Why the hate on Oil Wells

[greenpheonix632]

I consider myself an experienced ONI player as i have played since alpha and have 227 hours on the game, but i don't understand why the oil well is so underused. It makes 3333.33g/s of oil and also makes Nat gas (doesn't display on structure info but is made as backpressure). I understand it uses water but late game you should have plenty if you use a super compressor

[caffeinated21]

For me, I've just never played long enough to need it. There is so much oil already on the map that, when supplemented with slicksters, I've never run low. I've gone as far as building one, hooked up to hydro sensor for when my oil ran low, it hasn't yet. Long, long term, it's water positive to use as long as you have enough heat to boil the oil: 1kg/s water -> 3.3kg/s oil -> 3.3kg/s NG -> 2.5kg/s PW -> 2.5k/s water. And that's not even counting the side NG you get from the oil well, or the additional oil you get from your slickster CO2. 

[greenpheonix632]

6 minutes ago, caffeinated21 said:

For me, I've just never played long enough to need it. There is so much oil already on the map that, when supplemented with slicksters, I've never run low. I've gone as far as building one, hooked up to hydro sensor for when my oil ran low, it hasn't yet. Long, long term, it's water positive to use as long as you have enough heat to boil the oil: 1kg/s water -> 3.3kg/s oil -> 3.3kg/s NG -> 2.5kg/s PW -> 2.5k/s water. And that's not even counting the side NG you get from the oil well, or the additional oil you get from your slickster CO2. 

i personally find slicksters simply cannot produce enough oil i need and are only useful for removing co2

[caffeinated21]

Are you running a lot of petrol generators? 

[AndreyKl]

7 minutes ago, greenpheonix632 said:

i personally find slicksters simply cannot produce enough oil i need and are only useful for removing co2

What do you use that much oil for? Mass production of plastic? Nat gas power? Petroleum power?

[greenpheonix632]

Just now, caffeinated21 said:

Are you running a lot of petrol generators? 

i use 1 petrol gen for my power supply, base requires fairly little power. i also have a bunch of coal gens as backup power. the main consumer is plastic as i like to get 20 Tons+ so i can build large amounts of plastic ladders and tubes. i have 3 polymer presses and 2 refineries and i'm storing petrol in a supercompressor for use later on

1 minute ago, AndreyKl said:

What do you use that much oil for? Mass production of plastic? Nat gas power? Petroleum power?

hey i'm American, i geuss its genetic to like oil, tho seriosly i like that the well is basically a water to watt convertor 

[AndreyKl]

1 minute ago, greenpheonix632 said:

i use 1 petrol gen for my power supply

As I understand, that thing is extremely ineffective in comparison to nat gas. Converting petroleum to nat gas and burning for power is supposedly dozen times more effective.

[greenpheonix632]

Just now, AndreyKl said:

As I understand, that thing is extremely ineffective in comparison to nat gas. Converting petroleum to nat gas and burning for power is supposedly dozen times more effective.

the recent nerf to natural gas gens and the fertilzer maker makes natural gas lets viable than petrol to me. just my opinion so don't attack me any natural gas fanboys

[caffeinated21]

All the cool kids these days boil their oil 

[AndreyKl]

8 minutes ago, caffeinated21 said:

All the cool kids these days boil their oil 

Not everybody has access to heat sources, sometimes you get to oil wells long before any magma. But if you have, single slickster can support couple gas generators, which is OP. 

[Zarquan]

Oil wells are great.  If you take the oil well outputs and boil them to natural gas, then you get 2500 g/s of water (through nat gas generators), with is a 1500 g/s gain, ignoring feeding CO2 to slicksters.  If you include slicksters and boiling their oil too, then you get 2857 g/s of water, which is a 1857 g/s profit. 

My thinking is that they are basic.  There aren't any builds that show them because there isn't much to show.  All the boilers have crude oil sources.  My thinking is that they are probably from oil wells.

3 minutes ago, AndreyKl said:

Not everybody has access to heat sources, sometimes you get to oil wells long before any magma. 

@Neotuck is actually working on a boiler with a glass forge as the heat source.  Now, everyone has a heat source!  It's not very good yet, but it has potential.

 

[Neotuck]

I got lucky on a world seed with my last game and found a volcano next to an oil well.  This was my attempt at an oil boiler at the time.  Unfortunately that was Ranch II and the seed no longer works with Cosmic.   I been looking for another world seed with a volcano near an oil well ever since 

[AndreyKl]

2 minutes ago, Zarquan said:

 

@Neotuck is actually working on one with a glass forge as the heat source.  Now, everyone has a heat source!

