to try anything now

[wind spade]

a way to build pipes so that it's almost guaranteed to work:

• don't use buffers or valves
• loop the pipe manifold
• feed from above, not from below
• keep system as simple as possible
• prefill pipes before running the system
• don't use floor holes
• only use pumps if going up

[ashen girder]

They fixed the floor hole bug though. 😦

[turbid plinth]

yep, I think they did fix it

[wind spade]

is kinda old message that I quoted... tho I've seen some people still saying floor holes are bugged, idk if that's true or not

[ashen girder]

I haven't seen anyone saying that because they actually tested it and saw a bug.

I've only seen people repeating that because we like sacrificing goats around here.

[livid turret]

I use floor holes all the time, never an issue but I do prefill and balance the input on the network. Manifold with liquids is finicky

[wind spade]

manifold is the only way to do liquids. You can't balance them

[livid turret]

Sure you can, think on the 360 water issue with Mark I pipes

The looping is a sort of balance too

[wind spade]

by "balancing" I mean "building junctions with assumptions that fluids split equally between two exits (and that they only ever flow in one direction)"

[turbid plinth]

how to loop the Oil extractor?

[wind spade]

looping applies when doing pipe manifolds

[turbid plinth]

I do need Valves thou, are those still a problem?

[wind spade]

what do you need them for?

[turbid plinth]

to fix usage

[wind spade]

not sure what that means?

[turbid plinth]

i will try to find a way around it

[gray hornet]

Hey guys, pretty new to the game. How would i get these 6 smelters to split 100 ingots to their respective constructors and the remaining 80 to the others? Thanks!

[wind spade]

make two groups of smelters, one making 100, one making 80

[livid turret]

Well, liquids in Satisfactory are not a real simulations, sure we have flow and throughtput but here liquids flow in all directions at all time so you can certainly balance a liquid manifold.

If you feed 8 coal generator with Mark I pipes and you connect the all the water on 1 long pipe, 2 things will happen, 1 generator will stop working and another will work half the time and 1 water extractor will not be online full time because of pipe limit while adding and additional pipe looping the system will allow everything to work at 100%

[wind spade]

that's not balancing... that's just normal manifold

[turbid plinth]

merge 3 on one belt and 2 on another, then split the last one 3 ways, 2 of them going and merging to the 2 smelters and one way going to the 3 smelters

[hollow hazel]

anyone know if there is any reason to invest in trains instead just rushing to drones? i used to go full train and make a interconnected network since batterys are complex to make but now that drones can use regular fuel should i go for drones?

[ebon girder]

I always have to remind myself that it is not a simulation when I see "flow rate max but pipe is half empty" 😄

[spare jolt]

drones only have 9 slots

while one freight car has 32

[analog bluff]

if you merge the outputs of the smelters to 1 belt you can make this to split it up correctly

the thing i drew on the left is supposed to be an 80, fyi

[cloud tree]

lesgo were making space parts with box factories xd

[karmic raptor]

wait i started thinking during my stall face im having so one slipliter one in and one out shuld be 1 to 1 and if im thinking right a slipliter with two outs shuld be half the in going? on both belts? right

[ashen girder]

Easier to ride a train than a drone.

Also trains can move liquids without packaging it. Drones can't.

[worn heath]

Is there a way to see the current head lift on a pipe? Ideally, net of gravity.

[ashen girder]

Look at the pump providing the head lift.

If there isn't one: it's 10m from whatever is providing the head lift.

[cloud tree]

anyone making spaceparts like me?

[spare jolt]

my brother 🫂

[worn heath]

so this pipe that this pump is on is experiencing 3.7m of head lift?

[ashen girder]

It's providing 3.7m of head lift right now. Which is to say that the liquid reaches 3.7 meter high. It can provide up to 50m. So you can run your pipes 46.3m higher before you would need another pump.

Assuming your pipes are full right now.

That number is the actual head lift being provided right now.

[plucky lance]

That gives me anxiety

[cloud tree]

im loving it

this is the furthest ive got into the game, the first phase 4 parts are rolling out!

[plucky lance]

Yeah. I need to suck it up and put together my factory for them. Last night got my drone running for bringing Copper to the aluminum factory. Just startin to feel overwhelmed with it lately.

Builds are gettin so big.

[oblique hollow]

more BPs required

[worn heath]

Ok. I downgraded the pump to Mk2 and set the pipe height to 22m, obviously it stopped working.

I then applied another pump and it was able to deliver to 22m. I know I can't stack them right next to eachother to get 40m of head lift, but how is the headlift calculated per pump in a series? Is the lower pump just calculating head lift to the next pump?

[ashen girder]

Pumps just straight up reset head lift.

No calculating happens.

[oblique hollow]

in series: from one pump to the next

[steel mirage]

Should I make even amounts of plastic and rubber???

[ashen girder]

They just ignore all previous pumps and set their own head lift.

[oblique hollow]

pump head lift does not add, it just ENDS at the next pump

[ashen girder]

Do you need even amounts of plastic and rubber?

[steel mirage]

I dunno was just wondering

[ashen girder]

Is the lower pump just calculating head lift to the next pump?
So yes, is the answer to this.

[turbid plinth]

Greeny I was about to give up on the game after 1200 hours, thanks for the looping tip, it saved everything

[oblique hollow]

Pumps dont really calculate head lift as much as they just measure it

"im here, how high does the pipe/fluid go before there is another pump or exit?"

[ashen girder]

They arguably just produce it, if you ask me. 😛

[worn heath]

That makes sense

[oblique hollow]

They produce and then measure

[ashen girder]

Tomato potato.

[worn heath]

Yes I make extra and leave it on the floor to make a bounce house.

[oblique hollow]

they always apply a fixed amount

namely the thing they are set to: 20 m or 50 m

the applied amount never changes. if a pipe is flat on the ground the pump still applies 20m
its just that it only gets to measure 1.3 m

if pumps constantly had to self regulate and increase the headlift they apply that would be a nightmare

so CSS went with the simple answer: just always apply the max and then just measure how high the fluid actually goes

the fact that head lift stacks with gravity is not some pump magic, its just the pipe code taking care of it
and some clever height measuring

[ashen girder]

Is it really clever, though? 👀

[worn heath]

The manufacturer said 20m, but if I paid for it I'm going to get 110% out of this pump!

[karmic raptor]

Now how will my brain make this work 1080 oil to fuel

[ashen girder]

Fair warning: if it goes above its designed limit it reduces flow.

[worn heath]

The fact this game can take gravity into account when calculating total head lift is something I find very interesting.

[ashen girder]

Wait until you learn it takes viscosity into account too.

[worn heath]

I don't plan to actually push it that far. I'm just testing out fluid dynamics to make sure I have a better understanding before I start my massive build out.

[cloud tree]

i put signs just for you

[edgy leaf]

managed to finish the Fourth slice and realized I actually needs less than 6.4k rubber per minute from recycling

that's way too little

I only need 5124.3 from recycling :(

[worn heath]

Would y'all build a factory floor to the near exact height of the machine on the lower floor or would you go for some even floor count like 32m in the case of the refinery?

[snow maple]

i usually go for the next wall height (4 walls for Sm, Fo, Co, As; 5 walls for Bl, Ma; 8 walls for Re)

[torpid gorge]

I just make all my floors 10 high cuz i like jumping on things :]

[worn heath]

seems like the right play, but I kinda like the added benefit of "capping" the smoke stack so I release less polution into the enviroment.

[ashen girder]

I coulda swore it used to do that. 😕

At least on foundries or smelters or something.

[spare jolt]

hey all. is there a way to make a train stay on the station until there's at least something in the platform to load into the car?

I tried "One load/unload has been completed" and "wait for 0 seconds", but this just makes the train to leave as soon as it stops on the station

i need it kinda like factorio's "Until X amount of Y item"

[edgy leaf]

time it manually /foreheadtap/

or set it to wait until full/empty

but manual timing is superior ino

imo

[spare jolt]

what do you mean time it manually? like, precisely denote how much it should wait?

