A Guide to Not Needing Pumps [Satisfactory Guide]

#Satisfactory #satisfactorygame #Satisfactorymods
Hello guys and welcome to another Satisfactory guide, today we're checking out how we can lift water without using pumps in Satisfactory.
Special thanks goes to Felix for suggesting this to me.
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[@thaerosthedragon1930]

I love how this makes no sense from a physics perspective, but makes total sense from a game design perspective.

[@yosoyelsupremo]

All this liquid stuff will be fixed in the next patch...seems like early 2021.

[@TheFreeBro]

This makes perfect sense in a physics sense. The pipe is a closed system and the elevation head is added to pressure head to create a total hydraulic head. This is how piezometers work. This is hydrology 101

[@binaryalgorithm]

So basically: head lift is preserved from a higher pump, not averaged with all pumps.

[@TotalXclipse]

Yep

[@pseudocoffee4829]

Highest pump*

[@fiskfisk33]

this really seems like it needs a fix

[@tapiocaweasel]

@@fiskfisk33 Why? it's physically accurate as far as i can tell. Main issue is you might have too much pressure so pipes at the bottom woruld burst. But basically he's treating the waterfall lake as a water tower

[@fiskfisk33]

@@tapiocaweasel If you produce 290l of fluid down below, and add 10l a minute from the top, you should not be able to consume 300l of fluid up top. in the real world, the energy doesnt magically copy itself to the rest of the fluid.

[@kirtrex]

Jace is probably laughing his ass off at how we haven’t noticed this

[@manuelpellizzari8540]

In real life, the pressure at the bottom, where the other pumps connect would be so high that the pumps down there can't push anything. It's like 100m height to overcome right at their discharge, if they can do only 10 they would cavitate and/or suffer reverste flow. Therefore, I wouldn't build around this idea (although very appealing) as I consider it as broken physics which should hopefully be solved.

[@icantth1nkofanam40]

you can leave foundations floating so its not like its the first physics breaking thing

[@TotalXclipse]

That's what I was thinking, is there a way to run a one way pipe? Sounds odd but a pipe that controls the flow out of it;s shape?

[@TotalXclipse]

Equally that's a fair point :D

[@icantth1nkofanam40]

@@TotalXclipse a pump forces it to only go one way

[@TotalXclipse]

Yep, but the issue with that is the game mechanics of the pump, cancel head lift so it doesn't help the situation. You need to be able to control the flow, whilst maintaining the head lift.

[@BarnyTrubble]

I hope Kibitz understands that while his builds are extravagant, your information is much more useful. Not trying to start a feud, everyone loves Satisfactory KZbinrs, and I'm glad you all exist in different niches. Kibitz for the crazy, TotalXclipse for the knowledge, and Josh a.k.a LetsGameItOut for the total insanity

[@TotalXclipse]

Thanks, I feel honoured that you hold me in such esteem, but I just throw muck at the wall and see if anything sticks! :D I totally agree with Josh's total insanity, but equally Kibitz has some great tutorials! I think I just pump the most out because my builds are much smaller and my pc that much less able to run large builds :D

[@michealbrizendine8158]

I agree they are all great. I also like scalti for his mostly compact and efficient build tutorials great for my first playthrough and learming mechanics

[@Rig0r_M0rtis]

It's like Brothgar vs Francis John in ONI :D

[@pimpslayer9109]

thats so funny man the spot that youre demonstrating at the top of the waterfall is exactly where i happened to put mine for the exact same function

[@morrisputman8592]

Absolutely beautiful! Thanks for sharing this information.

[@playerofyou4720]

this is... better then everything i've ever seen for satisfactory content

[@jozefsavel730]

Great video, I have noticed that mechanic while playing, but the headlift resets when you use any buffer, so placing watter extractor high together with buffer is better. if u place buffer lower, the headlift is calculated from output of that buffer

[@TotalXclipse]

That's a nice idea, I think possibly it would be best to have a buffer (like a water tower at the top) but then also run a second one at the top of your factory. the other option would be to pump water or oil to a single buffer at the top of your factory then bring it back down to all the other pipes.

[@rhonin210]

@@TotalXclipse hi TotalXclipse, the fluid buffers have a built in pump that starts working when its full. so you can just stack a few fluid buffers and you dont need pumps at al. just keep the buffers full. anyways great video. and nice xplanation.

[@TotalXclipse]

@@rhonin210 Ahh interesting tip, might have to check that out!

[@MrLifeBr]

For oil you could have an oil tower as part of an oil refinery, were the tank at the top is connected to the oil nodes and pushes them to the floor below the oil tank. At that floor there most of the oil flows down the factory, while some of it is used to cap of the tank above it using packaging the oil, or a single pump.

[@jedimindtricks323]

Alrighty then, it's time to make water and oil towers all over the place.

[@Vomarik]

Excellent! Thanks for the research.

[@54m0h7]

Will this work with just a buffer tank getting pumped into? I'm building a rather large Turbo Fuel power plant, and I have a lot of vertical pipes. I could put a pump on each line, but I'm thinking I might be able to pump up 1 pipe to a buffer tank that is on the roof for each network, Oil, Heavy Oil Residue, Fuel, and Turbo Fuel. Would that work?

