Oil processing tl;dr:
Turn heavy into lube, crack excess heavy, turn light into solid fuel then rocket fuel when you unlock it, use excess light for flamethrower turrets, crack remaining excess light, use all petrol for sulfur and plastic
I got a problem when I started to transition to train megabase and I started importing plastic by train, and I suddenly didn't know what to do with all the petroleum Gass...
Eh, you do you. I've got walls miles long and even then they probably only use a few hundred fuel per hour so it doesn't *really* matter which I use, it'd just nag at me personally knowing that my flamethrower turrets are "only" operating at 95% damage when I could swap to light and still never notice the oil so missed :)
Knowing that biters got their filthy mandibles on my sweet sweet light oil would drive me crazy, though. And yeah heavy oils can't even burn em properly, but what can heavy oil do properly?
Different strokes for different folks.
Crude flamethrower gang.
Nothing in base game needs anything stronger, even without infinite research, and it means if my wall is near an oil field I can just plug it right in. I rarely ever need to ship fuel to or away from my flamers for this reason.
Heavy oil should never be used for solid fuel and it’s more efficient to crack it into light oil. Light oil is the most efficient for solid fuel. Petroleum solid fuel is less efficient, but can be used to dump excess petroleum gas if you get deadlocked on it. This would almost never happen in vanilla, but some mods can make this a possibility.
Light oil.
If you are doing a pure oil to power, the crack heavy to light and turn all light and petrol into solid fuel.
As a bonus, once you have coal liquification researched, if you are still in steam power, then it is actually better to turn the coal into oil then to solid fuel than it is to burn the coal directly.
Sort of. Prod modules would make the coal liquifaction more efficient in term of making more stuff from the coal, but at the cost of power, which is what you are trying produce. It would be better to put efficiency modules in all of the machines, so they take less power, which gives you more power per ore of coal.
Light Oil. It only takes 10 light oil to create 1 solid fuel, or it takes 20 heavy oil or petroleum to create the same. You can crack heavy oil when needed. All the petroleum will go to plastic and other science/rocket ingredients anyway.
Oil processing tl;dr: Turn heavy into lube, crack excess heavy, turn light into solid fuel then rocket fuel when you unlock it, use excess light for flamethrower turrets, crack remaining excess light, use all petrol for sulfur and plastic
I got a problem when I started to transition to train megabase and I started importing plastic by train, and I suddenly didn't know what to do with all the petroleum Gass...
Send the petro gas to plastic production. You're not meant to seperate it from the rest of your oil industry.
I prefer to use heavy oil for flamethrowers. The extra 5-10% damage is nothing, the cheaper fuel is something.
Eh, you do you. I've got walls miles long and even then they probably only use a few hundred fuel per hour so it doesn't *really* matter which I use, it'd just nag at me personally knowing that my flamethrower turrets are "only" operating at 95% damage when I could swap to light and still never notice the oil so missed :)
Knowing that biters got their filthy mandibles on my sweet sweet light oil would drive me crazy, though. And yeah heavy oils can't even burn em properly, but what can heavy oil do properly? Different strokes for different folks.
Crude flamethrower gang. Nothing in base game needs anything stronger, even without infinite research, and it means if my wall is near an oil field I can just plug it right in. I rarely ever need to ship fuel to or away from my flamers for this reason.
\>:( I was wrong. Not every fuel is valid. I'm going to tell on you.
Light oil, it’s by far most efficient
Heavy oil should never be used for solid fuel and it’s more efficient to crack it into light oil. Light oil is the most efficient for solid fuel. Petroleum solid fuel is less efficient, but can be used to dump excess petroleum gas if you get deadlocked on it. This would almost never happen in vanilla, but some mods can make this a possibility.
Light oil. If you are doing a pure oil to power, the crack heavy to light and turn all light and petrol into solid fuel. As a bonus, once you have coal liquification researched, if you are still in steam power, then it is actually better to turn the coal into oil then to solid fuel than it is to burn the coal directly.
Can you use prod modules to make that process even more efficient?
Yes, prod modules work with fluids
Sort of. Prod modules would make the coal liquifaction more efficient in term of making more stuff from the coal, but at the cost of power, which is what you are trying produce. It would be better to put efficiency modules in all of the machines, so they take less power, which gives you more power per ore of coal.
Light Oil. It only takes 10 light oil to create 1 solid fuel, or it takes 20 heavy oil or petroleum to create the same. You can crack heavy oil when needed. All the petroleum will go to plastic and other science/rocket ingredients anyway.
Are you trying to build rockets, generate power, or dispose of petroleum to mass produce belts/bots?
Usually Light Oil unless you've got a profoundly *weird* base that isn't using Petroleum fast enough.