[edgy leaf]

yes.

[spare jolt]

this wouldn't work because it's a packaged N2 train, and if I do that - it would have to wait until all gas has been (un)packaged

[spare jolt]

ok I'll try to think something about it, thanks

[edgy leaf]

then why not do that?

[spare jolt]

because after the entire gas is (un)packaged, the packager would have to wait until train leaves, gets a batch of empty tanks and comes back, and until then it would do nothing and won't supply/deliver any gas

[edgy leaf]

ISC?

[spare jolt]

what is ISC?

[cedar ivy]

Whats wrong with just having a full buffer of canisters/packaged nitro, to (un)package on either side?

[edgy leaf]

Industrial storage container

[spare jolt]

basically nothing wrong, I just firstly decided i wanna go with exactly 32 stacks of tanks to fill the entire car

but it appears I'll have to make more so I wouldn't have to deal with the current problem

[cedar ivy]

Well.. not having saturated buffers is a big issue for getting throughput through a train

[spare jolt]

🤔

[cedar ivy]

because freight platforms lock up, and belts in/out will stop. If you dont have a buffer to collect your continuous feed, that backs up and pauses production. (or starves production on delivery side)

(assuming you dont already have an entire full 2 belts of production that won't fit into a platform anyways)

[spare jolt]

i know about that, I just wanted to try to make a continuous loop similar to factorio

but oh well

[cedar ivy]

i dont know what you mean by continuous loop

If you leave trains on "complete a single load", they'll just pick up whatever's there and then drop off whatever they have, running continuously.

[worn heath]

how far on the map can I build?

[spare jolt]

• the train takes as many empty tanks as available
• goes to N2 station
• unloads the empty tanks and takes as many filled tanks as available
• goes back
• unloads the full tanks and stays on the station if there's no empty tanks, otherwise repeats the cycle
  in my case the train doesn't stay on the station and continues to go here and there even if the cars are empty

[worn heath]

ok I found out lol

[spare jolt]

theoretically - as far as you can. practically - until the border starts to kill you

[worn heath]

Ya I found that, border be aggresive.

I kinda like building out here though, no geography to navigate or monsters to kill

[cedar ivy]

you're trying to make one train do 2 different things? "take only what's available" vs "wait for a set amount" and satisf. trains are dumb and cant be told to use logic like that

[spare jolt]

:(

[edgy leaf]

@ashen girder i just figured out how to solve fluids

its very simple really

just put a ||packager infront and behind every machine||

[ember fractal]

Don't max out Mk2 pipes?

[edgy leaf]

not maxing out mk2 pipes doesnt help

i got the same issues i got pushing 400 through a mk2 pipe that i also get pushing 600 through a mk2 pipe

literally no difference ime.

[edgy leaf]

return the game to the glorious update 3 days

im sure u could wrap it all up in a neat blueprint

[ember fractal]

Anytime I do a big build that involves fluids, I wanna quit the game after

[edgy leaf]

small builds are even worse because the problems dont acumulate and its harder to spot them imo

[ember fractal]

Always run into issues, even when sticking to best pipe practices

Yah, but big builds require a bigger time commitment in total

[edgy leaf]

"best pipe practices" is just mythology, sacrificing goats to the pipe gods. the real way to fix pipes is pumps.

[elder elbow]

I'm starting to setup a massive refinery factory and man am i dreading all the pipe work.

[ember fractal]

And it's just demotivating when stuff doesn't work after spending hundreds of hours on it

[edgy leaf]

find me one problem thats not VIP or math based and ill fix it with pumps. id bet u 5$ on that

literally every pipe problem ive encountered so far (thats not VXP or math based) could be fixed with pumps

or well, pipes not connecting at all but thats a different issue too

[ember fractal]

I have builds that worked without pumps in update 7, now requiring pumps to properly work in 1.0

[worn heath]

I'm setting up 18 fuel refineries. This requires 1080 crude oil a minute. Without doing the crazy math to figure out when I can merge in the second pipe, can I just connect all the refineries together and feed one 600/min tube at the start and one 600/min tube at the end?

[ember fractal]

Yes

[worn heath]

is there a different recommend method that I'm not foreseeing?

[ember fractal]

Make sure the whole pipe is level throughout

No elevation changes

[worn heath]

I intend to do that, but may not be perfect. This only becomes an issue if I'm near max head lift yeah?

[spare jolt]

Sometimes I miss the times when fluids were items tbh

[edgy leaf]

i wouldnt mind the wonky rules of pipes if they just told us what those rules are!

[ember fractal]

Fluids prefer lower elevation, so if you have parts that are lower, they will fill first and prefer to be filled

[spare jolt]

Or you can, you know, fix or simplify those rules so we won't need master's degree to understand them

[edgy leaf]

but i WANT, complexity, i crave it. i want to have to write programs to simulate stuff to optimally build my factories.

i just dont want to have to play detective to figure out what those rules are.

[worn heath]

I build on foundation so I'm not forseeing this be a huge issue. Regardless, if the pipes are saturated and there's enough throughput when does lower pipes become an issue?

I guess if I had one machine way lower that took all the flow rate?

[edgy leaf]

okay, how does that explain the fact that u can make a VIP junction on a flat surface just with junctions?

[worn heath]

I see both points. They want people to discover and experiment. If you give them all the rules there's less to figure out.

How do I pre-fill a machine without it producing?

[edgy leaf]

but literally noone knows the rules. theres people here that wrote simulations for the games belt system to figure out how manifold filling works, calculators to calculate the optimal recipe chains to use and maps that map literally the entire game

but noone knows why hte fluid doesnt go up.

after years. people are resorting to prying open the game and trying to look at the code to figure it out and still nooe truly understands fluids

its not just that its hard to figure out by yourself, noone knows it.

[worn heath]

maybe the devs don't fully understand either!

LGTM!

[edgy leaf]

thats what im assuming

i mean, they obviously know the base rules of the system, but that doesnt mean they fully understand the deeper implications of it. which is understandable and totally okay. jsut tell us the base rules so we can figure it out ourselves

[ashen girder]

Pretty sure there's one guy that understands it, at CSS. 😂

[edgy leaf]

theres variables for viscosity in the game. what is viscosity???

[edgy leaf]

who?

[spare jolt]

maybe that one janitor

[edgy leaf]

probably !

like, just because u write a system doesnt know u can accurately predict how it will act. its not that simple. thats my guess at least

[spare jolt]

After all, janitors work with liquids in one way or another

[wind spade]

equal to 1 for all fluids

[spare jolt]

Then what's the point of it wtf

[wind spade]

it was a thing in earlier updates

instead of removing it from all code and places, setting it to 1 effectively removes it with much less work

[ashen girder]

Gustav, apparently. 😂 https://youtu.be/COJV4Ubn1Ac?t=106

[ashen girder]

How do you know this?

[wind spade]

Docs.json have included that variable for several updates before the variable was removed from Docs (as it's pointless now)

[ashen girder]

Yeah, I was wondering if it was specified in there. Good to know, thanks.

[wind spade]

so technically it's possible they may have changed it again, but I don't see why would they do it (and there's not really any difference in fluid behavior between different fluids anyway)

not counting liquid vs gas

[edgy leaf]

i watched that video before and...

im not a fan of it

[ashen girder]

I know you aren't, but he still mentioned G2. 😛

[edgy leaf]

whos g2?

[ashen girder]

Gustav.

[edgy leaf]

i see. we need to talk to gustav

(the urge to ping a random person named gustav in this server is very strong)

[ashen girder]

😂 If he's orange, I'd say it's both the correct person and something you should absolutely not ever, in any universe, do.

If he's white, well, he's an innocent bystander. Best not throw goats at him.

You can and should throw goats at Snutt and Mikael though.

[edgy leaf]

yes, none of them are orange thats why itd be funny.

[ashen girder]

Snutt promised us another video in that video.