[@moviewatcher7524]

This is very useful information. Thanks! I can see myself running pipes from the highest peak with all kinds of fluids. There shall be pipes all over the world, and you'll be the sole person to blame because you put this idea into my head :P

[@kadachiman7234]

Great video. Much the same theory used for using a water level to lay building foundations.

[@TotalXclipse]

Yes, but rather than sticking to low water level building or the same for oil we can raise the water level, like we would if using a water tower.

[@belladonnaRoot]

Very interesting loophole. In my estimate, this is what happens programming-wise. They track pressure (head height) in each pipe. If the current segment doesn't have enough pressure to push water to the next pipe, it doesn't flow. Pumps add pressure, so stacking them at the bottom should work fine. BUT the fluid-adders don't check pressure; so long as the fluid is able to move out of their exit (there's flow across the junction), they're able to add their fluid at whatever pressure the pipe's at. If the pressure/head is less than 10m, it brings it up to 10m. So in your loop example, the water extractors are somehow pumping water at ~100m of head. IRL, something that could only produce 10m of head wouldn't be able to pump anything into a pipe at 100m of head. They only check the ability to pump the volume, not necessarily the pressure. I wonder if that will be patched out.

[@RichardTruth123]

Im new to the game and haven't got to using pipes yet. But i had wondered why people were useing pumps spread like that. If the fluid mechanics are fairly accurate you could potentially stop tanks from draining by setting up siphon sytems. Id be a bit surprised if the game went to this length of fluid mechanics calculations. They have already removed pipe friction and other flow restrictions issues. If you dont want to create huge towers you could still create strategic pump stations at inconspicuous locatioms

[@Kyrinson]

This works great just so long as they don't also model pipe stress due to the pressure caused by the excessive head-lift :) Or Water Hammer for that matter....

[@Baleur]

5:00 correction, the energy consumption of the train has to be lower than that of an extractor ONLY turning on for a few seconds per hours, since extractors dont turn on if the system is already full. Thus your extra backup extractor wont be using more than say 95% power over the course of an hour. Good luck getting a train to run cheaper than that.

[@wChris_]

basicly potential energy in a nutshell!

[@brycering5989]

yup, but the pressure at lower levels should prevent the pumps down there from introducing any new flow. I am mixed on how I feel about a fix or not.

[@DrunkGeko]

Kind of, the thing is that a single container or pump up top shouldn't be able to give lift to as much water as you want

[@KenColton]

I mean, this works within satisfactory physics, but real world is more complicated. Like, you couldn’t have a tiny water pump at the top of mount Everest and then be able to lift the entire Pacific ocean a mile up.

[@Denji23]

​@@brycering5989 If it kills your immersion, which i can understand, all you have to do is dont place pumps so far down, just add them when youre at a good height again.

[@GlitchImprover1]

Wow total Here you go throwing me yet another reason for me to restart my turbo motor factory

[@TotalXclipse]

Please forgive me. But these trials will make you stronger ;)

[@GlitchImprover1]

@@TotalXclipse I'll forgive you... This time 🤔

[@beewyka819]

The idea of having the water source higher than everything that draws from it, so that water can then flow upwards in systems (like showers) is why we have water towers. Obviously it's probably more complicated than just "source go higher". Dunno how pressure and the like play into it.

[@takingthescenicroute1610]

Using one packing refinery below, one unpacking refinery very high above (let's go Josh-style all the way up to just under the upper 1999m damage border) [I'm substituting the high-Z extractor with a unpacking refinery since the setup is then copypasta'ed easily for fluids other than water and logistics of a specific fluid need only then be wrestled with to reach the packing refinery at the bottom], connected to the first via a pair of conveyor lifts (one to bring up packs, the other to return the empties), the unpack refinery fills a fluid buffer, then we run a pipe down from the other port of that top fluid buffer. Once primed (with empty canisters) it should be possible to have the head-lift of that one high-Z buffer in all the low-Z extraction lines by connecting them all to that single pipe from above, if I am understanding this quirk correctly. Once working we have a zero pump setup.

[@DanielisAwesome52]

This is what I get for commenting before reading, I had this exact thought and went and did some math when I coulda just scrolled

[@LinwoodLongstrive]

So, you can basically make watertowers and they function the same as in real live! That is awesome! My base is now probably gonna have a central pump to bring the water,, oil ect up to a certain level so it can pressurize my whole base!

[@BestHakase]

And what is the point? You end up with pumps, just in another place, plus a ton of additional pipes. It's loose, in my opinion.

[@Hippida]

First thing I did in U3, was to build out all water pumps top of mountain with waterfall in desert , and have it supply my massive refinery area for desert nodes. I seriously dislike water pumps :P I've yet too do it, but for oil, I'll prob be building a train station above my refinery to avoid pumps in that system

[@Anaerin]

So, if you had a tower with a reservoir and an unpacking refinery, then all your extractors at the bottom with one packing refinery (and a belt and conveyor lift to lift the packaged product), you could use the reservoir and drop to provide your "head lift", and not need any pumps at all, right? And the refinery and belts would be rarely used, as they'd only cover the dips in production.