Yeah, I saw that topic, but capacity is limited, plus you need infinite amount of sand which you might not have (I haven't started cosmic update map yet, decided to wait for next update or two, so not sure how easy it is to get to the top).

[Neotuck]

1 minute ago, AndreyKl said:

plus you need infinite amount of sand which you might not have (I haven't started cosmic update map yet, decided to wait for next update or two, so not sure how easy it is to get to the top).

It takes hundreds of cycles to run out of sand and by that time there will be thousands of tons of regolith on the surface

[greenpheonix632]

9 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

I got lucky on a world seed with my last game and found a volcano next to an oil well.  This was my attempt at an oil boiler at the time.  Unfortunately that was Ranch II and the seed no longer works with Cosmic.   I been looking for another world seed with a volcano near an oil well ever since 

if you use the copy and paste tools in debug mode you can but an oil well near a volcano. i'd be interested to see what you could make

[Neotuck]

1 minute ago, greenpheonix632 said:

if you use the copy and paste tools in debug mode you can but an oil well near a volcano. i'd be interested to see what you could make

oh I have a copy of all volcanoes, geysers, and vents for testing on debug mode.  I once attempted to put an oil refinery next to an oil well and made it my main natural gas storage from the boiler.

Unfortunately I found out the oil refinery stops working in too much pressure

[Grimgaw]

55 minutes ago, AndreyKl said:

Not everybody has access to heat sources

Last time I checked there's tons (like 1000's of) of magma and regolith on every map.

[Technoincubus]

You have to bring water down, then bring oil up then clear the room of all byproducts. Better boil the oil for natgas and use tons of slicksters for oil nput

[Zarquan]

27 minutes ago, Technoincubus said:

You have to bring water down, then bring oil up then clear the room of all byproducts. Better boil the oil for natgas and use tons of slicksters for oil nput

But the oil wells are another source of input that supplement the whole system.  You get more water than you spend, more CO2 for your slicksters, and more power.  Not to mention co2->crude oil -> nat gas -> co2 is a negative feedback, so you will eventually run out of CO2 without a consistent supply.  Oil wells are nothing but beneficial if you have a crude oil boiler.

[Technoincubus]

22 hours ago, Zarquan said:

But the oil wells are another source of input that supplement the whole system.  You get more water than you spend, more CO2 for your slicksters, and more power.  Not to mention co2->crude oil -> nat gas -> co2 is a negative feedback, so you will eventually run out of CO2 without a consistent supply.  Oil wells are nothing but beneficial if you have a crude oil boiler.

Oil boiling will inevitably be fixed so no real reasons to build up strategies around it.

[Zarquan]

5 minutes ago, Technoincubus said:

Oil boiling will inevitably be fixed so no real reasons to build up strategies around it.

I wouldn't be so sure.  It has been in the game since the oil upgrade.  And it isn't something that is obviously against the physics of the world like the drip cooling bug was.  And it isn't that easy to do effectively.

[AzeTheGreat]

1 minute ago, Zarquan said:

I wouldn't be so sure.  It has been in the game since the oil upgrade.  And it isn't something that is obviously against the physics of the world like the drip cooling bug was.  And it isn't that easy to do effectively.

Additionally, I think it adds a good gameplay dynamic of having advanced machines designed by players being more efficient than what the game gives by default.  If that was more consistently expanded upon throughout the game it could be pretty interesting.

[KittenIsAGeek]

I ended up with a slush geyser near an oil well. Built a boiler that uses the slush geyser to cool and pumps the hot PW into a sieve, then sends the water into the well.  Works pretty well, but I need to redesign things to make better use of the cold from the slush geyser.

 

7 minutes ago, AzeTheGreat said:

Additionally, I think it adds a good gameplay dynamic of having advanced machines designed by players being more efficient than what the game gives by default.  If that was more consistently expanded upon throughout the game it could be pretty interesting.

Yeah, there are a lot of designs, such as gas filtering, where you could do it with a building OR you can do it manually.  The building is quick and easy.. the other way takes time to design, but uses fewer resources. 

[Neotuck]

1 hour ago, Technoincubus said:

Oil boiling will inevitably be fixed so no real reasons to build up strategies around it.

The only fix I see happening is coal will become a byproduct like dirt is for pwater boiling