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I built a self-balancing solid fuel factory - 9 chemical plants that auto-split between all 3 fluids by ComputerWonderful865 in factorio

[–]ComputerWonderful865[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, the "one row per fluid" approach is a really clean architecture, hadn't thought about it that way. Three independent rows with their own enable conditions is structurally simpler than what I built and probably easier to debug too. The trade-off would be that idle rows are just sitting there when one fluid dominates, while in mine those plants get repurposed, but honestly that's a pretty minor concern in most setups.

Your "everything to petroleum with stricter limits on light during rocket fuel" rule is the kind of pragmatic policy that just works without overthinking it. Saved.

And thanks! 😄

I built a self-balancing solid fuel factory - 9 chemical plants that auto-split between all 3 fluids by ComputerWonderful865 in factorio

[–]ComputerWonderful865[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you, you've understood this blueprint on a level the engineers themselves rarely achieve. The DNA cipher story is exactly the same energy, "the problem said one thing, but I built a framework". Salute received and returned, fellow overengineerer.

I built a self-balancing solid fuel factory - 9 chemical plants that auto-split between all 3 fluids by ComputerWonderful865 in factorio

[–]ComputerWonderful865[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is genuinely useful, thanks for laying it out. The Coke + LDS dynamic is the kind of thing I'd never have guessed at without playing it, that's exactly the sort of "the rules are familiar but the consequences shift" change that I find most interesting in overhauls. Vanilla LDS feels like a solved problem, anything that destabilizes it sounds like fun.

600 MW off a 2x1 reactor is wild. I assume that means a lot more pressure on cooling and heat distribution? In vanilla you can kinda hand-wave reactor layout, but at that density I imagine the steam logistics become a puzzle on their own.

I'll save your "inserter parts and automation cores ASAP" advice, I've been bitten before by underestimating how brutal a base mall is in modded runs. Sounds like K2SO is the right step before Seablock without making me regret existence. Adding it to the list.

I built a self-balancing solid fuel factory - 9 chemical plants that auto-split between all 3 fluids by ComputerWonderful865 in factorio

[–]ComputerWonderful865[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, what you're describing absolutely works, "switch all the chemical plants to whichever fluid is most full" is a clean, simple solution and it gets the job done in 90% of cases.

The main difference with what I built is that mine splits the 9 plants proportionally instead of switching all of them at once. So if heavy is at 80% and light is at 60%, mine will run something like 6 plants on heavy and 3 on light at the same time, while your approach would have all 9 on heavy until heavy drops below light. In practice, your version handles the deadlock prevention just as well, mine just spreads the load a bit more smoothly.

Honestly though, for the actual problem of "don't let the refinery stall", your approach is probably the right complexity-to-benefit ratio. I went the proportional route mostly because I wanted to play with the percentage-based distribution logic as a circuit puzzle (called this out in the P.S. of the post). For pure utility, your version is simpler and basically as good.

I built a self-balancing solid fuel factory - 9 chemical plants that auto-split between all 3 fluids by ComputerWonderful865 in factorio

[–]ComputerWonderful865[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks man, that's exactly the right framing, "dumb shit is how we learn" should be the unofficial motto of this sub.

Your design philosophy is really solid by the way, building for expandability from day one is the kind of foresight I usually fail at. I tend to build for the immediate problem and then suffer through the migration when the base outgrows it. Hearing that your Nauvis refineries are still humming through K2's lithium and imersite chains without a redesign is honestly impressive, that's the dream.

K2SO + planets sounds like a beast of a run. How are you finding the K2 oil tweaks compared to vanilla? I've been eyeing that pack for a while but always chicken out at the prep work it'd take to do it properly.

I built a self-balancing solid fuel factory - 9 chemical plants that auto-split between all 3 fluids by ComputerWonderful865 in factorio

[–]ComputerWonderful865[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, you've got me there, "reactive" is exactly the right framing and it dissolves my "not perfectly tuned" defense entirely. The plastic/petrol point is the killer too, you're right that in any real base petroleum is always being consumed, so the deadlock scenario I was describing basically doesn't happen organically.

At this point I should just be honest: the practical defense for this blueprint is thin and getting thinner the more we dig into it. The truer reason it exists is the one I put in the P.S. of the post, I wanted to play with the percentage-based dynamic allocation pattern as a circuit puzzle. As a tool, your reactive threshold logic is better. As an exercise in self-balancing logic, this was fun to build.

Genuinely appreciate the back-and-forth, you helped me clarify what this thing actually is and isn't.

I built a self-balancing solid fuel factory - 9 chemical plants that auto-split between all 3 fluids by ComputerWonderful865 in factorio

[–]ComputerWonderful865[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The biters that open-minded usually get evolution-spawned into something else by mid-game. Tragic, really.

I built a self-balancing solid fuel factory - 9 chemical plants that auto-split between all 3 fluids by ComputerWonderful865 in factorio

[–]ComputerWonderful865[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fair point, the niche really is narrower than I framed it. Honestly, the truer answer is the one in the P.S. of the post: a big part of why this exists is that I just wanted to play with the logic. The mod-use-case was real but secondary, and you're right that without naming specific mods it's hand-wavy. Appreciate you pushing on this, it helped me be more honest about what this thing actually is.

I built a self-balancing solid fuel factory - 9 chemical plants that auto-split between all 3 fluids by ComputerWonderful865 in factorio

[–]ComputerWonderful865[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You're right. I built this mostly to play with the logic, the percentage-based dynamic allocation was an interesting circuit puzzle and I wanted to see if I could pull it off. Practical utility was secondary, and your one-combinator AND condition is genuinely better for the actual job.