[@TotalXclipse]

absolutely, and you could just hand feed the unpacker at the top then loop an actual pipe up and it would be self filling (in theory)

[@gerbilwilliams5848]

This is basic Hydraulics and the same basic principle as used in a syphon system coupled with a venturi based pumping systems where it meets the input from the base pumps (we regularly used these for pumping out flooded areas when I was in the fire service) so long as your final output is below that of the initial input (could even be slightly higher due to additional pressure applied by primary pumps) you would need no additional pressure other than that required to overcome Frictional loss within the pipe system (which the game ignores anyway)

[@TotalXclipse]

Really interesting, but could you split this between several pipes lower down? - In real life. I'm not an engineer and am genuinely interested to how true it is.

[@gerbilwilliams5848]

@@TotalXclipse In principle, head of water (pressure) is set either by pumps or static head (height) as a result of gravity, if you put water into a container with a pipe in the bottom and hold it in the air the pressure released at the end of the pipe when opened is directly proportional to the difference in height of the surface of the water in the container and the outlet of the pipe (approximately 1 bar pressure for each 10 metres of height differential) assuming no frictional loss of course (we allow about .01 bar loss per metre at 70 mm diameter I could go into the inverse square law for diameter increase here but probably best not if you are not into engineering)) that pressure could easily be split into multiple outlets with corresponding drops in each or be used to effectively pump it back up hill without any additional impetus being required (such as from a pump) you can also decrease the diameter at the outlet which would of course then decrease water flow but increase pressure, this is what gives you a jet type flow when using a fire fighting hose (or garden one come to that) if you are struggling to sleep an example of what we used to teach in the fire service is here www.ukfrs.com/sites/default/files/2017-09/Fire%20Service%20Manual_Volume%201%20-%20Fire%20Service%20Technology%20Equipment%20and%20Media%20-%20Hydraulics_%20Pumps%20and%20Water%20Supplies.pdf

[@gerbilwilliams5848]

sorry, the last bit should read that decreasing the diameter at the outlet decreases pressure and therefore increases flow rate hence why the jet of water comes out faster (seems counter intuitive but you need to remember that flow and pressure are inversely proportional just think that to release pressure in a container you let its contents out, the faster you let it out (flow) the quicker the pressure in the container drops

[@TotalXclipse]

I've read through a few of the pages, it's actually very interesting and I understand the idea behind the pressure and reducing the diameter - like putting your finger over the end of a tap or hose, the pressure increases and thus the water can jetison higher.

[@ChrisHeli1978]

Can't test it now but if you have no higher source could you pump a single pipe up to a storage tank and then use that as the header tank for the rest of the pipes so you only need one set of pumps instead of relying on a higher source? I'm not sure that was what you meant at the end.

[@TotalXclipse]

Yep, absolutely, that's what I use in my 5x5 challenge :)

[@adrienvion7366]

wow that a discoverd nice tips man

[@DanielisAwesome52]

I'ma look into how fast packaging and unpackaging could fill a Fluid buffer, but that might be a better way of keeping an Oil reserve up higher and closer to where you're working (granted that minimum 2 Refineries uses less power than the Pumps you'd regularly need) So yeah, a Refinery uses 30MW and would take 13Minutes and 20Seconds to fill a Fluid Buffer, would need only a 50% Refinery to unpackage so total 45MW to essentially grant infinite headlift on a pipeline

[@TotalXclipse]

It sounds like a good trade off to me

[@jhines0042]

Thanks for testing this. But are pumps, at 4 MW, really that much of a pain to build with? They seem to work just fine for me. I'm missing why there is a need to avoid them.

[@TotalXclipse]

Oh on their own not at all, but if you're doing a massive factory, needing hundreds of pumps, it can save you a fair bit of energy. but in general it's just good to know

[@pokis50]

This is an amazing finding. However, question is if it could be considered a bug and patched further on? As I understand logic it lifting one pipe up, but lifting multiple pipes with single pipe, ughhh, tricky. Dont know if i'd want to rely on that going further. Anyway, amazing finding, loved the video!

[@TotalXclipse]

That's what I was worried about as well, but apparently it's perfectly feesible - to a certain extent, I don't understand the whole idea behind it but apparently it should be possible if we had more types of pipes to choose from. but if it does get patched... there's not difficulty in adding pumps along pipes that are already placed

[@alejandrotuazon4831]

@@TotalXclipse The physics should be that the amount of head lift provided by each pipe line would be related to the volumes they are carrying. If a 100m head source has 120m^3 and you have two other pipelines with 10m and 120m^3 be combined, then the total head should be h = 40m due to using conservation of energy (mgh total = mgh pipe 1 + mgh pipe 2 + mgh pipe 3). TLDR; physics should be the average of the head of combined pipelines not the head of the tallest pipeline

[@aaaaaxc]

So, you only need to lift water/oil of one extrator in a water tower to be free of all pump for the others. But, does the height of that tower need to be the same as the height you want to raise?