[edgy leaf]

i see...

[ashen girder]

I don't think that other video ever came into existence.

[edgy leaf]

whens the dev stream again?

[ashen girder]

Tuesday.

[edgy leaf]

i see. im going to try to bully them into having a conversation with mcgalleon or something like that

[ashen girder]

I'd settle with bringing Gustav and ELI5ing the fluid system on a video or stream. 😂

[edgy leaf]

idk, im worried they'd just go "ah yes, theres the waterhammers. also, dont forget headlift! fluids cant go infinitely high. you silly goobers. thats it. ive explained the fluid system. good bye"

[ashen girder]

Yeah, that's fair.

[edgy leaf]

trying to find a pic of a hammer made out of water to post and be like "who are these waterhammers and why are they in my pipes" but i cant find one and i dont have my ai image generation stuff set up, so just imagine iposted that and it was really funny

honestly i love how they depict waterhammer in these images. the liquid just goes crazy

[ashen girder]

I love this video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoLmVFAFjn4

He straight up broke his pressure gauge by accident.

[edgy leaf]

yea i thought mabye i missed something about waterhammers but after this video im even more confident that they shouldnt result in what we see in satis

[ember fractal]

You think 150 crystal oscs is enough for a casual endgame experience?

[edgy leaf]

yes.

[ashen girder]

Yeah, the water hammer thing is specifically only talking about what happens when liquid tries to backflow into a junction and disrupts full volume flow.

It has nothing to do with the other failure modes, as far as I'm aware.

[oblique hollow]

its only for flow rate, yes
(in SF)

[ashen girder]

Yeah, IRL it likes to break shit and makes lots of scary noises in old buildings.

[edgy leaf]

yea but with this setup here, wheres the water hammering?

and why is it fixed if i add a valve

[ashen girder]

Beats me. I don't think water hammer explains all sub-optimal flows. Just the most common ones.

[edgy leaf]

pumps shouldnt fix waterhammer, but for some reason every piping issue can be resolved with a pump (besides pipes that arent connected, math issues or VXP situations)

find me one situation like that that cant be fixed by a pump and ill give you 0.01$ (i wont)

[ember fractal]

That's low confidence

[edgy leaf]

not low confidence, laziness.

[ember fractal]

A machine outputs 600 fluid and feeds a long straight manifold of machines each taking let's say 30 of the fluid.

The last few machines get starved eventually. And the output machine is not emptying well.

Where would you put the pump to fix this?

[edgy leaf]

between the machine that outputs 600 fluid and the 20 machines that take 30 fluid each

i would guess 100 meters of headlift would be enough.

(assuming bottomfeeding, if ur sidefeeding then way less should suffice, if u even need any)

[ashen girder]

We don't know if it's top or bottom feeding, yeah. 😂

[ember fractal]

I've tried this and it doesn't fix it. You need to loop the end of the manifold to fix it.

[edgy leaf]

i doubt that

[ember fractal]

It's all one level straight line

Side feeding

[ashen girder]

See, this is where the water hammering explanation involves itself.

[edgy leaf]

ur really making me prove u wrong... brb

[ember fractal]

No mods tho

[edgy leaf]

(i hope im proven wrong)

[edgy leaf]

no mods !

can i use two machines to create 600? water extractors only go to 300

[oblique hollow]

loop on the start is usually the best bet

aka just a bypass from the first junction down to the fourth or fifth. or to the middle of the manifold

[edgy leaf]

im loopphobic, both in the homophobia sense of the word phobia and the arachnophobia sense of the word phobia. as in, i am deeply afraid of them but i also hate them

[oblique hollow]

then put a valve on the bypass, then its not a loop but a split that merges again

like with belts

[ember fractal]

Take a rocket fuel blender OC to 200% and sloop it, it will output 600 rocket fuel. Now try feeding all of that rocket fuel to a long straight manifold of fuel gens.

A pump at the start will not prevent the last fuel gens from starving.

[oblique hollow]

because its a gas

[ashen girder]

Gasses don't have water hammer.

[oblique hollow]

you cannot use pumps on gas

[edgy leaf]

in satisfacotry they should have too as they dont compress either i think

[oblique hollow]

it ignores them

[ember fractal]

Ok, nvm, not rocket fuel, let's say regular fuel

[edgy leaf]

why not water?

[ember fractal]

Ok, water

[oblique hollow]

i have a split-less manifold for water i could show

[ember fractal]

Does it reliably support 600 input?

[oblique hollow]

i believe so

gotta check again, last time i checked it did

[edgy leaf]

my test setup has 16 machines and bottomfeeds them successfully at 600/min, but just for you i added 4 more machines and did sidefeeding instead (apparently thats harder now)

[ember fractal]

Oh, I have a very simple example to try.
6 blenders doing diluted fuel, single line manifold, and then feeding into single line manifold of 30 fuel gens. Everything side fed at the same foundation level as the machine.
Using only pipes and junctions.

I can guarantee you the last fuel gens in the chain will get starved.

[edgy leaf]

building an entire diluted fuel plant is not simple

here is my new test setup, does that fulfill all ur demands?

[unborn ermine]

Oh did you see the screenshots I pinged ya with last night?#design-and-architecture message

[edgy leaf]

if u send me something like that ill make it work with pipes. i dont mind getting saves in dms

[ember fractal]

Aite I'll cook something up tonight

[edgy leaf]

yea i did. im too lazy to do that so ill just place them manually i think

[edgy leaf]

is my test setup correct?

[unborn ermine]

Yeah its iffy, but like the one workaround for BP madness

[ember fractal]

Ehhh... I see pipe elevation changes. Also water extractors sit at a different level than the machines

[unborn ermine]

At least with that design I coppied, could delete the template parts for placing the extractor.

[edgy leaf]

well, that should make it harder, right?

[ember fractal]

I'm talking about a baseline test that exposes flaws with Mk2 pipe at 600

[unborn ermine]

I use two extractors to place a vertical pipe for my coal plant, the point between the machines.

[edgy leaf]

i said i can fix everything just by adding pumps and u said i couldnt fix that by adding pumps.

or did i misunderstand what u meant?

[edgy leaf]

here.

this setup here seems to be running flawlessly with 600 water/min. i didnt even add a pump.

oh nvm, the last one isnt being fed enough

[ashen girder]

Panic!

[edgy leaf]

strange that this happens even when sidefeeding

[ashen girder]

Try top feeding it instead.

It might be the same problem just smaller.

[edgy leaf]

nono, i said i can fix everything with pumps. i believe that. time to do my magic trick

[ashen girder]

Okay, fine. 😛

[edgy leaf]

oh nvm, i remembered i didnt flood hte new ones

[ashen girder]

Rude.

[edgy leaf]

it probably just didnt warm up yet

[ember fractal]

Here....
Pretend I have 6 blenders doing diluted fuel, and 30 fuel gens all down that line. You cannot fix this with a pump.

[ashen girder]

Them's fightin' words around here.

[edgy leaf]

yes, u can. just add a pump.

or six.

[ashen girder]

Or 31.

[ember fractal]

You can prefill the system, but eventually, the last few gens will starve.
I tried adding a single pump on the pipe between the last blender and the first fuel gen.

The only thing that helped me in such a scenario was looping the last fuel gen to the first one.

[ashen girder]

I bet looping the first fuel gen to the second fuel gen would work. 😂

[ember fractal]

Also, the first blender tends to have trouble emptying as well.....
So looping the first blender to the last blender also helps.

[edgy leaf]

send me the save and ill fix it with pumps.

[unborn ermine]

My old save had that problem

[edgy leaf]

or just look at my setup, i have 36 refineries and 8 blenders without a single loop.

[ember fractal]

hmmmm

[ashen girder]

Out of curiosity, is your framerate stable @ember fractal?

[ember fractal]

Yes, 90 fps

[ashen girder]

Just checking.

