How to handle Oil

[Soulwind]

So, I need some advice.  I tend to run my bases for a few hundred cycles (150-200) before I start a new base.

(That's usually about the time the next upgrade comes out).  So, because of that I have never gotten down into the Oil biome

and I've never really done anything with Oil at all.  [I'm currently using dreckos for plastic, but this is really the first time I've 

even done anything with plastic too].  This new base however has a leaky oil fissure (406 g/s at 326 C) just outside of the starter

biome.  So I'm now trying to figure out what to do with it.

Do I try to heat it up more for the conversion to petro and natural gas?  How?  Can I even heat it more without using magma?

Or do I try to cool it down somehow (200 C !!) so that I can pump it into a refinery?  Or do I just block it off and ignore it?

I just don't know.  Advice?  [FYI - I would like to make more plastic than what I'm getting (slowly) out of the dreckos, but I could also

really use the power from a petro generator [or natural gas] before my coal starts running low].

 

 

[clickrush]

The easiest way to get to oil is just to dig straight down with a ladder. The oil biome is full of large oil pockets. It's really not that far. The leaky oil fissure is a source of hot oil but if you don't boil it or don't have anything else to heat up with it then I'd just leave it and dig for easier to handle oil.

Even if you do find a volcano to boil it you still probably have to cool it first so you can pump it. I would most likely just mix it with more oil from another source until it is at pumping temperature.

[Gonhog]

Just remember to make a hydrogen filled room for your Polymer Presses and just plug in a wheezwort next to it. Hook it up to a thermo sensor and you can make sure it'll never overheat.

[0xFADE]

You've got to wait a little while at least to have a suit or 2 before getting in to rescue a slickster and start a horde.

I've got a leaky right outside my base that I haven't touched yet as well.  I thought maybe i'd try and cool it down(by boiling polluted water) to move somewhere or just give it a straight path to the oil biome and whatever.

Boiling oil is definitely something you want to do later on but you don't have to worry about it for awhile.  I've gotten a few hundred cycles off 40ish tiles of magma and i've still got quite a few more cycles left before I have to dig deeper.

Oh yeah i'm almost on cycle 700 now and the temperature is still around a thousand on that small amount I tapped.

This has been running problem free.  The top reservoir is being cooled by 1 tuner and is around 80-90 degrees.

I've got another one running on top of a copper geyser that has consumed all the excess heat it had built up.

 

[avc15]

To cook oil into petro/NG, and cool it back down for use, takes quite a bit of setup. It's pretty advanced stuff.

Why not just the first time, break into a pool of oil and pipe it into a refinery? Wasteful but very quick, and works just fine.

[Cypher-7]

@Soulwind I was going to write and identical post earlier today but didn’t have time! I struggle with the same thing.

 

@avc15 so I just finished digging down into a pool of oil and pumped it up to a refinery. I don’t really have the refinery part setup yet so I’m not producing pretrolium yet. Why do you say it’s wasteful? Do you have a different set up that can be used? I really just want to make plastics eventually, have never made it that far before.

 

Sorry soulwind hope you don’t mind if I jump in your thread. 

[0xFADE]

may as well make some petroleum if you have not yet.  It is great to use as a coolant inside a metal refinery to do pretty much anything you want with that heat. 

Though the new dreckos are very good for plastic.  They produce 150kg a shearing.  Way too efficient compared to how much work the polymer press is.

[PhailRaptor]

2 hours ago, Cypher-7 said:

@avc15 so I just finished digging down into a pool of oil and pumped it up to a refinery. I don’t really have the refinery part setup yet so I’m not producing pretrolium yet. Why do you say it’s wasteful? Do you have a different set up that can be used? I really just want to make plastics eventually, have never made it that far before.

It's considered wasteful to use the Refinery to convert Oil to Petro because of the conversion rate of the machine.  Each Refinery can process 10 kg/s of Crude into 5 kg/s of Petro, and 60 g/s of NatGas.  You're losing ~49.99% of the mass consumed there.  Compare this to a Boiler build.  Instead of running the Crude to a Refinery, instead you just heat it.  First the Crude will transform into Petro, and then the Petro will boil into NatGas.  You don't lose any mass that way.

Perhaps more importantly, the Refinery requires a Dupe working the machine in order for it to function.  As opposed to an Oil Boiler, which you can set up with Automation to be 100% automatic.

[Carnis]

Setting up a broiler vs setting up a liquidlocked oil refinery shouldnt Be compared. Setting up a refinery takes seconds (wall it, liquid insulate it, pump out co2) whereas ng boiler needs hours of work and several cycles to Set up. If you store your petrol in pipes the dupe labortime will Be minimal. Also the natural gas powers the process.