[@TotalXclipse]

The height of the initial tower has to be as high or higher. You can use a pump to get water up there and after all other pipes will be able to use that head list.

[@johnsvensson6446]

That's neat. It's as if the "water tower" provides pressure while the pumps at the bottom provide the actual flow. Which ofc makes no sense in a real setting, since they would need to provide enough pressure to lift it all the way up to even put fluid into the pipe at all... Even if you don't have a really elevated source, you could probably use this to lift an arbitrary number of pipes to any level by just pumping ONE pipe to the top and letting it flow down again, providing pressure to all the rest.

[@TotalXclipse]

Yep, it's not perfect as it's the way they've implemented pipes if we had different size pipes (which I'm sure we can expect eventually) we could in theory pump water to a tower and then split larger pipes into smaller ones so that we don't need pumps at the bottom between the water tower and the machinery, but in theory have the pumps take multiple pipe's worth of water to the top then bring the water to machines, more like real life

[@rccookie6202]

In a really big and high factory (Imkibitz for example) you could have one line of packaged water go up until the top of the factory, have it be extracted and stored and this would make all pumps unnecessary

[@TotalXclipse]

yep, absolutely - but if they redo pipes you may have problems later on

[@rccookie6202]

TotalXclipse Yeah, still hoping for some mk2 pipes. 300/m is just not enough

[@DoriKei]

That's very interesting.

[@jarone100]

You can also use this trick without having an elevated oil pump or extractor. What you do is you have one pipeline with pumps on it and bring it up to whatever you height you want. Then you have a pipeline drop it back down and connect to the other pipelines going up. This way you can lift all of one liquid using just a single set of pumps.

[@TotalXclipse]

Absolutely, that's what I currently use, creating a kind of "water tower" then trickling it into all the other pipelines :)

[@DennisRyu]

Does this also eliminate the need to have a pump every roughly 52 foundations on long pipes to keep the pressure up?

[@TotalXclipse]

I'll be honest, I've never use pumps along long level pipes, but I'm not sure if I've ever run them that far before. I should imagine, if you run water from the top to the source of the others, if they're able to push water up heights without an issue then yes it could remove the need for pumps there as well

[@DennisRyu]

@@TotalXclipse Have to test that. Some more crazy ideas for factory designs in my head have been put aside because of that so far. ;)

[@xaiano794]

OK i've already thought of a way to make best use of this - a pressure tower. Have a bunch of pumps pump the liquid up to a tank (say oil) which then is piped back down and connects to every oil node - you can then pipe all the oil extractors, regardless of how many pipes you have, back to your base. You could, if you balance it, turn the pumps off, but it's probably easier just to leave them on.

[@TotalXclipse]

Exactly my thought. Although you cant turn the pumps off because it still drains slowly

[@xaiano794]

@@TotalXclipse true but if you have a megabase with a dozen pipes, you've just cut like 90% of the pumps needed

[@TotalXclipse]

Xaiano yep ☺️

[@danp6918]

I like it!

[@Advatar042]

So what if you took 1 pump put it on the highest water source. Dropped the pipes down and connected it to all other sources would it make all pipes stay filled? As long as the rise was not higher then the highest pump?

[@TotalXclipse]

Yep thats how it works, you can pump up to a water tower then use no pumps after

[@DanielLCarrier]

Instead of having one water source really high, could you have a bunch of pumps after it, and then split that pressurized water through more pipes so you can lift more water with just one set of pumps?

[@TotalXclipse]

if you add extra pumps at a lower height, the headlift resets. So there's no point adding pumps, it doesn't add pressure

[@mattbell1907]

In real life the pressure in the pipes down the bottom would be so high that the extractors could not pump into it without having the power to pump it straight up to the top anyway.

[@GrPTkach]

Will it work, when i put a refinery on very top of the map, bring there packed oil with conveyor. Then unpack oil, and drop it to the buttom of our sistem.

[@takingthescenicroute1610]

For best results have the oil unpacked to a fluid buffer (at the same elevation as the unpacking refinery) since fluid buffers reset the head lift calculation.

[@TheTavaro11]

Wait? Could u not just place a tank somewhere very high fill it up once and then connect its output down to the pumps and then connect the pumps to the input of the high tank so it gets filled up when it drops water?

[@TotalXclipse]

You can't connect the output to pumps or it doesn't work so you'd have to fill it up, then delete the pumps and connect it to extractors, but yes if the extractor is connected to the water tower pipe, in theory yes. That would work, it's something I want the time to try it out :)

[@jrnvnjk]

Use 2 belts(different directions) to refill the water in the tank with the packager so the others will never run out might be a sollution

[@k0lpA]

pipes wont cease to amaze me

[@ADITA8458]

How can I open the console game playing in Geforce now? the ctr+L doesn´t work

[@TotalXclipse]

it's CTRL + Shift + L. To activate command lines. You then need to press tilde key this one: ` (for me) to open it

[@nikonafortune]

You just build a pipe tower and use pumps to bring 1 pipe to desired height then drop that pipe all way back down interconnect it across all pipes you wish to lift and there you go for price of power of pumps on just 1 pipe you can bring as many pipes as you wish of desired liquid to desired height

[@TotalXclipse]

Exactly :)

[@nurmik]

The upper pump what gives the head lift does it have to work on 100% or you can clock it down let's say like 10% because you will win in power consumption !!!