[edgy leaf]

oof turning 20 machines on by hand is annoying

[unborn ermine]

Mine ends up being much lower, ya know, running a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti from 2012

[edgy leaf]

very curious, sidefeeding actually doesnt make it work. im getting horrible flow

[ember fractal]

My theory is that fluids require some leeway to flow at either a higher or lower rate than needed, and the pipes provide the buffer.
So let's say you have a mk2 pipe feeding a factory consuming 400/m. You'll see that pipe's flow vary between like 200 and 600 or something.

However, if your factory requires 600 all the time, that's the max already for the pipe, so there's no margin for error.
It can flow slower, but not faster, therefore unable to make up for any inconsistencies, whatever those may be....

[ashen girder]

👆

[edgy leaf]

yeai thought sidefeeding was ez mode and made everything jsut work without pumps

[ember fractal]

I ALWAYS side feed LOL

maybe that's the cause of all my pipe issues

[ashen girder]

Top feeding is better.

[edgy leaf]

no, bottomfeeding is harder dw.

maybe topfeeding is the true easymode

[ashen girder]

It is, you're basically using the pipe to extend the input buffer of the machines.

[edgy leaf]

last one dropped down to 16

the fourth to last is at 50 tho

now dan what would u say if i added pumps and they made it work flawlessly?

[ember fractal]

Then I will go back and try it again in my designs

[ashen girder]

I like that you said it wouldn't work and you didn't actually try it. 👀

[ember fractal]

But from all the pumps attempts I tried, it didn't fully fix it

[edgy leaf]

first two machines idling. ill add pumps, not even flood it again. just pumps. and see what happens

[ember fractal]

I did try it many times lol

[ashen girder]

Ah. With how many pumps though?

[ember fractal]

Single pump between the fluid production, and the fluid consumption factories

[ashen girder]

So you just weren't ambitious enough.

[ember fractal]

Maybe...

[ashen girder]

👆

[ember fractal]

But logically, if adding one pump doesn't work, why would adding more work?

[ashen girder]

It's Complicated ™️.

[ember fractal]

Thanks, helps a lot/

[edgy leaf]

yes, thats my point

[ashen girder]

I'm not a philosopher. I don't know the why.

[edgy leaf]

the setup i posted has 8 meters of height differenece between the water extractors and the machines

the headlift of the water extractors should be enough, right?

[ember fractal]

You would think, yah

[edgy leaf]

so any issues in flow shouldnt come from headlift

[ember fractal]

You're essentially bottom feeding?

[ashen girder]

Don't forget: junctions eat head lift.

[edgy leaf]

no it was real bottomfeeding

anyway, with just the 10m of headlift from the 2 water extractors the water extractors were at 42 and 41% efficiency

then i added a mk1 pump. i changed nothing else, just a mk1 pump. after that they were at 71 and 74%

i added the pump at the height of the water extractors, so there were 20 meters of headlift instead of 10

then i replaced the mk1 pump with a mk2 pump

the efficiencies went to 97 and 89%

50 meters of headlift instead of 20, to lift fluid up 8 meters

[oblique hollow]

while it is untrustworthy, this does seem to run fine

[edgy leaf]

yknow what i did then? i added 370 meters of headlift. efficiencies went to 100%, everywhere

[oblique hollow]

the large buffer is there to monior flow rate interruptions

mk 2 pumps on input and output

[ashen girder]

Buffer reeeeee

[prisma kraken]

i always run my pipes 2m above the inputs and have very few problems

[ashen girder]

That's top feeding.

[ember fractal]

Yes, I do this a lot, especially on machines that have solid inputs or outputs.

[edgy leaf]

@ember fractal after adding 20 pumps, one for each machine, this baby runs at 100% efficiency

[ember fractal]

Yah, I'm not adding 20 pumps to make a factory work lol

[edgy leaf]

just by adding pumps i made this thing run at 600 water per minute constantly, with 20 machines. nothing else. no looping, no buffers, nothing

[prisma kraken]

i mostly do it just to keep the pipes off the ground for walkability

[edgy leaf]

i went overkill, 2 would porbably be enough

[ember fractal]

HMm ok

[edgy leaf]

one at the beginning and one in the middle of the eating machines should work i think

depends on the length. more machines == more pumps. why? i dont know.

[prisma kraken]

you either have to raise them up or drop them down to get them out of the way, and i'd rather not have a floorhole for every machine

[proud totem]

This has also been my theory. I wonder if pumps are able to "smooth" out the variable flow rate somehow and prevent those drops below 600 from occurring/being as drastic. Would also align with 0laura's reports of one pump increasing the efficiency an amount, but not up to 100%, and another pump increasing it again, but still not up to 100%. We only get 100% with 370m of HL

[edgy leaf]

i did some research on the effects of headlift on bottomfeeding, i didnt think they'd apply to sidefeeding too but maybe they do:

[ember fractal]

The longer the manifold, the more trouble it has keeping flow all the way to the end.

[edgy leaf]

but the 370 meters ofh eadlift was by going up, there were no pumps between machines.

[prisma kraken]

also, breaking stuff into smaller modules and using mk1's is something i favor

[edgy leaf]

i used this abomination to get 370 meters of headlift:

[proud totem]

Right, I wonder if it is the headlift provided by the pumps that smooths it out. That same headlift is supplied by the 370m tower

This is all just my speculation though

[ember fractal]

Perphaps the pressure in the pipe drops as the manifold gets longer and longer and machines have already consumed some of the water.

[edgy leaf]

i know ur gonna say it made it work because the big pipe acts as a buffer, but if i placqe a pump at the end of it on the bototm (thus resetting the headlift) it stops working again.

so, adding pumps can also make it worse

[ember fractal]

So maybe it's the headlift that fixes things, not pumps per se

[proud totem]

Right, it is 100% the HL that made it work

(In theory)

[edgy leaf]

yep. if i have issues with flow now i just slap on needless pumps, even on horizontal sections.

[ashen girder]

Still think it's not Head Lift making it work. 👀

[ember fractal]

100% in theory we speculate that perhaps most probably with extreme confidence we can conclude that head lift fixes all pipe problems

[proud totem]

100% in theory is a bit oxymoronic (deliberately so) 😅

[prisma kraken]

very easy to keep things sized right

[magic island]

the fact that you can get it with non-pump-based headlift seems to indicate that headlift itself helps

still sticking to my "headlift is weighted as a variable when the game calculates which direction to send fluids from junctions" theory

[prisma kraken]

tbh, to me it seems like headlift affects the order in which pipes are processed sequentially

[proud totem]

Was just about to say something similar. It does make me wonder if HL is used for more than how high a fluid can go, but also "pressure" (I know some people believe there may even be some other hidden variable related to pressure we don't know about). My thinking is HL is still just the one variable, but is used for more than we think it is

[ember fractal]

But if everything is in a straight level line, wouldn't the headlift remain constant throughout, or at least remain at the value the output machine gives the fluid?

[oblique hollow]

btw, one thing i wanted to note about pumps:
they are technically a machine like refineries and such
thus, pumps always try to output at the maximum flow rate.
Unlike valves where it depends on how full the input is

so, in a way, they are pumps, they do try to boost flow

but they cant boost it if they dont get it

[prisma kraken]

it should

you don't possibly have 2 levels of stuff consuming on the pipe, do you?

[proud totem]

I wonder if maybe that is where the "smoothing" comes in from. Because in the 370m headlift example, pumps were still needed to get the water up, and that may have smoothed the flow rate in doing so

[prisma kraken]

something else i do for reasons of space is OC refineries and blenders to keep manifolds as short as possible

[magic island]

so the back end of a pump is basically a vacuum

it may not be actively programmed to create pressure, but since it greedily consumes any fluid that reaches it without passing it back, that ends up being an effect

[edgy leaf]

i wonder, do pumps have internal fluid buffers?

also, i sometimes see pumps active and reporting flow of around 200 m3/min even when no pipe is connected into them...

