It's going to bother me forever that they're not symmetrical

[QuQuasar]

I wonder if it's possible to set up an elaborate automation system to ensure my saltwater reservoirs are kept level at all times?

Also, can we just take a moment to appreciate the sheer quantities of water in a subsurface ocean? I know it takes a lot of electricity to desalinate it, but daaaang.

[asdf11784]

It'll depend on what your exact requirements are.. I mean, obviously the easiest way to automate it is to just connect the rooms and let it happen on its own.

 

I think for almost all purposes I think the best way to do what I think you want it to do is to just have 2 different pumps in each reservoir - put 1 pump at the top of each reservoir and one pump at the bottom, and then use pipes/bridges to prioritize the pumps on the top, so if any of the pumps on the top are submerged in a liquid they'll be prioritized and the pumps on the bottom won't do anything (ie. the pumps on the bottom will go through a bridge that ends on the top pipeline - bridges used in this way will only allow the salt water through if nothing is flowing through the pipes from the top pumps). This won't strictly keep it even, but it will ensure that they don't overflow (as long as you're spending salt water at least as quickly as it's being produced of course). If you wanted to you could put more pumps in between and make sure they're prioritized from top to bottom to make it have more cutoffs where they try to keep it more even (unless you put a pump on every single elevation it still wouldn't keep it strictly even, but it would for instance allow you to make sure that if one was overflowing it would always be prioritized, and if one was half way full and the other was less than half then it would always be prioritized etc.), but I'm not really sure why you'd ever need that.

[stoeberhai]

in each tank:

- one pump pumping to the other tank
- a hydro sensor for every (relevant) height level
- each hydro sensor connected to a liquid shutoff with a liquid valve
- the valves diminish the throughput to the other tank

so the throughput of the pump depends on the amount of water in the tank. eventually the pumps will be the same

 

or brute force: one pump on every height level, pumping to the other tank. 

 

[natanstarke]

Gotta love the ocean!

[PhailRaptor]

Replace the Ladder and Firepole with some Tubes and connect it into a single tank?

[Blazing Falken]

I couldn't resist a good challenge. I hope you like automation!

This took a few hours to iron out, largely from the inability to mirror the logic gates.. but it works quite well. You will need to move a couple blocks near the bottom to accommodate the lowest hydro sensors.

Overview:

Plumbing: (double pumps for extra speed)

Automation overview: (sensors set for above zero)

Automation closeup of left and right. Left side pretty clean...

...and the Right side. Mirroring logic gates would have prevented this ridiculousness.

I hope this is what you need. Overkill? Maybe. Though I think it's as good as it's going to get, given the restrictions.

 

[Yoma_Nosme]

OMG...all this automation, and all for 2 holes in the right place could do?....I mean..come on...let gravity do the work...That's all I 'll say

[Darkin Coaled]

All you need is two stacks of pumps cross-connected to a column of vents on the other side. The vents need to be stacked in a vent-space-vent fashion and the connections between a pump and vent leading to a vent one level lower than the pump's input level.

[cpy]

Very easy to do in factorio. Sadly we only have true and false here.

[asdf11784]

If you really care about doing this, you can use a pattern something like this: https://imgur.com/a/pQy7xp8

No automation, just piping priorities. The pumps at the top should be prioritized before the ones at the bottom, so the bottom pumps only get used if all of the pumps above them can't pump anything. At most there should be 4 pumps working at a time once it's set up (usually it'll only be 1 pump, but it can potentially go up to 4 under some fairly specific circumstances I think so plan accordingly with your wiring).

 

EDIT: Actually, you can remove half of the pumps - having pumps on the same elevation on each side doesn't really help any with that kind of design.

[Blazing Falken]

7 hours ago, QuQuasar said:

I wonder if it's possible to set up an elaborate automation system to ensure my saltwater reservoirs are kept level at all times?

I believe I was following the spirit of what OP was pondering.

 

[stoeberhai]

9 hours ago, stoeberhai said:

in each tank:

- one pump pumping to the other tank
- a hydro sensor for every (relevant) height level
- each hydro sensor connected to a liquid shutoff with a liquid valve
- the valves diminish the throughput to the other tank

so the throughput of the pump depends on the amount of water in the tank. eventually the pumps will be the same

 

or brute force: one pump on every height level, pumping to the other tank. 

 

 

i changed it to two pumps per side (one per 5 hydros) since the feeder pipe is somewhat limited and there will be alot of backlogging which is a time consuming factor. basically, more pumps are faster. i just made it for the upper ten height levels but the system is scalable. the valves are set to x = 10.000 / (sum of valves)

this system is "dumb" and constantly running tho. but you could connect all pumps with a switch or sensor to manually de-/activate the "leveler". or use alot of automation to check if the same amount of hydros are active on both sides.

[Saturnus]

If you're willing to use a continuous 240W then this will do it without needing any automation.

Valves are set to 5000g/s each so they merge into a single pipe. Then with bridges that pipe is siphoned off to the first available vent that isn't blocked. Over time this will make the two reservoirs even. However, it will not stop even at that point so you have to be prepared for a constant 240W power consumption.

[stoeberhai]

7 hours ago, asdf11784 said:

EDIT: Actually, you can remove half of the pumps - having pumps on the same elevation on each side doesn't really help any with that kind of design.

indeed. they just circle useless amounts.

[Slvrsrfr]

my ocd loves this thread. I'm really glad a few took a moment to figure it out, and show the work. Thanks!