[@TotalXclipse]

Well in theory, even if it's 100% clockspeed, if you're able to pump water to the top of a tower, you'll then be able to disperse it into 6/10/20 other pipes and thus void their need for pumps. Meaning you will exponentially increase the amount of power you're saving :)

[@Denji23]

ok can you pump only once for one pipe up and supply countless other pipes below as long as there is some water above?

[@TotalXclipse]

Yes

[@thibaultspiessens8971]

The broken physics in this is not the water going back up the pipes, but the extractros being able to push water in pipes with much more head than the extractor's headlift. Seems like they're programmed to have a head of current head + 10

[@TotalXclipse]

Yep you’re exactly right it’s the attaching of extra extractors below, I’ll be interested to see if they fit it in the next update

[@H3xx99]

For oil, have your fluid train deliver to an oil buffer high up...

[@MarcioHuser]

Nice bug. A byproduct of how the fluids and headlifts are calculated for the pipes 😁

[@flaco777]

not a bug at all.

[@TotalXclipse]

well it's not a bug, it's actual fluid mechanics, although being able to split it into multiple pipes is where it could be considered a bug, I'm not sure to what extent it works in real life, I presume if it's spread between 3 pipes each pipes should have 1/3rd of the headlift

[@felixbertoni]

@@TotalXclipse Actually it is -kind of- a simulation error, but not exactly related to headlift calculation ^^ The fact that water, after coming down X meters, is going up X meters is actual fluid mechanics, even if you spread it between 3 pipes, would still work fine if the flow is "infinite". A network of pipe is the same as a lake, water will always try to stay at the same level everywhere :) However, the fact that you can pump water in the pipe from bottom is not a bug but a simulation mistake in comparison to fluid mechanics : a 10 meter headlift pump would not be able to overcome 10+ meter pressure, and thus water would not be pushed in the pipe or even flow out of the pump in the lake it is supposed to pump in. However, this game does not consider this, because I suppose they consider pumps as "adding" pressure instead of setting it (which is kind of true some pumps that can be found in real life). Actually, I think this mistake is not one, and is done for ease of setting up pipe network, because with real fluid mechanics it would be horrible to deal with !

[@VascoCC95]

This is something under development and I guess it will be fixed in the future. I have one pump running above the recommended headlift value and there is no "punishment". If they implemented said value it's because they probably want to make it work...

[@kadboodle]

I’ve been making water towers. At the place I’m pumping from, I lift it up to the height that I’m going to take it to using pumps, then run the pipes down from there and on their way. Keeps my base clutter free

[@TotalXclipse]

Nice, but you only need one pipe to be pumped, then send that pipe back to the bottom and split it into all other pipes, then you won't need pumps to bring the other piped fluids up :)

[@TheGreatSeraphim]

It gets even more cheaty than this. You can slap a valve on the cheaty 'water tower' and set the flow to 0 and it will still count its headlift at part of the pipe system without transferring any water. Meaning you could tower up as high as you want with pumps. Fill up a small tank once. Valve it. Remove the pumps. Unlimited powa. I'm sure this will work till they patch the valve to count as a network divider when closed.

[@Rusminin]

1. On one hand - I hope they'll fix this in a later builds. Getting up-top the same amount of water you mine down there with only one high-up extractor is completely illogical. 2. At the same time - antigravity pumps with infinite head lift sounds like a good use for SAM-ore in the late-game stages.

[@TotalXclipse]

It's not illogical though, it's exactly how water towers work in real life. Since doing this video I've been reading through a fire brigade water usage guide and it talks about water levels and pressure and to a certain degree this is totally plausable in real life. But if they find it OP which I see why it could be then a SAM ore related technology would be great!

[@Phantom2502]

I have my factory with 90 nuclear power plants all running without pumps. I also have my oil without pumps. But with water I am not consuming anywhere near my maximum. With oil I am, and I noticed with my oil setup, for some reason I don't get all 300 oil out of the incoming pipe into the connected refineries, it seems to come short. I have mitigated this a bit by having any pipe that is a dead end or one that connected multiple 300 input pipes to be eliminated since some pressure would get wasted in there, but still can't seem to get all 300 through... not sure what is wrong, I am having my oil pump from the western sea and piped to the green fields on a 4 level stacked pipe. The 10 meter headlift allows you to go up to 6 level stacked, so this seems ok. In the green fields I see 3 pipes of 300, but last pipe of only 290, it was 250 before I removed all pipes that weren't necessary. I am not sure what else to do, since this affects my rubber and plastic output which affects my supercomputer, turbo motor, and battery manufacturing at the end of my smart splitter manufacturing area.... any ideas? By the way you can view my setup on the video I have up on my channel.

