Should oil refineries require manpower?

[Daikataro]

So, title pretty self-explainatory, would like to hear your thoughts about the topic of oil refineries requiring constant dupe attention, to turn crude oil into petroleum. I don't think they should require any manpower at all, or at least, just very ocassional visits because:

-Everything else in the refining tab is fire and forget, and does basically the same, turning a raw/waste product into a more useful one. The only excemption would be compost, which requires very eventual turning, but is an entry-level building to compensate

-It doesn't make much sense for dupes to be tending to a building that is basically just performing a simple, repetitive task 

-The output is pretty pale, and multiple refineries are required to mantain a steady supply of petroleum. Four refineries in my base are barely able to provide for one petroleum generator and two plastic presses, without any excess storage.

 

If petroleum is intended to be more than just a gimmick, and actually used as a serious power source, or building material, I think mass production of it should not require dupes running the refineries 24/7 just to have enough to run a simple generator, whose power mostly goes to running the refineries in the first place. Petroleum generator already has an absurdly high entry fee as it is, being top-tier technology, and requiring plastic, which by itself is already hard enough to obtain, so it should be the type of tech that is hard to get to, but very sustainable and convenient once achieved. Right now, I see zero benefit from switching to petroleum, as opposed to just using my natural gas and hydrogen generated from electrolyzers, and maybe if I need more natural gas just setting up a fertilizer farm for the natural gas and maybe hatch poop.

 

I would even go as far as thinking, that four dupes running on hamster wheels generate more power than what is gained from four bodies operating a refinery each, and burning the petroleum; could be wrong, but even if so, I wouldn't think the benefit is very high, since the benefit of high tech power solutions, is supposed to be the decreased need of manpower.

[Whispershade]

1 hour ago, Daikataro said:

I would even go as far as thinking, that four dupes running on hamster wheels generate more power than what is gained from four bodies operating a refinery each, and burning the petroleum; could be wrong, but even if so, I wouldn't think the benefit is very high

Let us say the four dupes operate each refinery for exactly half a cycle. That is enough petroleum for 3 generators plus some left over for a polymer press. As well as enough nat gas for two generators, which more than offsets the refinery power cost.

Thats over 6kw of power against 0.8kw for the same amount of dupe time on wheels.

[Michi01]

I think it's good that we're getting more things that need duplicant operation and/or make the tinkering stat a bit more useful, like this and the oil well.
As Whispershade pointed out, it's still more efficient than dupes running on wheels and I think by the time you're using oil you should be able to sustain extra dupes to operate the refineries.

[Daikataro]

38 minutes ago, Whispershade said:

Let us say the four dupes operate each refinery for exactly half a cycle. That is enough petroleum for 3 generators plus some left over for a polymer press. As well as enough nat gas for two generators, which more than offsets the refinery power cost.

Thats over 6kw of power against 0.8kw for the same amount of dupe time on wheels.

On raw numbers yes, but you have to take in account that each refinery consumes 480W of power for operating, as opposed to the hamster wheels not requiring power at all.

I DO have enough dupes to operate the refinieries, but was more concerned about it not making much sense, neither empirically (real world refineries run on auto-pilot most of the time), nor economically, when taking in account the 480W of power required per-refinery.

 

EDIT: i did not totally catch the natural gas part, but I am not getting nearly enough of the stuff, perhaps I am getting some bug, or an improper setup? Nat gas directly simmers down to a reservoir below the refineries, and I barely have some trace amounts of the stuff, after running for some cycles. Will further continue and see if there is more.

[WanderingKid]

12 minutes ago, Daikataro said:

EDIT: i did not totally catch the natural gas part, but I am not getting nearly enough of the stuff, perhaps I am getting some bug, or an improper setup? Nat gas directly simmers down to a reservoir below the refineries, and I barely have some trace amounts of the stuff, after running for some cycles. Will further continue and see if there is more.

Is your oilwell discharging regularly?  There's a good amount from that, too.

[Risu]

Worth mention that you spend 907.2W optimally to generate 2000W with a bonus 1280W of gas.
I'd say a little manual labor and water is worth the cost.
 

[Daikataro]

2 minutes ago, WanderingKid said:

Is your oilwell discharging regularly?  There's a good amount from that, too.

No operating oilwell yet, as there is a very large patch of oil already harvestable in the biome, so no need to extract any more yet. Will run the refineries for a few more cycles then report findings.

[goboking]

I envision my asteroid utopia being an automated one in which my dupes spend all day laying on the massage table while their robot butlers prepare their dinner so naturally I'd prefer the oil refinery to be automated.  That said, I do understand that my preferred end-game and Klei's vision for the game may not align, so I'm cool with whatever they do.

[MidnightSteam]

I see a solution to your problem but the technology is not there yet. At around 402 celcius Crude Oil turns into Petroleum at a 1:1 ratio. So somehow somewhere you need to heat a room to around 402 celcius.

And then turns into Natural Gas around 541 celcius

I will let you guys figure out the math comparing the Natural gas generator to the Petroleum generator.

