Overflow not working

[Jules Casey]

Okay, I need some advice why this doesn't work. I tried to implement an automatic decontamination of polluted water from my lavatories/sínks in a chlorine chamber. I used a slightly modified (basically mirrored) design by Francis John (at this time, most of my stuff is like paint by numbers, as I'm still beginning to learn the mechanics).

I thought I had it covered how overflow works by now, but... it seems I don't. I don't have an image uploader, so please find the screenshot below the post.

Water comes in from the left (Red arrow pointing right), immediately goes into a bridge and gets transferred to the first tank, from there one tank leads to the other. After the last tank, a liquid shutoff prevents the germy water from going out. This gets activated by the liquid element sensor between the second bridge. And it works insofar, as the sensor registers polluted water in the pipe, and sends a signal to the shutoff to release some water from the last tank.

The problem is: The third tank to the left does not release any water into the last tank (the pipes where the star is). I don't really understand why - the last tank is starting to empty, as you can see there is only 16.2 tons left in it - so there is more than enough space for water from the third tank. So why, WHY doesn't it flow from the third tank to the last? Because of this, all other tanks stay topped off, and the backlog from the toilets has caused them to stop working, messes are all around... help!

 

 

[FutureJohny]

This is odd, I would try restaring the game, rebuilding and adding a bridge, in this order.

[DarkMoge]

13 minutes ago, Jules Casey said:

16.2 tons left in it

ummm, you are using some sort of mod, because, normally, tanks have a limit of 5t of liquid... 16t is already way above normal. I am not sure when ever it is causing that behavior... But looking at your design, I am also wondering where are you getting rid from the water? If you do not get rid from it somewhere, eventually you will have all tanks full.

[Jules Casey]

Yes, I am using a bigger storage mod... and for the water going off, you might notice the arrow pointing down, where the liquid shutoff is.

Edit: Case solved. For some reason, the game just decides to disable all mods when I start it - without telling me of that fact, of course. So the tanks were simply full, thats why no water moved between them...

[DarkMoge]

Yes, but the picture does not show what exactly happens to water after it goes down

[Jules Casey]

Yeah, because that is not important, it just gets moved to some sieves and to my main water storage

[bzgzd]

31 minutes ago, Jules Casey said:

I don't have an image uploader, so please find the screenshot below the post.

If you want to insert image at specific location in post there is "+" button on the image after you upload it to klei forum and it will insert where your cursor is.

 

16 minutes ago, DarkMoge said:

ummm, you are using some sort of mod, because, normally, tanks have a limit of 5t of liquid... 16t is already way above normal. I am not sure when ever it is causing that behavior... But looking at your design, I am also wondering where are you getting rid from the water? If you do not get rid from it somewhere, eventually you will have all tanks full.

If I understand this system correctly, he wants to have all tanks full. That sensor at start tests if they are full and water is released only when tanks are full (so it stays in chlorine long enough).

But I also think this might be mod issue.

 

[CDoroFF]

1 hour ago, Jules Casey said:

Yes, I am using a bigger storage mod...

And seems like it stop working. Pipes between 3rd and 4th tanks are full, bet, water will not go in last tank until water level drops down below 5t. To check that just save the game and try to empty the last tank somwhere.

[DarkMoge]

Well, also, it might help if I give you some explanation how overflow is supposed to work... Because... Well, the overflow you are using is really weird, one is supposed to attach overflow at the end, not in the start.
First of all, you need to understand the mechanic of how pipes work. If you have a row of inlets like this:


Than just like the picture shows, the 100% of the water will go through first inlet and none will reach 2nd inlet. That is, as long as there is some space in the 1st output for the water to go somewhere. Overflow is meant to detect that your 1st output is full...
The way that I do overflow is something like this:


The flow of water first tries to enter the tank of water and if it cant, it will start flowing towards the pipe bridge. Somewhere on the pipe, I place element sensor to read that the overflow happened...
Now, the most common mistake is adding another input somewhere inbetween:


The water in that case will refuse to flow towards the tank, because the game sees "output" first and the game will believe that its supposed to flow from that output. 
The way you did your overflow is pretty odd, but I do not see you doing this mistake... At least, it is not in the picture... Sooo, I am led to believe that your mod is the problem.

[KerbinCenturion]

3 hours ago, DarkMoge said:

Well, also, it might help if I give you some explanation how overflow is supposed to work... Because... Well, the overflow you are using is really weird, one is supposed to attach overflow at the end, not in the start.
First of all, you need to understand the mechanic of how pipes work. If you have a row of inlets like this:


Than just like the picture shows, the 100% of the water will go through first inlet and none will reach 2nd inlet. That is, as long as there is some space in the 1st output for the water to go somewhere. Overflow is meant to detect that your 1st output is full...
The way that I do overflow is something like this:


The flow of water first tries to enter the tank of water and if it cant, it will start flowing towards the pipe bridge. Somewhere on the pipe, I place element sensor to read that the overflow happened...
Now, the most common mistake is adding another input somewhere inbetween:


The water in that case will refuse to flow towards the tank, because the game sees "output" first and the game will believe that its supposed to flow from that output. 
The way you did your overflow is pretty odd, but I do not see you doing this mistake... At least, it is not in the picture... Sooo, I am led to believe that your mod is the problem.

Mate, this is way easier, the liquid (or gas if done with gas pipes) will always go through the first "input" and thus will flow through the bridge first then only when it is backed up it will then pass past the bridge and through the second pipe which can lead anywhere you want, in this instance it is just exiting the pipe into my world