[@TotalXclipse]

I really don't know what to say, perhaps you need pumps for longer distances to maintain the flow rate, So I'd test running a couple of pumps along one pipeline and see if the flow rate improves, vs the others

[@MrNidhog]

honestly i hate pipes so much i just use the storage teleporter mod and pack/unpack liquids on either end.

[@UNSCrearadmiral]

So... in theory I could get all of my storage really high up (using pumps to get it there, then store it in fluid buffers then add a single pump after the fluid buffer and never need a pump after that point in the network?

[@TotalXclipse]

All you need is a single extractor pumping water to a high up storage unit, then no pumps after that, you can then split that single line between 10 other lines and providing they don't have any pumps... they'll gain the same head lift.

[@MrChochichon]

Very interesting! But i'll still use my pumps cause it feels a bit more realistic and i really like their design lol

[@soulmack2428]

no this is realistic it follows the rule that water seeks its own level

[@MrChochichon]

@@soulmack2428 maybe, but for my deadbrain it feels more logical to have pumps even tho it doesn't make sense

[@soulmack2428]

@@MrChochichon yea I too use pumps it looks satisfying which is the aim of the game

[@michealbrizendine8158]

But i ran into an issue today where i had to place pumps on horizontal pipes

[@beroecaaaa]

That's fascinating! But is it a bug or not?

[@TotalXclipse]

In short we don't think so. it's the logic of water towers

[@TotalXclipse]

If you didn't know about this why not upvote it on reddit to help it reach other people! www.reddit.com/r/SatisfactoryGame/comments/gwlhzr/after_months_of_playing_with_pipes_ive_finally/

[@plotterdesalor9134]

cant you just loop then? pumping water up by head lift into a tank, and connecting it to the bottom to provide head lift? This could even been done by water bottler to physically disconnect the both ends of the loop

[@JD_Mortal]

One year later and water is still borked-up... The game randomly decides that water pipes are empty, when loading. The head is not actually calculated correctly, or used correctly, in any instance. Pipes still have some kind of internal "direction", depending how you hook them up. Pipes still fill like individual segments, filling one at a time, when they are horizontal, as if water is pushing through a straw-hole, at the top of the segmented lines. The last item in the line, like a conveyor, will empty that pipe segment first and the pump closest to the machines will empty first. (Pipes would never "empty" in real life, unless you purged them. They would always be full of water and the pressure and flow would rise and fall. But, in this game, pipes empty, as if they were individual cups filling and draining from the bottom.) Honestly, it's a game element that isn't needed and shouldn't exist. Just how power was simplified to "generated power vs consumed power", that is how water should have been managed. instead, we have to constantly babysit fluids, or, if luck is on our side, it actually works for a while. Hacks are the only solution to combat the hack of code related to fluid dynamics in the game. I shouldn't expect much... They still have "iron" as shiny and silverish, and "steel" as being black and dark. (Minecraft science, which is backwards and just wrong.) They use "screws", tiny things made for doors and watches and computers, to assemble "industrial plates and heavy machinery", which should be using "bolts" and "rivets". They make "computer boards" out of plastic and copper, and it should be silica and copper... What idiot thinks computer boards are made from plastic? It takes 100 cloth to make a suit, but only 2 to make a parachute! So, we are wearing about 50 parachutes of material in a haz-mat suit... They use mycelium to make cloth, which is just impossible... We manufacture about 100x faster than a machine, which is also impossible... We have more pocket storage than a whole storage unit, vehicle storage and I think as much as a whole train caboose... Yet, a conveyor can only hold a single item at a time... Yes, it can hold 1 cloth or 1/2 a parachute or 1/100th of a haz-mat suit... or a whole, single haz-mat suit... (It can hold 1 "screw", or 1 supercomputer, made from over 8,000 screws. Go figure!) Not going into the fact that I can build a whole machine with just a few bags of cement and screws and wire, instantly... Yet I have to spend an hour, manually making screws, cement and wire... Though I can't, in this technologically advanced world, craft a real weapon, build a vehicle that works right, have the worst energy-rated lights that draw a minimum of 1 mega-watt of power... That is enough power to light-up 100,000 10w LED bulbs, or 10,000 classic 100w floodlights today, or just that single dim light in the game.

[@MegaFops]

There is a german KZbinr his name is spielbär. He build his entire factory without an pump

[@TotalXclipse]

If only I understood German, I'd watch it :(

[@Advatar042]

Just like a water tower.... 40 psi.... Ok after reading a few comments. People this is not a bug. This is actually real life fluid dynamics. And coffee stain kept it a secret to see if any engineers would try it. Way to go Coffee Stain. And congratulations to the factory engineer who was smart enough to wonder if it would work!!

[@black543211000]

This is not how real life fluid dynamics work. The water extractor at the top of the waterfall would supply the 120l/m to the factory below just fine with the pipe going to the bottom of the water fall and back up again, but the 2 water extractors at the bottom of the waterfall wouldn't be able to push any water into the pipe as the head pressure in the pipe at the bottom of the waterfall would be at min the height of the water fall, say 100m, which is much greater than the 10m of head pressure that the water extractors can pump. But this is an excellent exploit in the game physics.

