Talk:Fluid system

The category in Factorio that includes "water" and "oil" is best called Fluid, not "liquid". The words "liquid" and "gas" specifically describe types of matter: solid or liquid or gas (or plasma; see Wikipedia). "Fluid" is often used to mean "liquid", but technically is not the same type. It is anything that flows, and can be either a liquid or a gas.

I would rename the page, but there are a lot of subpages and language pages that use Liquid. I don't want to break everything.

--Khaim (talk) 18:38, 4 January 2015 (CET)

The description of boilers and steam engines also use "fluid" so that's what we should use. I think "system" is unnecessary too. Will things break if you use the redirect option? metarmask (talk) 14:50, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Maximum pipeline flow formula incorrect for 201 pipes?

Hi Sp55aa and everyone else,

This section is about the formula that should be at the end of the section Fluid_system#Pipelines. There is also a discussion about the formula at the section User_talk:Sp55aa#Fluid_system_throughput_formula.

Having a formula for the maximum flow of a pipeline is wonderful. Thanks for the work you put into this, Sp55aa.

The possible issue

I was checking the formula against the table, and I think I may have noticed that the formula doesn't agree with the table for 201 pipes. It might be relevant for me to mention that I was the one who added the 201 pipes row.

For 201 pipes, I found that the formula produces 1000 units/second, while the table has 999 units/seconds.

Possible proof of issue

To make sure that I wasn't in error, I decided to see what Factorio's GUI shows for 201 pipes. Following should be two things: a picture of a screen capture of Factorio with the setup of what I did to learn about 201 pipes, and an encoded blueprint string of the setup:

picture of 201 pipes setup

bp string of 201 pipes setup

0eNq9m91S40YQRt9F1/aW51czvEpqizIgKFWwoGw5CaF498iADZvo82mS2mztxWI8Rz0zX4+6t3uem6v7ffe47YexuXhu+uuHYddc/PLc7Pq7YX1/+Gx8euyai6Yfu02zaIb15vDTYz99+LJo+uGm+6O5cC/fF003jP3Yd2/jX394uhz2m6tuO33hY+R+8zhxHh9205cfhsMTJsDSt9/Sonma/lVeXhb/GO9P4/vhth+mXy1fTTgHqt/SHCqcULv91W5cvw6e4eQz5sQTo7vvrsdtf73shm5797ScFrLb3q6vZ02LR+Siuem308DXX04Putrf3nbby13/58R0q9OfmUcn80qE1XEl8vxKZNyU+jH+R5NnaO3Huo4P2/VdtxzXw6+zK3u0K83bVdCu94WMf7fLz9CqXTr+aFicN8yt0LJ0RIRZgPvRg84BVsIGb0c4gQiIiO8IZUQ0G6EICQkeCBkJAQgtElZAKEhwQKhEcOU8wa+QUIGAqnQtELyZIDTpUZO0DChJWoVkBagpoCAzWIB6pG1AOYJfe1QjuHVAMYJXB9QiOHVgKZ7fxhCsAGUBKRF2MZAQM0wgG8er55MMwZECqRA8OZAIHWxAJBE6ONYjidCBCCOJ0IEbRBKhA0+O0QoQKoqkQnq7RpIhveBjawWoKZAQKUiJpESKkxIp0cNZkEiJHpw5kRI9eHMiJXpw50RKDOCNKVkBQgeJlBhoDUiJoYAFxQpQFpASI5yJmZQYYRcyKTHCeZBJiRHOg0xKjODOmZQYwZ0zKTGCN+ZsBQghZQwR3ZHgBaGYQ3VF4JQlnie0nLIkIHDK4oHAcWIAAgeKKyBgznIKdRTBnLQoACYtNIfWGi4rAAmSxpMcYQKFxAgyKPiKhvEkRHCFgscijI/GdEGNJwmSL5dsDVUVgCRIJ1pBCdIaYMoCblgxZSkAQBWCG1UMFMGParCG6wqAgSJNwRwoKgAGinAWVAwUaQ0wUARnqqTEAM7kVngetkQgLYZMBG+NlyUBT0WcRbTGapKA4WIlAsaLuA6kyOSIQJJMKyKQJhO4lXOkyeSJQJpMR78IiuCtBGlDMIfeSSGiGaFqWFx5Ob3tJCKb43eJaM1JhEQUcwQvEdWcRiiEofziCOHMiYREeGseIAnBSlDa5AqMI0KyJiNyFtlqgyS0xnREAooxH5GAakxIFACLMKRpLMKQd2MRhnwbizAZpBSsWY20IFmzEmmCOa+RNrTW1EoSzJmNJFRrcqUI0ZzbSIKzpleSYM5uJCFYEyxJiNYESRKSlaA0iUWZgLNorUmWJBQrQc6iWvM0ZQMWZgLtBVZmAvkmlmYCnQ9Ymwnkm1ycofOBqzMFdpPLM3Q+YH0m0usCCzQR16FaE05F4BINrQPXaOicxCJNIu/GKk2iEwbLNIl8E+s0ic4HLNQk8k2u1Jyqz1khirlPTyKquWOxzLfIrcxddsoGrtWcXlsS4c19dhIRzM1+EhHNnXYSkcztfhKRzf8FIBGttdlOEoo1W5SEau2WUwQs3CxpHbB0syT/wuLNkpy8BGvHnCREa8ucJCRr1iwJ1p4zCWiNTXMSYO06k4BqbHtTgGpuO5MEZ+18kwRz45kkBGvvmySYW88kwdx7Jgnm5jNJaK3NY5JQrN1jklCt7WNZ9YavrP1jkuCsDWSS4K0dZJIQrBmjJERrjiEJydpEJgnZ2oIlCa21C0wSirUJSxKqtQ9MEbCYEyMRnLUTTBK8Nd+ThPDl+06H85/vK/nPNZ6z95+q5VqWd+nrF6DeyMevX+66ceyHu93he++o39fjRJ8Q3fZ6euI0/ddLfmO3mT5Zj/tt93bHZ/Nwc/j6elzed+vd2MyvZf76pbbDq/B/tbE13pZ7Nwx3uXzpHqIL81ZV88VKQfhUv/oXdxkn6H+4y+g/Vb7M9zpd/Ikb/33xdtH14tO92EXzW7fdve1kcbGtvk15+hunjPkvaMKS9A==