[proud totem]

Then having multiple pumps in a row stacks whatever smoothing effect they have to eventually fully smooth out the flow

[prisma kraken]

maybe there's a data structure in one of the game header files?

[proud totem]

Do we have access to the .h files? I wouldn't figure we did

[ashen girder]

We do.

[proud totem]

Oh neat

[ashen girder]

In the community resources.

[prisma kraken]

i think there's some out there, yeah

mod writers couldn't do stuff simply w/o that

[proud totem]

Oh yeah, I guess that makes sense

[oblique hollow]

the one thing that smoothed out flow for me in an output manifold was:

1. use mk 1 pipe until flow rate was greater than mk 1 speed
2. use mk 2 pump at the halfway point and at the final mk 2 output

consistent 600/min from what i can tell

but mind you this is packagers, where every sideline is mk 1

[ember fractal]

I wonder if putting a pump at every fluid producing output, before it goes into the manifold...

[edgy leaf]

unironically considering putting a packager infront and behind every one of my machines...

just go back to the days before pipes were a thing. return to monkey update 3

[prisma kraken]

i'm finding that the only place i don't have issue with mixed pipes is when i do this to split a 600 line in 2

[oblique hollow]

or.... you know.
just go with the simplest way and dont max out your pipes

that one always works well. stay well below the limit

[edgy leaf]

my pipes ARRENT maxed out, thats the thing.

[ember fractal]

If a machine is producing at 100% and is able to fully empty, then theoretically it should be able to feed a manifold of any length, right? Where else is the fluid gonna go hehe

[prisma kraken]

yeah, well miner on a pure node...

[edgy leaf]

im pushing 400 HOR through my pipes. and 400 fuel.

[ashen girder]

It can backup the producers so the fluid just isn't created.

[edgy leaf]

why does it sitll not work without stupid pumps

[ember fractal]

Try the same but with 600

[edgy leaf]

im easily pushing 600 oil through my pipes, with pumps.

[oblique hollow]

i know you probably dont wanna hear it but.... mk 1 hidden somewhere?

[edgy leaf]

pumps made it work tho

unless ur implying pumps can push 400 through a mk1 :p

each one of those sinks eats 800 plastic per minute. 6400 plastic from 2400 oil 🤤

and it works only due to pumps.

im basically rebuilding my old oil factory, just bigger and with more pumps. and this time it actually works (because of hte stupid pumps)

[oblique hollow]

youre a bottomfeeding lover tho so idk the game must just hate you

[edgy leaf]

it works with bottomfeeding tho !

thats the neat thing. dubious amounts of pumps just make it work.

[oblique hollow]

thats why it hates you

[edgy leaf]

ive also noticed that sometimes valves make things work that they shouldnt make work, for some reason

brown is sub 600 flow, green is 600 flow, pink is fluid sink and yellow is fluid spawner.

[prisma kraken]

its because they randomly remove the 'is bottom feeding for laura' bit that is set on the pipes 😛

[oblique hollow]

this system is not meant to be analyzed on paper with a pen the way you can with belts and imo thats not good for it

[edgy leaf]

placing a valve there shouldnt make it work, but it does

[oblique hollow]

valves could, in update 4 even, enforce priority on lines without pumps on them

just by existing on that line

[ashen girder]

If pipe stands can, I don't see why valves can't.

[edgy leaf]

pipe stands cant, i tried it :/

[ashen girder]

Oh, I thought it was.

[edgy leaf]

at least i couldnt get them to change anything.

[ashen girder]

Fine, if junctions can then. 😛

[edgy leaf]

only junctions still hold that power

[prisma kraken]

something else that i'm finding is that really short pipe segments caused by splicing pumps or valves on a line can do funny things

the game has a minimum buildable pipe length for a reason, i guess

[ashen girder]

It also has minimum volume, so those short pipe segments all hold 5 m3.

[oblique hollow]

question.... whats the shortest pipe in that setup

[dark lagoon]

The real answer is just never ever move fluids upwards, if you have to, nuh uh you dont

[edgy leaf]

uhh no clue, why?

[oblique hollow]

im not even moving anything up the pumps are just there for emotional support

[oblique hollow]

just go and find out, i must know

[edgy leaf]

in my test setup or in my oil factory?

[dark lagoon]

I have built all my plastic, oil fuel gens water and with 0 pumps after the first time they fucked up and literally haven't had a single pipe issue since

Fuck pumps

[ashen girder]

Problems solved!

[oblique hollow]

in ANY i wanna know the shortest pipes in a system that works and the shortest ones in a system that doesnt

[ashen girder]

Sacrifice MOAR GOATS!

[oblique hollow]

if you want: dont tell me their length but just their volume if thats easier to find out

[ember fractal]

Are you thinking like a machine consuming more than what the short segment feeding it can hold? So it ends up trying to suck extra from the main manifold?

[edgy leaf]

5m3 would be the shortest one i think.

[dark lagoon]

Idk I use literal .2 m long pipes or whatever the min distance Is always still 0 issue

[edgy leaf]

its totally straight so u can probalby calculate the length from it

i have lots of 5m3 big pipes in my setup.

[ashen girder]

5 is the min, so you can't calculate the length from it.

[dark lagoon]

Whatever sticking a junction basically into a output/input is

[oblique hollow]

mk 1s and mk 2s?

[dark lagoon]

I use only mk2s

I think they have 5min

[edgy leaf]

its in the setup htats feeding my oil refineries, all the pipes that can be mk1 are mk1 for those refs

i didnt do that anywhere else, i think its probably unnecessary but why chnage it now

[oblique hollow]

try to find any factory that doesnt function and try to remove mk 2s that are 5 m3 only

[ashen girder]

No. That's worse than junction magic.

[oblique hollow]

if its due to the manifold being too close to the machine: welp cant fix that without tearing it up but it would be a good move

[edgy leaf]

well this one does work and has 5m3 pipes

[oblique hollow]

i think i had the brain blast i needed

[edgy leaf]

this one here works too

[oblique hollow]

you know, fluid flow is usually just a number and it moves fluid through the pipe

all fine and well

but.
what is 600 and 300 m³/min in m³/sec?

because the game does all the math in that range

[ashen girder]

10 and 5?

[magic island]

Here is my unified theory about what's going on with pipes.

• All pipe behaviour boils down to the function that determines which pipe at a connection/junction will give fluid, and which will receive it.
• Differential: fuller pipes pass fluid to emptier ones. This is what results in sloshing, as the system spends a bunch of time evening itself out, rather than actually passing fluid onward to the destination.
• Gravity: Higher pipes pass fluid to lower ones. This is why bottom-feeding works poorly; fluid does not want to go up the branch pipe until it's absolutely finished sloshing around to fill the main pipe.
• Headlift Limit: Fluid cannot be sent above the cap from a pipe that is below it.
• Headlift vs Gravity: The further the pipes are below the headlift cap, the less weighting Gravity has (ie, go far enough below the cap, and high/low pipes eventually get equal priority).
• Vacuums: Machines and pipes consume fluid without passing it back; they are automatically treated as the "emptier" pipe as long as they are not completely full.

Thus, pumps help where they "shouldn't", because they:

• Counteract gravity by adding headlift
• Create vacuums that prioritize forward movement
• Impede sloshing

[oblique hollow]

yep

now, a little trivia about pipes

every pipe lies and is actually 40% bigger than what it says it is

in terms of volume

[edgy leaf]

makes sense, otherwise full pipes wouldnt flow

[oblique hollow]

so a 5 m³ pipe is actually 7 m³

[edgy leaf]

thats the overfill thing

[oblique hollow]

overfill is for sustaining flow at max value

[edgy leaf]

fluid decides where to move based on base fullness, but it can also fill overfullness, right?

at least htats how i plan to write it

[oblique hollow]

overfill is for max flow stability afaik

if you dip from overfill down to normal fill, you enter the zone of sub-600 or sub-300 flow

the overfill on a 5 m³ pipe is 2 m³

that is 200 milliseconds to empty

[edgy leaf]

so what you're saying is that shorter pipes make the system more volatile and less stable?