[@james2042]

or hear me out, pump up fluid to one buffer, then have that buffer feed back down into the rest, then have the rest flow up into whatever you're needing the fluid for. At worst you would need to isolate one extractor and push its water up seperate, to bring it back down, using a fluid buffer to "reset" the head pressure

[@Wtfukker]

thats it i want fraking in next patch

[@Broockle]

...I dun get it. You put one pump on higher elevation than your destination and it gets there? I made a really long oil pipe going up a mountain, then it goes back down into a swamp a little bit and then it needs to go up another hill that is not as high as the first mountain. Yet for that hill near the end I still need a few pumps for it to go up. Pumps are just super weird in satisfactory.

[@TotalXclipse]

If you have a pump or a liquid container bufferring on the lower area, head lift will be reset

[@Advatar042]

We are building very large water towers.

[@holzi4788]

it is big brain time my bois

[@fabiansuckfull9446]

"But does it work?" All the closed valves on that second pipe say no (yea i know it works but I still just wanted to say it)

[@SpyrosLv]

do you think this will be patched?

[@TotalXclipse]

maybe :D - not very helpful I know... it depends it's not really a hack but attaching the extractors at the bottom is. then again when they update the pipe system, we may be able to run this setup still using varied size pipes.

[@gourmatti]

Well, thanks. That is an interesting setup, but I wouldn't recommend it (at least I won't be using it), because it sounds like a bug which might be fixed sometime in the future AND you wouldn't want your factories stop working. This sounds like a bug to me, because basically you are using a small amount of water to push up a lot of water. Seems to be against the laws of physics.

[@TotalXclipse]

It does work in real life, the issue is the extractors (from what I understand) at the bottom. That being said I doubt they'll update the fluid mechanics until they have more pipes/pumps and valves for us to use, by which point we'll be able to do this any way :)

[@ShoganDaNinja]

This is the same reason real citys build water tower. If the water supply is at higher lvl than taps in the city no water pumps are needed.

[@oreubens]

Yes it works but it's obviously a bug/abuse/cheat. As it is now, you can use a single water extractor, pump the water up a really high tower (or package, conveyer it up and unpackage at the top) and have that tower provide the headlift for all the extractors you want. As long as the "bottom" extractors put enough water into the pipes the top headlift will be preserved and the water tower will not even be running much (or at all) because your water level will never drop. as with other bugs that existed (and got fixed). be careful about using this. your entire factory could fail if they decide to fix this :)

[@TotalXclipse]

You're right, and it is worth running this on the side of caution, but I'm sure there'll have new pipe options when they update it too so we'll probably want to redo our pipe networks (hopefully)

[@jagojaya6025]

can we see you live in person commenting your video ??

[@TotalXclipse]

Well in my live streams you can see me live commenting :) I wouldn't want my face to distract anyone from the guides :D As many people joke with me, I have the face for Radio :p

[@kasuha]

Well, essentially an exploit that can stop working any time devs decide to fix their physics. And then the bug reporting site will get flooded with complaints about "pipe bugs" just like when the Z=0 bug was fixed.

[@TotalXclipse]

Do you believe that they're going to redo pipe physics after a few months of having it? There's truth behind how this works and theoretically it's possible if they were to give us extra valves and pumps to play around with and even if they do choose to fix this, I could just add pumps onto the pipes

[@kasuha]

I'm pretty sure that if devs decide they don't like this exploit, they will fix it. That does not mean they will, but it also does not mean they won't. They fixed the Z=0 exploit too. And no, it's not possible, even theoretically, in real world. A pipe filled from 100 m above will create presure equal to liquid column 100m high at its bottom and any pump adding liquid to it from the bottom must be able to overcome that pressure which is exactly the same as to be able to pump liquid 100 m high. I mean, sure, teach people whatever you like, it's fine. There's no cheating in single player games. But I'd recommend to tell them it's an exploit and may stop working any time.

[@Advatar042]

Think water towers. And how we use them in real life.

[@sinuswutz8595]

So... this isn't a bug, is it? I am working on a 300GW nuclear power plant setup and I need A LOT of water, high up... I got my entire factory working without pumps so far but I don't think this is intended... can I really move 8000/m water up 200 meters because I have one single source of 120/m another 70 meters higher above the factory floor? Is physics that crazy? *looks.at.quantums* Yeah, it might be but I don't think it is in this case. This is a bug, isn't it?

[@TotalXclipse]

Kinda, and kinda not... so the premise is correct, headlift will allow you to lift water to the highest point of pressure in a system but the issue is with adding extra pumps at the bottom, that shouldn't allow you to lift more water, so it really depends on if Coffee Stain update it in the fluid update.

[@Letstalkgaming]

WAit ... isn't that actually how water works in real life too ? I mean that's the logic behind water towers right ? Wont'water always level at it's highest input point ???

[@TotalXclipse]

Yes, although with the way liquid mechanics are implemented, attaching working extractors at the bottom of the tower shouldn't work.

