Source
r/factorio•
frumpy3

Heavy oil solid fuel is less useless than it appears

Tip

Everyone who’s played factorio a bit knows heavy oil solid fuel is pretty garbage.

However, there’s one instance where you may wanna use it - it costs less pollution per solid fuel to make it from heavy oil compared to cracking to light oil and then making it.

Is this worth it? Probably not, but if your oil is very rich and the aliens are everywhere, and for some reason you’re burning solid fuel then the math says this is better than making heavy oil cracking.

Another experience of this game showing me that even the most useless recipes / items can have a practical purpose

Posted Oct 22, 2021, 7:05 PM UTC

417
Pulsefel:inserterburner:•

The downside being you now need more heavy, which means more refining, and more dealing with light and petro excess, which all mean its even more pollution.

10
frumpy3OP•

The increase in refinery usage doesn’t do enough to make it take more pollution per solid fuel, if you pumpjacks are rich enough

For 60 solid fuel / minute:

With heavy solid fuel: 7.1 - 4.8 (pumpjacks) = 2.3 pollution / minute

With heavy cracking: 6.8 - 4.4 (pumpjacks) = 2.4 pollution / minute

https://factoriolab.github.io/list?z=eJwrcC7RMjNQS9NyjNdyVCvW0nLKqHN2VCszBgBZIAbh

4
Succulent_Orange•

What about increase in pumpjacks?

1
Pulsefel:inserterburner:•

https://factoriolab.github.io/list?z=eJwrcC7RMgRCLUe1NCAuNtLScsqoc3ZUKzMGAGA9BwQ_ yours changed to blue belt production for 1 hour. 62894.2 pollution and

https://factoriolab.github.io/list?p=solid-fuel*1*1**express-transport-belt&s=*2&v=1 standard set to same. 61545.3 pollution. i think your own calculator is either off or agrees with me.

1
frumpy3OP•

If you see the math I did, at face value, my calculator agrees with you too - you need to not include the increase in pollution from pump jacks

1
Pulsefel:inserterburner:•

https://factoriolab.github.io/list?z=eJwrcC7RMgRCLUe1ImcDLS2nOqc6r3inDCgLKF7nGO9sCOc61znHO4MpoLJCsLBasZFamTEA9JoU4g__ and now we are down to 12309.1!

1
frumpy3OP•

First link: 62,894 - (31764) = 31,130

Second link: 61545 - (29589) = 31,956

Heavy oil solid fuel is cheaper given a large richness of oil or otherwise low cost of acquiring crude oil

1
Pulsefel:inserterburner:•
  1. pollution generation period is used for evolution. so going the one with least at all is better to reduce that impact.
  2. cloud cares for noone. cloud shall spread no matter where its coming from. id rather my pumpjacks input on the cloud be smaller.
1
Mr_Yeehaw•

Wait, you’re not supposed to burn solid fuel?

1
raptoricus•

You can crack heavy oil into more light oil (I forget the numbers, but if you put in x heavy oil, you'll get y light oil out, and y > x by a not-small amount), and solid fuel takes ten of whatever oil product you choose to make one fuel. So if you have twenty heavy oil, you can make two solid fuels, or if you crack it first you can make like nine solid fuels from the same amount of starting heavy oil.

OP is saying that it technically is less pollution per solid fuel to use heavy oil, which is technically true but I think of dubious usefulness.

1
Argrond•

Just oilify coal with heavy oil and transit heavy to light oil through chemical plants, the game provides with pretty obvious solutions, why make it complicated for no good reason?

-2
frumpy3OP•

I didn’t complicate anything, that’s just completely unrelated

4
Argrond•

Yes, sorry for accusation, me thinking something stupid back there.

2
frumpy3OP•

All good, my original post was a bit of a stupid one as well lol

1
wubadubdub3•

Just oilify coal with heavy oil and transit heavy to light oil through chemical plants

How is this (3 steps), less complicated than heavy oil --> solid fuel?

1