Schall Pipe Scaling

Summary

Adds scaled up versions in different sizes for various pipes and pumps. Designed for supporting scaled up machines from “Schall Machine Scaling” mod. Includes pipe, pipe to ground, pump, offshore pump, heat pipe.

Introduction

Troubled by pipes having low flow rates? Flow rates still low even though using a lot of pumps? Lots of pipes for nuclear power hurting the UPS? This mod will help you a lot! Scaled up versions (called "overtiers") of various pipes and pumps are introduced. These wide pipes and pumps have much higher max flow rates, scaled like the machine overtiers in Schall Machine Scaling mod. Thosee high overtier nuclear reactors (and its heat exchangers and steam turbines) will also required these overtier offshore pumps, heat pipes to feed enough water and heat through those machines, in order to work to their full capabilities.

Each higher tier is exactly 4 pipes/pumps of its lower tier, in terms of flow rate, power consumption, or any other properties. The only difference is they are combined into a single pipe/pump, thus effectively reduce the number of entities on map. This ratio is exponential, meaning you will cut the total number of entities even further with very high tier machines. (For example, overtier +4 is exactly 256× of vanilla machine.) The overtier pumps work even a bit better than that (e.g., 6.4× of vanilla pump instead of just 4× for "pump +1"), so they should have more than enough capabilities to move fluids within your factory.

Usage

For example, a "offshore pump +4" is effectively 256× vanilla offshore pump in terms of flow rate. If your megabase is currently having about 2000 vanilla offshore pump (along with pipes supplying water to the heat exchangers), with this mod you can replace these offshore pumps with just 8 "offshore pump +4"! It would be the best if you replace all the pipes with "pipe +4" as well, the UPS hit caused by fluid flow calculations should be minimized by a big margin! The related entities should use the same overtier to take the best effect. In the above example, it would be the best to use "heat pipe +4", "heat exchanger +4", "steam turbine +4" (or "pump +4") as well. The only exception is nuclear reactor, which should have 1 or 2 tier lower than the rest, to reduce the total number of entities to improve UPS.

For example, you can easily obtain 1.9 TW (yes, TERAWATT!) power from 4× nuclear reactor +6 (in 2×2 configuration), 2× offshore pump +7, 12× heat exchanger +7, 21× steam turbines +7, with various pipe +7 and heat pipe +7 to connect the entities. More examples (with pictures and blueprints) are available in FAQ section.

Overtiers of heat pipes are only available if you have enabled Schall Machine Scaling mod, since they are meaningful only if you are using the overtiers of nuclear reactor and heat exchanger there.

Note

Players may find the pipes (and the whole fluid system) do not work as what they expected. Unexpected low flow often comes from incorrect concepts. Please see some in-depth documentations online to understand the Factorio fluid mechanics better.

• Official description (brief)
• In-depth documentation
• In-depth mathematics

Even if you are familar with vanilla fluid mechanics, this mod provides more than that. Following the below guidelines will help you master the use of overtier pipes and pumps.

• Avoid using larger pipes than you needed. A relatively "empty" (few fluid) pipe have low pressure, so barely any flow. Use a narrower/smaller pipe if you do not have that much fluid to fill. For example, when taking water input from a vanilla offshore pump, using pipe +3 will actually be slower than vanilla pipe. (Concept of fluid pressure is explained in the above-mentioned documentation.)
• Max pressure are scaled with the tier. For example, vanilla pipe has max pressure of 1. Pipe +1 has max pressure of 4. Pipe +n has max pressure of 4^n.
• Storage tanks (from Schall Machine Scaling) is the only exception. They always have max pressure of 1. Their base area are scaled instead, to provide the increased total capacity. (Concept of base area is explained in the above-mentioned documentation.)
• Use pumps to take fluid out of storage tanks, to ensure high flow. This is because storage tanks have large "base area", thus inherently low pressure by itself. Use pumps will force one-way flow, mitigating the pressure problem.
• Use matching tiers of entities (offshore pumps, pipes, pumps, etc.) very often gives the best result. Too large difference (e.g., excessive large pipes from a small pump) almost ensures less flow than you could ever imagine.
• It is recommended to connect with a high tier pump, when having to transfer fluid from low tier pipe (and all storage tanks) to high tier pipe. This is caused by the difference is maximum pressure. Fluid in low tier pipe does not have enough pressure to fill high tier pipe, so cannot use to its full capability.
• Pressure drops along a line (sequential) of pipes. Use pipe to ground (counts as two fluidboxes, disregarding actual distance) to reduce the length, or use pump to keep pressure high.