[oblique hollow]

on a pipe thats at least 7.5 m³, you get a total max volume of 10m³ if you include overfill

and the overfill portion is 3 m³

[edgy leaf]

(i think mcgalleon is going insane)

or he achieved enlightenment

[oblique hollow]

im just saying.... you cant really fit 1 second of flow into a pipe thats smaller than 10 m³ in total

[ashen girder]

I assume the update rate is at least 30 ups, which is more like 32ms/update.

[oblique hollow]

and you cant buy yourself enough time / stability on an overfill portion that is smaller than the "best safety" imo of 10 m3

[ashen girder]

There's no way they calculate flow at the second interval, it's way too jumpy.

[oblique hollow]

so a 25m³ pipe would have the best overfill portion for mk 2 pipes

as thats at least 10 m3

[edgy leaf]

but that shouldnt apply unless overflow is a thing, where flow can exceed 600

[oblique hollow]

oh, almost forgot to mention: the overfill portion isnt FULLY used for pressure.
it has a percentage only thats used for pressure
the rest is safety

[ember fractal]

Is the issue worse for machines that are overclocked and consume a large amount of fluid in one go? Maybe the segment feeding the pipe doesn't have enough volume to provide a full cycle of fluid.

[edgy leaf]

otherwise the only way to lose overfill buffer would be for the previous pipe to be below 600 flow.

and that could only happen when theres already an issue

[oblique hollow]

all im saying is

Its good to have a bucket that can hold at least 10 m³ when you get 10 m³ every second handed to you

[ashen girder]

But.. I don't get 10 m3 every second.. I get some small fraction of that every few dozen milliseconds. 😦

[edgy leaf]

ye

[ember fractal]

That actually make sense. Imagine 2 machine very close together, and they both take in 50 fluid, at the same time (synced cycle). The manifold might not have enough buffer capacity available at that point in time....

[ashen girder]

That's more or less why bottomfeeding is so hard.

[edgy leaf]

i disagree, its just as hard with constant consumption

[magic island]

buffers make sense. without a buffer, I figure the game would have to calculate all pipes sequentially from emptiest to fullest each tick. and performing that sort seems not efficient

[edgy leaf]

but again, 5 isnt a magic number. and all my systems have a 5 in them and they all work.

if that was true then none of my systems would work. but they do.

[oblique hollow]

5 is only magic in that its the minimum pipe volume

and its the default junction volume

imo junctions and pipes should be 10 m³ minimum

[edgy leaf]

i dont see how that would fix anything.

some of my systems that dont work had no pipes that small, all my systems that do work have pipes that small

[oblique hollow]

remember that fluid volume also affects how fast you accelerate towards max flow

[ember fractal]

It's the local buffer amount. It needs to be bigger to smooth out flow.

[oblique hollow]

a bigger volume for everything would also dampen jumpiness in flow

[ashen girder]

Also take longer to fill up. 👀

[edgy leaf]

again, i have seen 0 correlation between systemfunctionality and lowestpipesize

[ember fractal]

Same as how belt splitters and mergers have internal buffer that smooth out belt flow

[oblique hollow]

yes thats just pipe life for you
not good for long distance

[oblique hollow]

btw heres junction manifold nightmare test
Pop quizz: whats the flow on the very pipe at the top if 600/min are supposed to enter from the bottom

[proud totem]

Okay, so after a bit of poking around the header files to see how the pipe subsystem may work, here are my thoughts:

There is only content, flow and pressure. It seems that pressure is what we call head lift. Those are the "high level" values often used in debugging and simulation.

Fluid is simulated using fluid boxes that have volume and pressure. Those seem to be the only things that determine how fluid flows. Pressure is derived from three sources it seems:

1. It can be added by a machine such as a pump, or from gravity
2. It can be added by overfilling the fluid box. Fluid boxes can have their volume overfilled by a certain percentage (the header has 40%). This varies based on the fluid box. Some of this overfill can add to the pressure based on a global percentage. This is how we achieve normal flow by adding fluid to the system.
3. There is a global dampening factor that causes a loss of pressure applied to the fluid boxes.

Interestingly, when we have talked before about junctions removing HL from the system, I am starting to think it was more due to how fluid boxes dampen pressure. But we could really only observe this by using junctions, hence we believed it was due to junctions. This may also be why the dampening factor seemed to be in a range. In reality, it is not in a range, but since we could only view that factor at relatively wide steps, our measurements are inconsistent.

[edgy leaf]

what is that. thats satanic.

[oblique hollow]

its a ramp manifold

[edgy leaf]

also like the pespective is really trippy

uhhhh, 600? the pipe indicator seems to show full flow

[oblique hollow]

goes up 20m, mk 2 at the bottom

38 junctions

[edgy leaf]

oh nvm i misinterpreted the pipe indicator. yea idk, id expect horrible flow because similar way simpler setup have resulted in sub 600 for me.

here for example, the slushotron9000

[oblique hollow]

answer iss.... 0

[edgy leaf]

yea, doesnt surprise me

[worn heath]

Y'all should just do like me. I put all my fluids into 300 Industrial fluid buffers. I call it the water tower.

[oblique hollow]

thats not even 55m tall

guess what the pump reads

[edgy leaf]

a lot more

ive noticed that before. pumps get wonky like that in those situations. ive seen them display 2 meters or more on a flat plane

i just brushed it off but i think u just uncovered that its a bigger thing

[edgy leaf]

definitely above 55, right?

[oblique hollow]

no

[edgy leaf]

?

[edgy leaf]

ah. still more than it should

does it stay constant?

[oblique hollow]

no

its less than it should and it keeps jumpin

[edgy leaf]

wdym its less than it should?

[edgy leaf]

i thought it should be 20

[oblique hollow]

well on that manifold maybe

but not on that giant tower behind it

thats 53 tall

[edgy leaf]

ooh

so it doesnt see a continuous connection to the tower?

even tho its full?

[oblique hollow]

nope

[edgy leaf]

???

[oblique hollow]

im missing 6 m head lift

[oblique hollow]

yes to this, no in the sense "indeed, it does not see a continuous connection"

[blissful epoch]

can anyone show me a 6 to 6 load balancer?

[wind spade]

well... why do you need it? 🤔

[blissful epoch]

i want my 7200 alu scrap to flow properly

[wind spade]

just hook each belt to machines that need the amount that is on the belt

no reason to balance

[fringe seal]

hm

[fringe seal]

A B C D E F -> (AB) (CD) (EF) -> AB AB CD CD EF EF
then,
(AB CD EF) (AB CD EF) -> ABCDEF *6

so 3x 2:2 balancers followed by 2x 3:3 balancers lol

[fringe seal]

but yea no need to balance if the clock speeds are the same and they are fed the same amount

[blissful epoch]

3x 2:2 balancers followed by 2x 3:3 balancers lol
i can work with that

[hasty otter]

What is the best beginner setup for a turbofuel power plant?

[fringe seal]

there's a 3D example on the wiki

[blissful epoch]

those pics look quite convoluted tbh

[pulsar notch]

I want to say a normal oil node can run 12 fuel generators with 2 shards apiece, but I forget the amount of compacted coal needed

That's a normal node with 3 shards on the extractor

[fringe seal]

what Alts do you have?

[hasty otter]

Heavy oil residue

[fringe seal]

no packaged diluted fuel?

[fringe pawn]

IMO do diluted fuel and skip straight to rocket fuel. If you want to do turbo now though, diluted fuel will make it better anyway. Diluted fuel is one of the more powerful alts in the game.

[ashen girder]

The thing you're asking for is quite convoluted.

[mild remnant]

reggt

[fringe pawn]

Aluminum scrap is a weird place to be fussing over balance, as a manifold that should saturate very quickly if you just put an ISC at the end of each refinery while you're putting up the smelters/foundries.

By the time you figure out balancing it, if you had just done a manifold it would be saturated and producing ingots.

