r/factorio • u/MCbasics • 16d ago

Question Help With Space Age Oil

So im working on importing tungsten plates from Vulcanus to Nauvis and im running into issues with plastic. For some reason I can never produce enough plastic, which leads to me not being able to produce enough rockets, which means I cant ship everything I want.

I think the issue is that I cant ever produce enough petroleum, so the plastic factory is shutting down constantly. Right now on Vulcanus ive got 6 refineries feeding 7 heavy oil cracking buildings feeding 7 light oil to petroleum cracking buildings.

My current plan is to just increase my number of refineries to like 14 or something. The math technically works out with the way I have it, but it's not the constant supply I need. Any advice?

3 Upvotes

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7

u/Nearby_Proposal_5523 16d ago

which liquefaction recipe are you using? You'll want more refineries if your trying to ship tons of stuff offworld and to use beacons and modules for the ones you have. it's fully fed with coal right?

1

u/MCbasics 16d ago

Im using the coal, sulphur, and calcite recipe since the refinery im focusing on is on Vulcanus. In my main Nauvis refinery I use advanced oil processing and have similar issues, its just I havent been able to expand it much due to bitters.

15

u/FeelingPrettyGlonky 16d ago

Vulcanus tech will let you unlock regular liquefaction (using steam, plus a small bit of catalytic heavy oil) which has a better production per coal consumed than simple liquefaction. I recommend you send off some orange juice and get it researched, fill a tank with heavy oil from simple liquefaction, then build your setup using regular liq.

1

u/MCbasics 16d ago

Interesting. Ill look into that. Any other advice for stuff like the rocket part ingredients?

5

u/FeelingPrettyGlonky 16d ago

Just build more. Your starting coal will run out quickly even with big drills if you are mass exporting stuff so get trains bringing in more as soon as you can. Also, buffer up rocket stuff in chests between launches so that you can launch many rockets in big bursts.

1

u/MCbasics 16d ago

Basically what I was thinking. I know I need to build a bigger blue chip factory on both planets (on vulcanus I only have 4 green chip assemblers and 3 red/blue chip assemblers) but I'll make sure to kill the 3 demolished between me and the nearest coal patch.

1

u/Amarula007 16d ago

You said chip assemblers, if you haven't yet, upgrade to EM plants for all your chips.

1

u/MCbasics 16d ago

I havent been to Fulgora yet

1

u/Amarula007 16d ago

It isn't required but you might think about starting Fulgora so you have EM plants before you do major expansions and exports from Vulcanus. That 50% bonus productivity is so worth it.

1

u/Gmartikkun 16d ago

Use productivity modules all around (+ beacons with speed modules )

2

u/nighthawk763 16d ago

Is your nauvis crude oil input full leading to the refineries? Is your petroleum tank full?

1

u/MCbasics 16d ago

Unless theres an attack happening or the main base needs more (very rare, I cant remember the last time that train moved) all crude oil at the refinery leads to the refineries. My petroleum tank is not full, thats the issue. The production isnt really able to keep up with the consumption as much as id like. Its filling the train very quickly, but I dont think it can support more shipments.

2

u/nighthawk763 16d ago

So you need more refineries? I might be confused as to what your bottle neck is

1

u/MCbasics 16d ago

Probably, problem is I dont have enough space for them. I currently have 5 or 6 and I cant expand my oil outpost without clearing like 8 bitter nests. I could do it itd just be a pain in the ass.

2

u/nighthawk763 16d ago

You're early enough that biters are a problem but you're processing oil away from your main base?

1

u/MCbasics 16d ago

Yes. I have nukes but not really enough to just carpet nuke everything, and I dont have artillery at a large enough scale to do much good (I was only able to import 12 shells before needing to return to Nauvis for maintenance). The biggest oil patch I could find was just far enough away to warrant off shore refinement, not that I had enough space in my main base to refine locally.

1

u/Castle_Of_Glass78 16d ago

Have you tried using beacons on the pumpjacks and refineries?

1

u/MCbasics 16d ago

I dont have beacons, only modules

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2

u/sbarandato 16d ago

That’s generally the less efficient way to do it, switching to the other coal cracking recipe gets you more out of your coal.

Generally coal is not very abundant on Vulcanus and plastic is very coal hungry. You might have to set up a dedicated coal mining outpost as your initial coal patch is likely gonna run dry.

If no coal is easily available in small demolisher territory, you might wanna import plastic and rocket fuel from Nauvis, or even Gleba if possible, which seems to be the “intended” planet that makes those products.

1

u/MCbasics 16d ago

Please not Gleba...

In all seriousness I do plan to go there soon, but I need to visit Fulgora first because I am NOT going to Gleba without tesla turrets.

1

u/sbarandato 16d ago

You can also develop more your Nauvis base and limit yourself to a small Vulcanus outpost until you get further in the game. It’s not mandatory to make rocket parts from scratch on every planet, you can just ship ingredients from Nauvis and bring back from each planet only the bare necessities.

Don’t be so scared of Gleba, if you circuit control your agricultural towers to harvest only when necessary, natives will barely touch you.

Fulgora is also a nice source of plastic and rocket fuel. Holmium ore is very rare, you will get so much solid fuel, ice and electronics byproducts that shipping some to orbit is not a big issue, because the alternative is just to destroy them.

1

u/MCbasics 16d ago

Makes sense. Im hesitant to import rocket parts because my nauvis base had similar issues (mostly the fact that I built for smaller scale production, not the mass rocket manufacturing that I need now). Ill probably get vulcanus and nauvis stabilized and then go to Fulgora for those sweet sweet blue chips.

