Modular Reservoir

[Gavin786]

This is a design for a modular reservoir system.

It is a multiple of 4 x storage containers, with a 4-pipe feed-in system.

The pipes are configured in such a way as the inputs will not block and liquid will be stored optimally at all times.  Similar design is possible with gas storage somewhat easier because of space constraints being loosened.

System always tries to fill the left-most container first, proceeding to the right, each pipe can fill any container, priorities rotate such that each input pipe is at priority level 1,2,3,4 one time only in a block of 4 storage containers, hence a modular system as it can be extended by a multiple of 4.

I have been trying to get something like this designed/working since I first started on this game, so I hope some people find it useful/helpful at least.

Blueprints mod can be very helpful and I have included the blueprints file if this makes life easier for anyone who wishes to try this out.

I have annotated my screen shots a little bit as there are some comments that my designs have been hard to follow in the past.

Here is a video of the system in action with 2x4 containers = 8 containers.  It can be seen that the system can take 4 full flows of liquid +  :

Here are some more details for those who might wish to build this :

Take note of the order the pipes feed into the system, this is important for proper distribution.

The top and bottom pipes alternate in their priority:

Input pipes need to have priority as then the system can block and back up when full and go through the overflow.

This has been through several iterations to get work correctly, which I am quite pleased with now as I have been wanting a machine that does this for a long time.

Enjoy the design, ONI players.

Gavin786

modularreservoirfull-8bin-4input.blueprint

[SackMaggie]

Here is my approach for this 4 input 1 output, Feed the leftmost first, output the right most one first and always prioritize input.

Spoiler

And things get a bit complicated if you still want to fill the left most one until full while prioritize input.

And here is the power of mod

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1737690640&searchtext=high+flow

 

[Gavin786]

2 hours ago, SackMaggie said:

Here is my approach for this 4 input 1 output, Feed the leftmost first, output the right most one first and always prioritize input.

  Hide contents

And things get a bit complicated if you still want to fill the left most one until full while prioritize input.

And here is the power of mod

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1737690640&searchtext=high+flow

 

It is good design and simple, and for most needs perfect.

Situation I wanted though is if the left-most storage was full then the left input pipe would not block but would fill the next available one instead, so there can be a constant flow of all pipes and never a "waiting" if one of the storage is full.  On this design once left storage gets full then no more input can be accepted on left pipe even though one might have 3 empty storage containers on the right.

It is not so simple to do this, I did go through several iterations before coming up with this design, and have wanted to do it since start of ONI serious play pretty much, its just I wasnt good enough with pipe flow mechanics to pull it off(till now).

Looking again at this design I have actually been through an analogue of this(working with gas tho at the time).  I did try various combinations of bridges to join together the pipes in a series of "IFs", if this is full move to pipe 3 etc etc.  Could never get it to work perfectly.

As far as mods go its my policy(and on KSP also) to use QOL and informational mods, anything to automate/inform but not to alter fundamental properties of the game, so for example autopilot but not a new wing type with properties not in stock gameplay(to continue kerbal analogy).  Scissors is probably only mod I use that breaks this rule, that is a feature really aught to be in stock though.

Gavin786

[Craigjw]

Lots of over-engineering.  I would suggest that if you need this level of complexity for a water reservoir, then you are doing something wrong.

When it comes time to upgrade your base layout or change something, changing anything in that reservoir system is going to be very taxing.  Not to mention, say one of the pipes breaks or you get a rogue pollutant in there, fixing it isn't going to be easy.

When it comes to this type of thing, simplicity is your friend.  I would stick with @SackMaggie suggestion, 100% of the time.

If you need  uninterrupted storage of liquid, use an infinite storage thing. 

 

 

[Marandil]

I also think this is an over-kill. For comparison, this is my gas sorting buffer - 3 ins, 2 outs and gas reservoirs, but it should be relatively easy to add 4th input and change gas to liquid.

Note that in my setup, the top lane has slightly higher priority than the middle and bottom. This is by design, because the top lanes are used for feedback. With four lanes this could be changed to same priority on all lanes by making a full binary tree junctions on ins.

[SackMaggie]

2 hours ago, Marandil said:

Note that in my setup, the top lane has slightly higher priority than the middle and bottom.

I believe the gases will just evenly distributed to the tank, Is it not?

[Lurve]

7 hours ago, Marandil said:

I also think this is an over-kill. For comparison, this is my gas sorting buffer - 3 ins, 2 outs and gas reservoirs, but it should be relatively easy to add 4th input and change gas to liquid.

Note that in my setup, the top lane has slightly higher priority than the middle and bottom. This is by design, because the top lanes are used for feedback. With four lanes this could be changed to same priority on all lanes by making a full binary tree junctions on ins.

It's like watching someone use a sushi belt in Factorio.  What pestilent morass are you draining that you need to handle that kind of variety in waste gases?

[yoakenashi]

I think the OP’s design is awesome, even though I am typically on the other end of the spectrum with my play style. From what I have seen shared on this forum, everyone’s (and I mean everyone’s) base is more organized and more cleanly laid out than mine. Haha.

This design is definitely a build it once and never have to worry about it type of design.

[Marandil]

6 hours ago, SackMaggie said:

I believe the gases will just evenly distributed to the tank, Is it not?

