Is the meter valve not precise?

[myxal]

Is anyone else using meter valves in high-precision applications?

I put a sauna (the recreation building) into my base, the steam is provided by an "old faithful" (cool slush + volcano) well outside the base. Not wanting to loop steam and run 2 pipes, I'm having an element sensor watch the sauna's output pipe for water, and  through a counter sensor set to "advanced, 1",  trigger a meter valve down in the steam room, after every use to deliver 25 kg.

Over a dozen cycles or so I see that there's extra steam backed up in pipes ahead of the sauna. Sometimes just a few milligrams, other times an extra full packet.

Any idea why this happens and/or how to avoid it? Game was saved/reloaded over the period.

• I suppose I could route it back, but that'd defeat the original goal of avoiding the pipe loop
• Perhaps overflow into a gas valve, and dump the steam inside the base? Would <= 10g packets of super-cooled steam disappear without making water puddles?

[6Havok9]

1 hour ago, myxal said:

Is anyone else using meter valves in high-precision applications?

I put a sauna (the recreation building) into my base, the steam is provided by an "old faithful" (cool slush + volcano) well outside the base. Not wanting to loop steam and run 2 pipes, I'm having an element sensor watch the sauna's output pipe for water, and  through a counter sensor set to "advanced, 1",  trigger a meter valve down in the steam room, after every use to deliver 25 kg.

Over a dozen cycles or so I see that there's extra steam backed up in pipes ahead of the sauna. Sometimes just a few milligrams, other times an extra full packet.

Any idea why this happens and/or how to avoid it? Game was saved/reloaded over the period.

• I suppose I could route it back, but that'd defeat the original goal of avoiding the pipe loop
• Perhaps overflow into a gas valve, and dump the steam inside the base? Would <= 10g packets of super-cooled steam disappear without making water puddles?

From my experience, they sometimes fail on save/load, while rapidly pausing and unpausing, or after playing for some time (one hour or more, potato pc)

They also can fail if not processing full packets, resulting in those weird amounts remaining or slipping through, which makes no sense. Rounding errors? I have double bridges and buffers before the valves, hoping to avoid this situation.

I use another valve to add small amounts of fluid if somehow something is missing, but when there's backup and too much of it, I just rely on a notifier... and a plumber.

I don't think a less than 10g packet of supercooled steam necessarily disappears when exiting a vent, however, if it's not deleted by nearby gasses, the resulting droplet should form a puddle that then gets deleted. Never tested it, but seems a sound idea. I'll try it for sure in saunas.

[Tigin]

Klei attempted to address this bug awhile back during the Packed Snack update to uh.. mixed reception. It was reverted but it means a naive build will ocasionally have an excess packet slip through for using the conveyor meter "correctly". You need to ensure that there are no packets on the intake before it's reset (i.e. through a shutoff valve)

Edited December 8, 2025 by Tigin

[JRup]

29 minutes ago, Tigin said:

mixed reception

Mixed results when operating the piece of equipment will lead to that.

Getting more from it wasn't too terrible an issue if you knew how to compensate for that, but the whole thing stalling altogether was sort of a deal breaker. Sort of.

[myxal]

4 hours ago, Tigin said:

Klei attempted to address this bug awhile back during the Packed Snack update to uh.. mixed reception. It was reverted but it means a naive build will ocasionally have an excess packet slip through for using the conveyor meter "correctly". You need to ensure that there are no packets on the intake before it's reset (i.e. through a shutoff valve)

Any links/hints to details? I skimmed the changelogs of U50 and U51 releases and following hotfixes, and didn't find any mention of "meter" relating to these valves.

[Tigin]

It seems they ninja'd that detail out of the patch notes. What I usually do is add a shutoff valve that's controlled by the meter valve's "Limit Reached", so the shutoff valve will only accept packets if the outgoing meter valve can accept packets. For non-even amounts like 25kg you'll want an overflow on the meter itself so the excess 5kg doesn't remain within the system. It's important the shutoff is immediately before the meter too.

[6Havok9]

4 hours ago, Tigin said:

Klei attempted to address this bug awhile back during the Packed Snack update to uh.. mixed reception. It was reverted but it means a naive build will ocasionally have an excess packet slip through for using the conveyor meter "correctly". You need to ensure that there are no packets on the intake before it's reset (i.e. through a shutoff valve)

Can you explain this? I shut them off with a power shutoff, while I let them auto reset, and I do not see this problem, even if they have incoming (full) packets waiting on the intake tile.

[Tigin]

1 minute ago, 6Havok9 said:

Can you explain this? I shut them off with a power shutoff, while I let them auto reset, and I do not see this problem, even if they have incoming (full) packets waiting on the intake tile.

A power shutoff would also work fine since it forces the reset to happen separate from the conduit flow

[myxal]

4 hours ago, Tigin said:

For non-even amounts like 25kg you'll want an overflow on the meter itself so the excess 5kg doesn't remain within the system.

Sauna uses steam ie I'm referring to the gas meter valve where 25 kg is a whole number of full packets, though I have to say I did see non-full packets appearing randomly in the middle of the batch when using a naive setup (2x pump -> t-junction -> meter valve -> sauna).

I've switched to a multibridge buffer to see if that helps things:

 

EDIT: Nope. The weird fractions are gone but there's still a random extra packet of steam.

Edited December 8, 2025 by myxal

[Kderosa]

On 12/8/2025 at 1:49 PM, myxal said:

Nope. The weird fractions are gone but there's still a random extra packet of steam.

Eliminate the meter valve and put a return back to the steam room with a memory toggle to stop the pump when the steam overflows into the return.  If the pressure is more than 20 kg, put a gas reservoir in the steam room to accept the returned steam. Use radiant pipes in the steam room to keep the steam at a suitably high temperature to prevent condensation. The meter valve is too unreliable. 

[myxal]

A belated thanks for the tip, though I've already deployed another solution:

• have 2 meter valves, set to 22 and 25 kg
• a filtered, or double-bridged pipe elements sensor 3 segments away from the sauna input
• logic to make the "fill up" signal reach the correct meter valve

Spoiler