 

To answer your question: Yeah, dupes should be required to run the refinery. There may be a better way to refine oil as of now and maybe even better in the future.

 

 

[Coolthulhu]

I like the idea of petroleum generator being balanced by dupe work, but I just can't justify using it in current state.

Two geysers can power four natgas gens for a total of 3.2kW. With a bunch of fertilizer makers this can be increased further (didn't do the math, but I'd expect 4kW to be doable). That's enough for all but the biggest colonies. Natgas gens are easier to set up and produce less waste (especially the dreaded waste heat), they will not overheat at barely scalding temperatures, don't need to be sealed with a pump to contain CO2.

While "what else are you going to do with that oil/slacking dupes?" is a good reason to consider oil generators, there are better options for about 98% of colonies.

[CfSapper]

Don't forget for every G of CO2 that could be turned back into crude oil by slicksters

[NanoD]

How it works right now, dont see much use for petroleum generator at the moment.

It would be nice if you could make it run with certain intervalls much like the massage table. You could set it to start to run at 50% battery and then stop if it gets to 80% or what ever else you would like.

Should oil refineries require manpower? I dont really mind if it do take man power. 

[LeadfootSlim]

6 hours ago, Coolthulhu said:

I like the idea of petroleum generator being balanced by dupe work, but I just can't justify using it in current state.

Two geysers can power four natgas gens for a total of 3.2kW. With a bunch of fertilizer makers this can be increased further (didn't do the math, but I'd expect 4kW to be doable). That's enough for all but the biggest colonies. Natgas gens are easier to set up and produce less waste (especially the dreaded waste heat), they will not overheat at barely scalding temperatures, don't need to be sealed with a pump to contain CO2.

While "what else are you going to do with that oil/slacking dupes?" is a good reason to consider oil generators, there are better options for about 98% of colonies.

I think one appeal of petroleum is that it's a way to use the waste product from your natural gas generators; CO2 gets eaten by Slicksters, then you convert the oil to Petroleum and finally Plastic to sequester it as part of your base. Carbon Skimmers are all well and good, but the more options for purging CO2 the better.

I'm a little ambivalent about how easy fertilizer makers are to use for natural gas, though. I like what some people have suggested as far as having Fertilizer "tile up" like sand to entomb the building if left completely sealed.

[Risu]

10 minutes ago, LeadfootSlim said:

I'm a little ambivalent about how easy fertilizer makers are to use for natural gas, though. I like what some people have suggested as far as having Fertilizer "tile up" like sand to entomb the building if left completely sealed.

Or the more fun approach: make the fertilizer maker require man power.
 

[LeadfootSlim]

1 minute ago, Risu said:

Or the more fun approach: make the fertilizer maker require man power.
 

Yea, maybe... but the entombment approach would be open to future automation with any future mechanics for auto-handling items. Just as optimal Natural Gas generator designs incorporate Mesh Tiles, optimal Fertilizer Maker designs in the future might require top-tech item handling, requiring dupe labor in the interim.

[Daikataro]

Well thanks a lot everyone, this has been quite enlightening. So from the looks of it, right now, oil is basically just a gimmick and not much more. Sure the power output can be good when finally set up correctly but, as has been said, there are much more efficient, much easier alternatives to power a base, that do not require the complexity and waste that petroleum generators create, such as the aforementioned fertilizer/natural gas setup, and the only help from oil are the traps which allow for hatch relocation, to set them free at the fertilizer making facility and make even more energy via hatch poop, turning what is essentially a useless resource (fertilizer) into a power source (coal)

So here's my thoughts, after all the points made about oil

-I do agree that once properly set up, oil can be a feasible source of energy. It is however less convenient than most alternatives, specially natural gas which is abundant and easy to harness. Oil also generates huge amounts of waste when compared to alternatives

-Plastic is currently hatch relocation and not much more. As mentioned previously in these forums, by the time you can craft plastic tiles and ladders, dupes will have at least 11 agility, and be zooming all over the base, most of them being afflicted by the "roadrunner syndrome" (they run in place for a few seconds before dashing away)

-Heat-based conversion of oil to petroleum would be... troublesome to say the least, as handling a fluid at such temperature would provide quite the hassle for any but the most rube-goldbergish of setups.

 

While oil usage for power can be viable, it's not particularly effective or appealing as it is; it was a fun distraction but certainly not a mainstay for energy source, as opposed to natural gas, which I think will be the main power source of my colony for at least this patch. Would like to see a rebalance on that topic, as a fertilizer/hatch poop combo is currently unbeatable as the most efficient power gen setup.

[Whispershade]

4 hours ago, Risu said:

Or the more fun approach: make the fertilizer maker require man power.
 

Heh, yeah. That would nerf the heck out of fertilizer makers for energy production.

As it is now I am curious if converting CO2 to polluted water is more energy rich then to convert to crude.

[Technoincubus]

I almost never use them for this reason. manual operation makes me put them waaaay to the bottom of my priorities.

And this is the reason that I would rather build a huge fertilizer power plant than one petroleum generator.