[Mutineer]

To have early access to plastic could be very beneficial to your colony. From high-pressure vents to beds to other convenience. So, just be happy and convert your oil to plastic without the need to dig deep down.

[abud]

Currently I used this to cool down oil from fissure and boil polluted water from surrounding biome at the same time

Recently I tried to get electricity of it, which is big fail because oil around fissure will cooled down fast every time that turbine working. It still spin few seconds every few cycle or so, but negligible.

Main idea is using PW from surrounding biome to cool down steam. When they reach 90C output those PW into hot oil and create another steam. Of course for initial steam we need to bypass that 90C limit.

Spoiler

Currently I open manually wall beside pump to pump colder oil and rake all dirt in the floor. This happen every around 30-50 cycles when I think there is many oil sitting down there. That oil fissure only 394 g/s, so it is slow.

[Argelle]

@abud does this cooling set up still work? and the steam generator produce a little bit of power from time to time?

Why transmit heat to metal tiles and then steam generator from oil at the left of fissure ? The genrator acts as a giant radiotor?

[Christophlette]

1 hour ago, Argelle said:

Why transmit heat to metal tiles and then steam generator from oil at the left of fissure ? The genrator acts as a giant radiotor?

Heating a tile just beneath the steam turbine makes it think the steam is hot enough. And it will work even if the steam is only 105°C I think.

It is used in the chlorine variant where you heat a very small amount of chlorine just beneath the steam turbine. And because it's a very small amount, it never loses heat.

This build lose heat but it can act as a heating method for steam. Or a cooler for crude oil.

[abud]

1 hour ago, Argelle said:

steam generator produce a little bit of power from time to time

yes, unfortunately very little

1 hour ago, Argelle said:

Why transmit heat to metal tiles and then steam generator from oil at the left of fissure ?

It is exploiting a bug in the steam turbine. Currently, it is checking temperature from anything directly under (supposed to check steam temperature only). As long that metal is above 270C (I forgot exact min temperature), turbine will have sufficient temperature.

[Argelle]

Thanks for the reminder you two

So at the time the screenshot was taken, oil is at 170.6°C, and unless steam is above 270°C, the turbine's not working.

I'll use your design as an oil cooler (primary) so it's no big deal.

[Argelle]

Oh. Oh.

I was lurking at this bad boy (oil fissure) for hundred of cycles,, waiting for it to get dormant, and as soon at it went to sleep, I start the work.

Spoiler

work = blunt plagiat of abud design, yes

And it seems to be a 90% time up geyser, because it erupted one cycle later !!

So I have time to ask a few questions.

* what purpose serve the metal tiles to the right? why not only 3 metal tiles to the steam gen ?

I did spend 30 minutes to find an automation (doors pump + default state 010), so to check it up, do you @abud still have a screen of your automation layer?

* what I wish to achieve, moving oil from right to left and by default vacuum in the middle:

* what I came up with:

Test in progess in game, but I do not use debug mod, so it may take more time than your answers

[greggbert]

On 5/30/2018 at 6:49 PM, Gonhog said:

Just remember to make a hydrogen filled room for your Polymer Presses and just plug in a wheezwort next to it. Hook it up to a thermo sensor and you can make sure it'll never overheat.

How do your dupes pick up the plastic without blowing hydrogen out the door?

[tove96]

1 hour ago, greggbert said:

How do your dupes pick up the plastic without blowing hydrogen out the door?

Autosweeper, probably. Or a waterlock I suppose that's also possible.

 

Since we're talking about oil, can someone please explain what an oil reservoir is, in the game? Because I have no idea how to use the oil well.

[greggbert]

LOL I've never used any of the shipping stuff yet.  I don't even know how it works.  Maybe I just like to see dupes hauling crap.   

So an auto-sweeper or conveyor rail can transport items trough walls?  That's super convenient!

[fifty_ducks]

The oil refinery produces 5kg petroleum and almost perfectly ratios to 1 Petroleum Generator and 3x Plastic Refineries. Set up camp next to AETN and figure out how to make a cool little system to sweeper out the plastic from the sealed AETN. If you can alternatively power the stuff with a nearby NG geyser or oodles of coal, you can skip the petrol generator and do 6x plastic makers. The convenience of self-powering with a properly buffered petrol generator cannot be denied.

There is so much oil in the oil biome not even including well geysers, that boiling your oil into petroleum versus refining is a huge wasted effort unless you want to subject yourself to it intentionally.