[remote ice]

i don't suppose the online map has a good way to figure out what machines i left all my sommersloops in?

[round forum]

Need help with math.

I'm unable to properly figure out how to sloop a constructor that makes 30 reanimated sam to produce an extra 25 reanimated SAM. Like how much do I overclock it?

[cinder crystal]

I'm curious, how do people determine how many factories to use in a manifold?

[thorn pike]

Under clock to 27.5 per min and sloop to make it 55 per min which would be the 30 + 25 needed

[fringe seal]

uhhh
depending on interpretation, do you want to use up all the inputs (impossible w/ 1 constructor) or do you want to underclock the miner? (what Ryan said)

[fringe seal]

whatever fits the best in my chosen footprint in my case

that and belt speed

[round forum]

Make it possible with one constructor please. I'm already using 2.5 constructors, and I'd like 1-2 perfectly math clocked to work at the ideal speed. The fewer machines I have to alter the math on the better.

[wind spade]

exactly as many as I need for next step

[fringe seal]

then what ryan said, 27.5 x2 = 30+25

[cinder crystal]

Hm. So for iron plates with a MK2 miner and T3 belts... actually, should I have one pure node be dedicated to all those iron plates?

[round forum]

The math on this is fuckin' weird, but I trust yall.

So I still have 12.5 constructors, but two of them are just underclocked+slooped?

[fringe seal]

think so

[wind spade]

you don't really need more than like 15-30 per minute plates

[thorn pike]

Yeah if you want it to be one machine at 27.5 slooped for the 55 but if you want 2 perfect math machines then it would be different

[fringe seal]

not sure if I parsed this sentence correctly

one constructor at (27.5/30) = 91.667% will make 55 reanimated sam per minute if slooped

[round forum]

That does help clear things up, thank you.

[peak forum]

how many drone ports would i need to transport 200ppm about 6km? thank you for your help I cannot find much info on the math for drones to belts

[cedar ivy]

the thing is drone ports will dynamically calculate their round trip time and it depends on distance and fuel type

[thorn pike]

Unrelated um it had a stroke

[cedar ivy]

if the distance is certain, try just building one and put in the fuel you'll use. I think a single port will handle 200/m easily but if not, you'll just have to add a second anyways?

[peak forum]

heard, thank you for the assistance. i appreciate it

[wind spade]

known bug due to float math imprecision, can safely ignore

[sonic sail]

Is a modular frame factory that makes 10 a minute decent?

for early stage 2 i mean

[wind spade]

definitely enough

[ebon crater]

I have a lil problem in my pipe setup. left is extractors, pulling 530 per min. there are 3 sets of these extractors, hence 3 pipes. the go through a mk2 pump, up a water "tower" and back down. then, that water gets split into two, where one side uses 320 water, and the other is combined with the other "overflow" from the other two pipes to make one last pipe of 320 for the fourth partition of buildings. each partition of buildings has its own loop, where the red box is how the pipes are set up, with refineries on the left and right side of the boxes, pulling from there, and the top and bottom connecting both sides. the yellow lines indicate the "overflow" from the three pipes going to the fourth segment of refineries. there are some elevation changes within this setup besides the water tower, but nothing that goes above the water tower, and some at the same level as the bottom of the water tower. the buildings are a few metres above the bottom of the water tower. I am running into issues with pipes showing 600 flow, some showing 0-10, and im unsure where to begin troubleshooting

[brisk smelt]

greeny your calculator is going a little haywire

[north mauve]

Best control rod recipe?

[amber umbra]

Cross posted in #satisfactory

[tiny leaf]

i have the rocket fuel recipe unlocked in the MAM but dont have nitric acid in particle enrichment can i still get the rocket fuel alt from hard drives?

[deft lichen]

it's not indicated here

looks like it only checks for blenders, possibly, otherwise you could unlock this as soon as you have rocket fuel unlocked in general

[north mauve]

YES!

[tiny leaf]

alright thats good to know

hopefully 8 more hard drives is enough

[north mauve]

I did this and had the same question, but then I was making RF before I could make nitric acid

[north mauve]

I save-scummed like a madman

[tiny leaf]

yeah i used like 7 hard drives didnt get it

went for another run now

well atleast my depot storage is maxed now too

[fringe pawn]

Interesting, I'm still toying with how I want to do nuclear, I might end up at 36 uranium rods using 1500 uranium, and 21 plutonium rods using 500 uranium to mix in fertile uranium. No instant cell, but yes to the plutonium fuel unit alt.

[radiant lance]

how many nuke plants is that

[fringe pawn]

180 uranium, 210 plutonium. But some amount will be allocated to drones.

[radiant lance]

good lord

i finally got supercomputers running yesterday so i can finally do nuclear but i absolutely don't know what sort of scale i want lmao

[prisma kraken]

pick a size between 300, 600, 900, 1200, 1500, 1800, and 2100 and use that much uranium, everything else rattles out from that

[fringe pawn]

I'm in a weird place of trying to figure out how to generate around 900GW of power, as someone who doesn't care about just storing waste. Maybe I should just store uranium waste?

[prisma kraken]

you're probably not going to get much better than 600gw from uranium alone unless you convert bauxite

[spare jolt]

btw I just noticed that the nitro rocket fuel can be unlocked in earlier milestone than the original recipe 💀

[fringe pawn]

I guess I need some sort of plutonium power either way, yeah. Maybe I'll burn 18 of the 21 plutonium rods so I have an equal number of uranium and plutonium reactors. That's 900GW of power, which should be plenty with strategic underclocking of particle accelerators and so forth, and still gobs of drones.

[spare jolt]

because you need just gas instead of acid which is unlocked in particle acceleration

[prisma kraken]

yeah, you can't really make it earlier though since you need the well pressurizers

oh, oops, i gotcha

[spare jolt]

yea but the well pressurizers can be unlocked earlier, together with cooling systems and fused frames

[fringe pawn]

The game has many similar scenarios IIRC.

[prisma kraken]

i'm still working off of turbofuel, lol

[spare jolt]

I really should've started building my rocket fuel factory around nitro instead of default 💀

[prisma kraken]

done with phase 5 and like never bothered even with rf, lol

[fringe pawn]

I think lots of refinery and foundry recipes are unlocked before you can build those?

[prisma kraken]

tbh, default is better when coupled with blended tf

[spare jolt]

yea, but pure/alloy recipes are unlocked before the respective building, while nitro can be unlocked after unlocking blender but before unlocking nitric acid

[fringe pawn]

I think I remember other stuff being gated awkwardly by that same milestone. I could just be remembering the same thing you're observing now though.

[tender knoll]

hi, what makes blended turbofuel more often preferred over diluted + the basic recipe?

[spare jolt]

so there's like shorter gap between unlocking the recipe and being able to utilize it

[fringe pawn]

All forms of turbofuel are good with diluted fuel.

[prisma kraken]

side-by-side, it isn't a simple comparison

[tender knoll]

I know, I am asking about the perceived preference

[fringe pawn]

Turbo blend is oil+sulfur, default is oil+coal+sulfur. Mostly it's personal preference based on that.

[prisma kraken]

nitro rf uses a lot more sulfur and coal whereas blended tf+default rf uses more oil and no coal for a fraction of the sulfur

blue crater is probably the place you wanna build it one way or another. you have 2100 sulfur right there, 1500 nitrogen, 2250 oil and 2400 coal all within belting distance (along with enough iron for the nitric acid plates), so you're build needs to fit within those parameters

[sonic surge]

If I have production numbers, with a parenthesis, does that mean that's the true number?

[prisma kraken]

you'll find that if you stay within those limits for short range logistics, you make more power off of default nitro because it is kinder on nitrogen

[quiet breach]

is it dumb to train in a bunch of resources as a mixed bag and just use a smart splitter to break it up? logic is to have it all easily coming in at one place?