The following two pictures should show that Factorio's GUI shows the "Pumping speed" for both the input and output pumps to be 999 units/second.

input pump picture

output pump picture

Besides only the 201 pipes row, the formula approximately agrees with every row of the table. This should be shown by the following picture of a spreadsheet:

formula vs table spreadsheet picture

If one were to always take the floor of what the formula produces, than the table and formula agree everywhere except for 201 pipes, unless I made some mistake.

However, of course, there could be other situations where the formula and Factorio don't agree. And this could be the case for the table as well.

How to proceed?

If I'm not wrong in what I've noticed, then I think it's fair to ask: How should we proceed?

One option, perhaps, is to move the formula into some work-in-progress part of the wiki.

Another option is to add some caveat-like text to the formula on the page.

And I guess another option is to update the formula to take into account this possible disagreement, or even possibly remove the formula altogether.

And it might be useful to mention that it seems this formula also exists in the section Fluid_system/zh#.E8.BF.90.E8.BE.93.E7.AE.A1.E7.BA.BF. This wiki search might help to find all locations the formula could exist

Best,
Snayday (talk) 01:01, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Hey, thank you for investigating whether the formula is correct for the already known values. I took things a step further and automatically tested all throughput numbers for pipe lengths 1 to 1001. See this forum thread for the setup and full results: https://forums.factorio.com/103145.

The overall result was that the formula is incorrect in 15 cases out of the 1001 that I measured. Furthermore, the throughput value for the 261 length pipe in the table is one off, I will correct it. Because there is no explanation for the formula that would explain the discrepancies, I will remove the formula from the pages. If someone can explain the discrepancies or provide a formula that is correct, please add it to the wiki page or reply to the forum post. -- Bilka (talk) - Admin 17:01, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

The formula and the discrepancies could be explained in the linked forum post. The formula is back on the page with a caveat-like text :) -- Bilka (talk) - Admin 17:15, 18 August 2022 (UTC)