Issues troubleshooting fluids for plastic factory
Hey everyone,
I've been struggling for quite a while to get a 2x10 refinery manifold running properly. The system is fed directly by an oil extractor producing 600 crude oil per minute.
For some reason, the oil extractor stops every few seconds, and I can't figure out why. Because of this, the last pipes in the manifold don't receive enough oil, and only about 13 out of 20 refineries run at 100% efficiency. That’s roughly a 35% production loss per 20-refinery setup, which obviously isn’t ideal.
- What I’ve already checked / tried
- Manually checked every pipe — all of them are full.
- Removed unnecessary buffers.
- Added pumps where they seemed necessary.
- Added valves to prevent fluids from flowing backwards.
- Reduced the number of junctions as much as possible.
- Removed unnecessary vertical pipe sections.
- Ensured refineries are filled as much as possible.
Currently, all refineries are filled to max except the last two, which I intentionally left slightly empty so the oil extractor can immediately resume production. Even when all refineries are completely filled, the problem still happens.
Additional context:
I actually posted about this 1–2 months ago, but then took a long break from the game. Now I’m trying to get back into it.
I also asked in the Satisfactory Discord, and several people tried helping me. Interestingly, some of them were able to make it work after loading my save file, but unfortunately they didn’t save their changes, so they couldn’t send back a working version.
If screenshots and my description aren't enough, here is the save file:
Posted Mar 5, 2026, 11:48 AM UTC