What do you mean exactly? Top Lane has slightly higher prio than the other 2, because (when fully backed up) every other tick it's either top or one of the other two (so effectively 1/2 1/4 and 1/4 ratio for top/mid/not respectively).

Left tank fills first, overflow goes to the second and so on.

3 hours ago, Lurve said:

It's like watching someone use a sushi belt in Factorio.  What pestilent morass are you draining that you need to handle that kind of variety in waste gases?

It's my generic air filtering system, handles all kinds of sources: stray pockets from base (mostly CO2 and sometimes polluted O2), out-of-base cocktail of everything (mostly chlorine, sour gas and polluted O2) gas overflow from hydrogen-filled oil refinery (picks up CO2 and CH4 produced there, but due to the gas pumps nature some packets of H2 also get into the mix), oxygen purification outputs (deodorizer and oxyfern filled rooms, also pick up stray packets).

There are 7 outputs total, but I can add more if I ever encounter a new type of gas in the mix: O2, Cl2, CH4, CO2, polluted O2, sour gas, H2.

[psusi]

@MarandilWhy don't you sort the gasses first?  I prefer to sort them and store each in its own reservoir that then overflows into an infinite storage.  And like someone else said, why do you have such a mix of gasses in the same pipe?  My industrial brick pumping/sorting system just deals with Oxygen ( in case some gets down there ) by dumping it out of a vent higher up, chlorine by sending it to a crusher room ( not really an issue for some time now but no sense destroying it ), and the main two is separating the CO2 to send to the slickster ranch from the NG to store in a reservoir/infinite storage for later consumption.

[Marandil]

@psusi like I said earlier, this is a mix from many different sources, including a cocktail of "outside the base" atmosphere, which is really everything from H2 to sour gas (very little H2 actually, because I only collect the gases that are at the base level, so everything lighter than CO2 and heavier than H2).

I switched to buffering the gases first, then sorting for a few reasons. For one, they pre-sort for free in the buffer, the actual sorting facility mostly gets full packets (if available) regardless of how fragmented the inputs are (I have a few more ideas how to improve on this, but this is slightly off topic). Also, I only actually store CH4 in reservoirs, Cl2 and CO2 are dumped into an infinite storage (well, except for CO2 that's being fed to oxyfern), polluted O2 is deodorized under high pressure, H2 is either burned in generators or made into cryofuel, sour gas is cryo-converted to CH4 and finally O2 is fed back into base for suits.

In summary, only O2, polluted O2 and CH4 will ever overflow and I want to re-sort them almost immediately.

Tbf it was just easier to make one system that can handle everything than to deal with all the corner cases. Of course, not everything is pumped through the system (first), e.g. vent outputs pass through one filter and either go directly to the consumer, or to the sorting facility.

[Fleetfeet]

I think it's generally important to remember that ONI is -not- a game of finite resources that requires efficient and optimal builds. You're gonna run into 'inefficent' builds that do something that feels good, even if not valuable. I like OP's design (and the gas sorter too!) And they're valuable in understanding the mechanics of the game.

[psusi]

@Marandil how do you get sour gas on accident?  Don't you have to build a sour gas boiler to get that?  And why deoderize po2 under high pressure?  I just let filters kick both o2 and po2 back out right near the pump since both are breathable and local deoderizers can clean it if you want.  Why collect it all to a central location first?  Also how many gas pumps do you have collecting stray gasses?  With 4 pipes of input that can handle 8 gas pumps full time.  That is way more than I have ever done.

[beowulf2010]

2 hours ago, psusi said:

@Marandil how do you get sour gas on accident?  

A lot of the time there are tiles of abyssalite at the bottom of the oil biome over 500C. If crude oil hits that, it will quickly take the heat through the flaking mechanism and go pretty much straight to sour gas and a bit of petroleum before cooling to under 300C.

[Gus Smedstad]

For that matter, it's pretty common to find large pockets of sour gas generated on the map at game start. Sometimes you can ignore them, but if you're collecting natural gas from oil wells, you're pumping gas out of the oil biome, and starting sour gas and steam can find its way into your gas extraction system. You may also want to clear a zone of sour gas so you can pump in carbon dioxide for a slickster farm.

It's pretty typical to need a gas pump at the bottom of the base to filter out and store all the non-oxygen gasses. Carbon dioxide's always going to be there, but natural gas from industry can drift down there, as well as chlorine that doesn't get properly filtered as you open gas pockets. Outside the base you may want to filter out polluted oxygen and store it until you can clean it.

In any case, my gas filtration systems are never such a complicated mess of piping. Generally it's a simple series of gas filters.

If you're feeling paranoid about energy usage, you may want to create a set of mechanical gas filters - which is not what I'm seeing in these examples.

[Junksteel]

There will be automation signal on reservoirs next update. It will work exactly like smart batteries. I have no idea if this addition will help this creation anyhow, just throwing the information here.

[Gus Smedstad]

"Test if full" probably won't help filtration setups - I never felt the need - but it'll be pretty nice for petroleum refineries, cooling setups, and water purification. It's currently possible to test if a reservoir is full with plumbing and a sensor, and I've done that to make oil refining more time efficient.