[prisma kraken]

you can but you run into some horrible latency on delivery and need to set up a buffering system on your sorter output to stabilize that

on top of that, belt speed caps what you can import pretty quickly for things like quickwire, concrete, etc

[fringe pawn]

It's the buffering that you need to be sure is set right. Otherwise a backup of one item backs up the whole line.

[prisma kraken]

i've done it on small scale with trucks and tractors, and really you run into belt speeds limiting things pretty quickly

another thing you can do is set trains to only drop off specific items at train stops and do some pre-filtering

i've never put that strategy to the test, but keep thinking about it as an option

[fringe pawn]

If the cycle time on a building is an exact number of seconds, does the repeating decimal in a clockspeed not actually matter?

I've seen that be wonky on water extractors, so I might play with it on aluminum.

[quiet breach]

sounds good didnt even think of the buffering or belts, makes total sence, could dual belt it top and bottom but that sounds almost more difficult than just having each freight container / train freight item specific

[prisma kraken]

yeah, the belting of it all gets pretty tricky

[fringe pawn]

When I've done it, I set the smart splitter to [product], any undefined, and overflow. You can get by without the overflow setting if you're confident the stream will never back up because there's a sink somewhere down that line.

It's generally a lot less work to just make another truck/train stop though.

[quiet breach]

good point sounds way more of a hassle than just separating it via train or belting

[quiet breach]

Sorry had a few calls come in. Appreciate the wisdom gents

[prisma kraken]

don't overlook train's filtering ability on pickup/dropoff

[plucky tusk]

i was building in creative mode, but i got bored and automated powershards lol

[prisma kraken]

a loop like that is how i made the dmc's for mission complete

[plucky tusk]

yeah the converters are awesome

900 iron pm and 300 sam

everything is slooped

[prisma kraken]

my inputs are just coal for diamonds/tc's and then quartz for the shards

[plucky tusk]

uses like 40k mw

[whole dune]

im having an issue with liquids and was wondring if anyone had a fix. I have 2 groups of 77 fuel generators running. both are set up exactly the same. one runs fine and the other is struggling to run 4 of the gens. for the life of me i cant figure out whats going on. its not a headlift issue, as theyre everything is on the same level. anyone having similar issues?

[prisma kraken]

with some sloops the dark matter kicked off makes a ton of crystal

rule #2 of pipes is keep pipe manifolds small

[whole dune]

ah damn... little too late for that lol

[plucky tusk]

if you gotta long ass pipeline you might be able to use valves to prevent slosh

[thorn trellis]

time for another 2 rows

[prisma kraken]

try disconnecting the generators from power and let the pipes fill until the flow rate in them drops to zero before reconnecting the generators

[plucky tusk]

or you can use buffers and let them fill befor you start the generators

[whole dune]

alright, ill give both of those a try. thanks!

[worthy talon]

how do I stop satisfactory tool from making 22 computer byproduct

[thorn trellis]

gotta use more of the computers

or make less

[pulsar notch]

Define "small," please.

[spare jolt]

relax, I had this 🚬 #math-and-meta message

[worthy talon]

what the fuck, how, what is satis tools on

[spare jolt]

on mushrooms bacon agarics, I'd assume

[plucky tusk]

stais tools looks useful but i would just feel like someone else is playing the game for me

[spare jolt]

if you consider raw math a game, then yea, kinda

[plucky tusk]

yeah i know, im crazy

[worthy talon]

fair enough, I mostly use it for large factories that would burn out the last brain cell I have left and figuring out which recipe combos work best

[plucky tusk]

blender recipes are based

[brisk smelt]

is the ocean normally this green

i feel like smth's off

[tidal dock]

radiation?

[spiral wigeon]

which ones are worth taking

[sand epoch]

Not using maximize should be enough

[sand epoch]

All of them.

[fringe pawn]

Yep, I'm just gonna buy a second golden nut. Forget the rest of the statues. Nuts are way easier now, but I guess because it's an achievement it needs to be easy or else there will be an avalanche of complainers.

[spiral wigeon]

I wish I could take them all 😦

[fringe pawn]

It's hard to give you advice on alts without having any sense of what you're planning to do.

Pure aluminum is the only one of those I'd pick without a second thought.

[spare jolt]

Outside of pure aluminum, depends on what, where and how much are you going to produce

[fringe pawn]

WIthout knowing what you don't have, there's no way to estimate the value of a rescan, either, but I'd be hunting for diluted fuel if I didn't have it, for instance.

[spare jolt]

I usually don't question "is it worth it".
I question "Why it's not what I need"

[plucky tusk]

the fuel recipes are nice

[sand epoch]

You can, just get more drives. Every single recipe can be gotten.

[fringe pawn]

For some people that uranium alt is going to be essential. But if your goal is just to get the last delivery done and all achievements, nuclear power is just a distraction.

[plucky tusk]

the ones that skip production steps are nice

[brisk smelt]

instant scrap:

[plucky tusk]

yes

[wet python]

These are the ones I use:
Recycled Plastic
Radio Control System
Caterium Wire
Pure Copper Ingot
Pure Aluminum Ingot (this one first)

[fringe pawn]

Instant scrap is not simpler IMO because you're routing another resource, and the sulfuric acid step basically makes it the same as alumina -> scrap.

[plucky tusk]

nitro rocket fuel

[wet python]

Is there any round perfect ratio for rocket fuel production? This is a nightmare

[brisk smelt]

diluted fuel

[plucky tusk]

no blenders arent simpler

[sand epoch]

They really are :/

[fringe pawn]

You're skipping the alumina step and adding the sulfuric acid step and dealing with 3 raw resources instead of 2.

It's a perfectly fine recipe, but it's not simpler.

[robust vessel]

@vapid gorge unslooped and looking good. we are now slightly overproducing, but only a tiny amount (up to the nearest round number), 702 vs 720, so overproducing by 2.5%

still a few machines waiting to saturate, but I think they'll fill up eventually

this is essentially the plan of the tower

[spare jolt]

There's no way you did not do that on purpose

[robust vessel]

https://tenor.com/view/think-about-it-reece-simpson-kayode-ewumi-roll-safe-meme-gif-17305682

Don't look up the hex to decimal conversion of my pioneer designation 👀 🤣

Pics of gen tower-
#design-and-architecture message

[worn heath]

80 fuel generators takes up so much space. How tf are y'all organizing these

[fringe pawn]

By going to places with space?

I have MK3 blueprints and use this, but I'd just break it into 2 pieces if I were limited to MK2 blueprints still. #design-and-architecture message

[brisk smelt]

stack up up up

[worn heath]

Maybe I should go unlock MK2 before I keep building

[brisk smelt]

8 gens a floor, that's 10 floors, easily below build limit

[fringe pawn]

For sure get MK2 so you can do 2 generators side by side.

Then also you can preoverclock them.

[worn heath]

I didn't plan to overclock them lol

I'm a shard hoarder

[plucky tusk]

are they already overclocked?

[worn heath]

nooo

[plucky tusk]

just do it

[worn heath]

Should I be overclocking these guys

[fringe pawn]

That shrinks down to 32 generators if you clock them to 250%.

[plucky tusk]

should sloop your powerslugs too. i have like 400 shards rn

[worn heath]

That's more shards than I have tho

[fringe pawn]

Sloop 10 purple slugs and you're there. Raid the red forest.

[plucky tusk]

theres a bunch on the northwester part of the map

[fringe pawn]

Or raid the spire coast, they stick out easily at night

[worn heath]

I'm not sure I have slooping tech yet

[fringe pawn]

Then you can get sloops while you're out too 😛

You want sloop tech, for sure.

[brisk smelt]

shards are infinite resource later on, just spend the limited ones you have on fuel gen

its worth it

[kind cairn]

isnt pure aluminum a terrible choice? wouldnt you want to use silica to get more alu ingots per bauxite?

[brisk smelt]

and how many nodes on the map of quartz do you think there are

[vapid gorge]

it hasn't flooded yet?

[torpid gorge]

Useful for saving a lot on complexity, footprint etc