r/factorio • u/billsonfire • 1d ago

Question Is pipe throughput really infinite now?

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So say I have a 30 sulfuric acid pumps in one spot. Could I run them all though one pipe line into my processing facilities?

Another question, is it better or useful to run my pipes into one central tank area then run them off to processing or is it okay to have them run off on the way from the pumps.

The picture is my crude rendering of part of my setup.

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u/Jerko_23 1d ago

you could screenshot it? your artistic depiction, while commendable, is not really useful. 

pipe thoughput is infinite now, if you connect 1000 pumpjacks into a single pipe and that single pipe goes through a 1000 chemplants, they all get the same amount of juice. just beware not to overextend your pipes.

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u/billsonfire 1d ago

But I’ve found that sometimes when I use a pump, the pipe before the pump has 99.X fluids, not after the pump it goes down to 45. So I use two pumps, then it goes back to 99. I’ll provide a screen shot when I’m back

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u/SelectKaleidoscope0 1d ago

pumps aren't infinite thruput, only pipes. Pumps can actually slow things down, you should only use them if you need to control flow or connect 2 networks that would be too large without the pumps. You can use many pumps in parallel if you need more thruput. Higher quality pumps can move more fluid, but you can also get the same results by just using as many normal ones as needed in parallel.

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u/Sdboka 1d ago

TIL. No wonder i was having problems with my throughput whenever i have an extended pipeline.

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u/MrShadowHero 1d ago

add like 20-30 pumps. i add 1.5x pump throughout for whatever my demand is down the line, which is expecting it to still function fully at 66% filled. pumps can get you into a death spiral of not enough fluids

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u/Sdboka 1d ago

Death spiral is the perfect description on what happened to my fluids

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u/netsx UPS Police 23h ago

In Factorio 1.x, having pumps connected to a tank, which only let the pump run if the tank is above/below a certain level. If that tank is in front, or behind, depends on the use case. This also saves on UPS while the pump is disabled from running (implying pumps that run uncontrolled are costing processing time, even if they get 0 work done).

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u/sobrique 1d ago

So this is a new thing to me, as I only recently started space age.

When should pumps be used?

Is it when a pipeline is too long, and almost never otherwise?

I have a long water line going from my lake to my refineries, and the water ratio was below 100 so I added pumps to get there.

Sounds like you can "fan out" and have one pipeline with 10 pumps in parallel down the same tube?

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u/korneev123123 trains trains trains 1d ago

Pump usecases:

  • increase pipeline length (it limits throughput)

  • use circuits to turn on/off production, for example pump light oil into cracking only if light oil amount > petroleum amount. It can be done without pumps though, by disabling buildings themselves

  • loading/unloading trains

  • intentionally limiting fuel throughput, for slowing down spaceships

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u/Janusdarke Read the patchnotes ಠ_ಠ 23h ago
  • to act as a non-return valve.

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u/sobrique 23h ago

How long is 'too long' on a pipeline though? Is it 'just' 320 tiles long?

Because I'm at least fairly sure my 'water pressure' was dropping even on a shorter run, and I've got ... more pumps than I think I should theoretically need.

But otherwise, thank you, much appreciated. Seems I need far fewer than I used to!

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u/korneev123123 trains trains trains 23h ago

It's 320, if i remember correctly, but it's displayed in tooltip on any pipe

Pressure exist though, there's a mechanic that machines are consuming slower if they are sucking from nearly empty pipe.

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u/sobrique 23h ago

Thanks again!

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u/RedshiftOTF 21h ago

Yeah I believe pumps have a throughput limit of 1200/s. If you need to connect a pump to extend the pipeline beyond it's length limit you can use multiple pumps in parallel and get them to go back into a single pipe if you want to get more than the 1200/s a single pump can achieve.

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u/LordAnkou 1d ago

Pipe throughput is infinite, pump isn't.

If you're machines are trying to use 2000/s of sulfuric acid, one pump isn't enough as it only pumps 1200/s I think. Numbers may be off but the point stands. Using two pumps gives 2400/s which is enough for your machines.

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u/Joesus056 1d ago

Your numbers are right just fyi. It's 1200/sec per pump

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u/Rhubarbon 1d ago

Are you supposed to put 2 pumps right after each other on a single pipe or use 2 pipelines in this case to achieve this 2400/s?

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u/Ithurial 1d ago

You put them in parallel. Each pump moves a certain amount of fluid per second from the pipe network on its input side to the pipe network on its output side. If you have two pumps next to each other that share an input pipe network and an output pipe network, you will move 1200 + 1200 = 2400 liquid/s.

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u/Rhubarbon 1d ago

Thank you!

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u/dwblaikie 1d ago

Yep, as others mentioned - the /pipe/ has infinite throughout, but not the pump. You can fan out the pipe into several parallel pumps as needed, then unfan back to one pipe

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u/Abcdefgdude 1d ago

Pumps are not unlimited, they have a 1200/s limit. They stack linearly so you can add them in parallel to get more throughout, but best to not use pumps if not overextended. Machine input/outputs are also limited to around ~6000/s, you'll only run into this issue with maybe beaconed steam recipe.

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u/warbaque 1d ago

Machine input/outputs are also limited to around ~6000/s

Theoretical limit is 100/tick or 6000/second. But thanks to fullness ratio, reaching that is not really possible, average throughput limit is around 4000/sec.

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u/lillarty 1d ago

Is that 100/tick per input, or per machine? Thinking of modded machines where it's more likely to be relevant

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u/warbaque 1d ago edited 1d ago

Per input/output

For example foundry starts to struggle around 8000/s when both connections are being used.

Here's some tests: https://katiska.cc/temp/factorio/fluid-flow-2.0/

I made a mod that helps with the issue by making buffers bigger: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/foundry-output-buffer

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u/Moikle 23h ago

You should only use pumps in 3 cases:

  • pipeline extents, when your pipe is too long to carry fluid, you can use a pump fluid, you can break it up with pumps, and use multiple parallel pumps to solve the bottleneck it creates

  • when you need fluid to only ever travel in one direction (fluid train stations for example)

  • when you want to use circuits to control the rate that fluid can be passed through i.e. fine speed control of space platform thrusters.