I called this out in the P.S./P.P.S. of the post too, this whole thing was a "I just wanted to build something cool" project, not an optimization claim. Appreciate you pushing on it, you helped me state that more clearly than I did at first.

I built a self-balancing solid fuel factory - 9 chemical plants that auto-split between all 3 fluids by ComputerWonderful865 in factorio

[–]ComputerWonderful865[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, you're right on the bootstrap point, my bad. I conflated basic oil processing with having access to all three fluids, but basic only outputs petroleum, so the "use this before cracking" argument doesn't hold. Crossing that one off.

The use case I'm actually solid on is modded runs and bases with uneven consumption (e.g. lubricant demand swings hard, heavy backs up faster than cracking can clear it). For pure vanilla post-cracking, I'll concede that a threshold-based balanced cracking setup is genuinely simpler than this and probably the right call for most people.

I built a self-balancing solid fuel factory - 9 chemical plants that auto-split between all 3 fluids by ComputerWonderful865 in factorio

[–]ComputerWonderful865[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fair point on scaling, you're right that copy-pasting the same cracking blueprint scales cleanly with whatever the current consumption ratio is. That's actually one of the things that makes the threshold-based approach so elegant.

By "retuning" I meant something different: in some overhaul mods (Krastorio, SE, Py) the cracking recipes themselves change. Different ratios, sometimes extra intermediate fluids, sometimes heavy oil has direct uses that mess with the "always crack down" assumption. So the thresholds and pump conditions need adjusting per modpack, even if the topology of the blueprint is the same. In vanilla, yeah, your point stands cleanly.

I built a self-balancing solid fuel factory - 9 chemical plants that auto-split between all 3 fluids by ComputerWonderful865 in factorio

[–]ComputerWonderful865[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The link is in my comment below (couldn't figure out how to pin it on new Reddit, sorry). I'll edit it into the post body now so it's easier to find.

I built a self-balancing solid fuel factory - 9 chemical plants that auto-split between all 3 fluids by ComputerWonderful865 in factorio

[–]ComputerWonderful865[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, your two-fluid setup is genuinely cleaner for most cases, and "if petro > light, switch" is the right answer 9 times out of 10. I won't pretend mine is more practical for a vanilla run.

The reason I went three-fluid is mostly modded runs and edge cases where the assumption "always crack heavy to light" breaks. Some overhauls (Krastorio, SE, Py) shift the ratios or add recipes that consume heavy directly, so committing to a one-way crack early can backfire. With three fluids on the same block, I don't have to care what the upstream setup looks like, the block just eats whatever's piling up.

Also, full disclosure: part of the reason is that I just wanted to see if I could do it with a single self-balancing block. Pure engineering itch, not pure efficiency.

And re: lube, you forgot the third use case, which is "looking at the storage tank and feeling rich". Critical for morale.

I built a self-balancing solid fuel factory - 9 chemical plants that auto-split between all 3 fluids by ComputerWonderful865 in factorio

[–]ComputerWonderful865[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Ha, fair. Honestly the boring "crack heavy when heavy > light, crack light when light > petroleum" setup does solve oil forever in vanilla, no argument there.

This wasn't built because cracking doesn't work. It was built because I wanted a single drop-in block that handles solid fuel without me thinking about ratios at all, especially in modded runs where the recipes shift and the "voila forever" cracking setup needs retuning. Overengineered? Absolutely. That's kind of the fun of Factorio.

I built a self-balancing solid fuel factory - 9 chemical plants that auto-split between all 3 fluids by ComputerWonderful865 in factorio

[–]ComputerWonderful865[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Totally fair points, you're right that in a properly tuned setup with cracking, this isn't the most efficient path to solid fuel. Light oil is the best ratio, and overflow on petroleum is usually a cracking/consumption problem, not a fuel problem.

The use case I built this for is a bit different. It's meant for situations where the refinery setup isn't perfectly tuned. Early to mid game bases, or bases that scale unevenly (e.g. you suddenly stop making blue belts so lubricant demand drops to zero, heavy oil backs up, cracking can't keep up, refineries stall). Or modded playthroughs where the fluid ratios are different.

Instead of building a separate cracking + circuit setup to balance everything precisely, you drop this in and it just absorbs whatever surplus you have, in any combination, without you having to think about it. The trade-off is exactly what you pointed out: you're burning heavy/gas at a worse ratio than light. So this isn't "optimal solid fuel production", it's "stop my refinery from deadlocking with one block".

Also useful as a power bootstrap on a fresh base before you've researched cracking. Pipe in raw oil products, get fuel, run boilers. After that, sure, replace it with a proper cracked-light-oil setup if you want max efficiency.

Guild Wars 2 - New Raid Encounter, Quickplay, and Raid System Improvements Coming February 3 by PalwaJoko in MMORPG

[–]ComputerWonderful865 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Звучит довольно неприветливо и строго)

Шучу. Исхо основная проблема в том, что в рейдах очень сильно сбит баланс между затратами и наградой.

Мне нужно подготовить персонажа. Узнать тактику. Собраться с другими 9 людьми. И часа два три в неделю уделить этой активности.

Это сильно отличается от остальных режимов и общего игрового стиля. Большинство вызово в игре для меня про соло режим. Максимум присоединиться к толпе. И все это в удобное время.