[@williambreckwoldt]

TotalXclipse exactly- the water extractors at the bottom are pushing water into a system at a very high pressure (due to head lift). In real life, this would cost a lot of energy and would require pumps capable of producing at that head lift. In the game, a more realistic result would be that the pumps below are unable to produce water because the hydraulic head is overcoming them (as it’s over 20m).

[@Techischannel]

Basicaly, its how real life piping works. Exept they wont burst if put under enough pressure.

[@mctobi2921]

I dont think you got it right... it doesnt work like that in the real world... i mean even ingame its Kind of a glitch and will be patched in the future

[@1tan269]

@@mctobi2921 did the dev said they going to patch it soon?

[@mctobi2921]

@@1tan269 dont think so... but usually its more complicated than just to stick a few Pumps on

[@MarekMoowi]

That's a nice exploit, shame that CSS will correct it in future updates for sure :/

[@TotalXclipse]

We're not sure it is actually an exploit the logic behind it works. It's the same way water towers work. It's just all down to how fluid mechanics are run in Satisfactory.

[@Dragonfyre.]

so its like a water tower but with extra steps

[@TotalXclipse]

Exactly - Just have to make sure you're not pumping water after the tower

[@soitalwaysgoes]

You have discovered water towers

[@zsheets7483]

Homeopathic head lift.

[@HenrryPires]

Is that a bug or a feature?

[@TotalXclipse]

feature apparently. It shouldn't be a bug though because this is how it runs in real life, providing you have downward push from something.

[@HenrryPires]

@@TotalXclipse Maybe you are right. But the top container have to be at the same level or above that that will consume the water

[@TotalXclipse]

Henrry Pires yes it does consume water but slowly and it’s still far cheaper to pump one like up to the container then split it between 6 extractors than it is to pump 6 full pipes to that height

[@snidely9852]

@@TotalXclipse I can't imagine this would work in real life. Especially being able to lift the throughput of multiple pipes with only one "driving" pipe. I'd have to guess that this is an artifact of how the programmers abstracted and simplified the system rather than an intentional thing. But we all know what they say about opinions and the source of their smell, so until Coffee Stain says one way or another, I'll be looking into using this!

[@TotalXclipse]

@@snidely9852 I don't think it does with multiple pipes in real life - but with a single pipe it does. but if we're doing off of real life placing pumps next to each other should add extra lift unlike what they do in Satisfactory so trade offs I guess. But yeh who, knows, if they change it, it's fine I'll just put pumps on the pipelines I've already got :D

[@Jaxtor1]

When do you need a pump?

[@TotalXclipse]

Depends. If you're only using water or oil below the highest extractor you have on the map, then you don't need any. If you're building water tower or oil tower. Then you need enough pumps to get the water or oil to the top of the tower but you won't need to use any pumps on any pipelines it splits too

[@miksceihners50]

Has this been patched?

[@TotalXclipse]

Nope

[@Shabazza84]

Looks like an exploit to me. The lower water extractors should not be able to contribute to the head lift > 10m. The upper extractor - that's totally fine because when you fill that pipe, the water will automatically be level without the extractor needing more pump power. It's almost a net +/- 0 IRL. The lower ones - nope. That's not how stuff works. So I won't use this technique. (even when I appreciate the spent time to science this)

[@farikkun1841]

i just build coal generator underwater

[@TotalXclipse]

You could but then you'd have to build your refineries underwater too :)

[@user-rn5co4yy2z]

Actualy this isnt a bug feature or a myth this is true if you dont belive me try in real life

[@user-rn5co4yy2z]

But the 2. Thing is a bug

[@Zlorfikable]

Why would thed devs need to tell us about that? This is basic knowledge about liquid mechanics that apply to a certain degree in real life.

[@TotalXclipse]

I was joking about it but you're right it's basic knowledge which I just hadn't occurred to use prior and apparently a lot of others hadn't considered it an option either.

[@redi8229]

Heck, i know this logic applies in real life but i didn't know the devs would make it THAT realistic.

[@BeachTimeGamer]

I think it is a glitch

[@typhonplume9374]

So all that was done was proving the game acknowledges lift via water pressure. Though the video FAILED to show how fast the water was filling the pipes through examination of the pipes. So I can't trust the results here. With out that, while your getting water at the top... your not showing how fast it arrives there. Which is a major factor that got ignored with this video.

[@TotalXclipse]

Sorry, it's a great point that I should have mentioned, however I'm not sure how I could judge it (I was planning to show it off but sometimes the head lift pipes had a greater flow than pumps and sometimes vice versa, I just couldn't find an average response which I thought was odd, and didn't want to talk about something I couldn't show off fairly, that being said they are roughly the same as pumps, sometimes more sometimes less.

[@omni574]

So basically it works just like actual water.

[@mariocamspam72]

factorio

[@xx-qs1ij]

Jesus dude it's some kind of magic. I watch this video and I get 0 ideas what u wanted to say except maybe u like white color bases.

[@angelic8632002]

basic physics

[@brycering5989]

not all of the way it works in-game follows the Laws of physics :( (But that is a good thing for exploiting, bad for how the game was meant to play, I am torn, should I exploit or should I use the pumps as they should be used) So scared they would ficsit as soon as I got dependant on the exploit.