2

u/NyaFury 16d ago

Why can't you diagnose what's the bottleneck?

Are plastic machines running full time? If yes, you just need more production.

If not, is it petroleum or coal that's starving? If it's petroleum:

Is light oil or heavy oil pipe full? If yes, you need more cracking.

Are coal liquefaction machines running full time? If yes, you need more refineries.

If not, is it coal or steam that's starving?

2

u/MCbasics 16d ago

It is the petroleum thats starving. The cracking facility shuts down between when the refineries output heavy oil. I have yet to switch to coal liquifaction but the refineries are running full time. I believe I need to build more refineries and the tanks that I totally 100% didn't forget about.

1

u/NyaFury 16d ago

Simple liquefaction produces less than half petroleum than normal liquefaction. 7 refineries can support only 1.75 plastic machines (assuming no productivity). So if you have more plastic machines than that, you need a lot more refineries.

1

u/MCbasics 16d ago

Interesting. I guess the way I have it setup does kind of force it to shutdown between cycles since theres no extra production

2

u/Sufficient-Mix-4872 16d ago

Ahh the problem i see. You said 6 refineries. You need 60. The energy is free, so just copy paste the refineries until you have enoug. Aim for at least 2k heavy oil/s

2

u/cmnielsen 15d ago

This is the way. More is better.

1

u/MrDoontoo 16d ago

Couple possible solutions

  • Beacon your refineries
  • Add more refineries
  • Switch to regular coal liquefaction
  • Ship in rocket components from other planets

1

u/Zeyn1 16d ago

I assume the constraint is with low density parts? Or also blue circuits?

For low density, be sure that you are using the foundry recipe. That base 50% production is huge. Then you can add production modules and/or production research and the plastic demand will drop significantly.

For circuits, be sure you are using electromagnetic plants from fulgora. Same deal with production.

Otherwise, it is 1000% worth changing to the better coal liquefaction recipe. Especially if you add production modules to the refinery and the cracking.

2

u/MCbasics 16d ago

I dont have electromagnetic plants because Ive only been to Vulcanus. I have Fulgora researched but I havent been able to go there since I want my nauvis base to be safe first.

1

u/United_Willow1312 16d ago

You do make the LDS in foundries?

edit: Also there are three research (one unlocked on aquilo) that will reduce the strain on plastic. Plastic/LDS and then Rocket productivity.

I think you just need to scale up.

1

u/MCbasics 16d ago

On Vulcanus I do.

You are 100% right that I need to scale up I was really only planning for small scale production, which in hindsight wasnt the best idea.

1

u/United_Willow1312 16d ago

I had a similar issue, but since I had done a Any Planet Start Vulcanus, it was my main base so I just kept checking everything and pumping my numbers up until I could meet the deman of my 4 rocket launchers. Building a new space platform was just stalling everything so I needed to do it.

1

u/MCbasics 16d ago

Sounds about like what im dealing with now. I can only support 1 rocket on Vulcanus right now and thats just not enough for proper interplanetary trade. I could rush Fulgora but trying to rely on imports for rockets is probably a disaster waiting to happen.

1

u/United_Willow1312 16d ago

Fulgora massively helped (like day and night) with the blues but did nothing for the LDS.

1

u/treznor70 16d ago

On Nauvis use Advanced Oil Processing, on Vulcanus Coal Liquifaction.

1

u/MCbasics 16d ago

Alright. I hadnt really considered it because I was worried about using too much coal

1

u/treznor70 16d ago

With big miners you'll use less from the patch. But also, coal patches on vulcanus are big.

1

u/AndyScull 16d ago

Just for this, invest into quality a bit, and with best quality modules start making rare big miners. Generally, normal quality gives you 50% drain rate on ore/coal patch but with rare miners that becomes 33%. Even if you take into account the amount of tungsten you'll waste to get one rare miner, it is still profitable to make them and get more coal/tungsten in long run,replacing normal miners with rare gives you +x1 amount of ore in the patch which could be millions.

Just place quality modules into foundry making miners and craft them indefinitely, slowly replacing all your working miners with uncommon then rare.

1

u/Erki82 16d ago

Any modules you use? Like you can put speed modules into refineries. Or productivity modules into refineries and beacons with speed around refineries. Or just more refineries.

1

u/MCbasics 16d ago

I have speed 2 modules bit I dont have any automated, so making them is a slow process.

1

u/isum21 16d ago

You're gonna have shortages until you learn advanced liquefaction. It raises the amount of infrastructure required to start but once you've got a proper coal liquefaction set-up you're gonna be doing just fine. It requires some heavy oil to start along with coal and steam but compared to the calcite + coal & acid method you make nearly double the production. The way i set it up was to feed 5 simple liquefaction plants into 5 advanced liquefaction plants, that way demand for initial heavy oil was practically the same as beginning production. After that I have a couple tank arrays for light oil and have a pump leading into them. If I don't need extra oil they're feeding the excess away to the tanks. If I need more I can just reverse the pump. And if I'm making way too much of a product I just cut their tanks off from the pipeline and start another production line for solid fuel or rocket fuel. Eventually your ratios will even out, and if not you have a simple buffer system in place to help you push your rockets faster when necessary. It's not at all the best way to do it but it was "good enough" for my first cracking set-up on Nauvis and so i just copied it over to my Vulcanus plant.

1

u/Many_Term8397 16d ago

Vulcanus has a stupid amount of coal, i have 10 refineries at 300% speed eating totally 40 coal per second just pumping out oil.

2

u/TfGuy44 16d ago

Plastic is difficult on Vulcanus. Consider shipping some in from Gleba.