The basics of fluids and pipes are satisfactory

There are dozens of different sources in it satisfactoryall waiting for you to start digging them. Taking advantage of the alien planet's natural beauty, you can turn it into an efficient utopia with machinery, conveyor belts, trains and more covering the planet's surface.



One of the most important resource types you'll unlock early on is liquids. These are very different from the typical solids you've dealt with so far, and producing and moving fluids effectively can be a bit confusing at first. Below, we'll take a look at everything you need to know about liquids in general at Satisfactory.


Basics of fluids

A shot of a lake and beach with mushroom-like plants in the background at sunrise.

Fluids represent a class of satisfactory resources that perform differently from solids. One of the biggest differences between liquids and solids is the way they are transported. While solids use conveyor belts, fluids must be transported through pipes, which have different rules that we'll take a look at below.


You cannot put liquids in your inventory unless you pack them first.

lift the head

A pipeline pump that raises excess head for a series of pipes that travel upstream to the coal plant.

Due to gravity, fluids cannot move very far vertically on their own. For example, the Water Extractor has a 10-meter lift, which means it can pump water up to 10 meters in the air before it can no longer move. If you need water to go above that, you should use a Pipeline pump.

Nitrogen gas does not need a lift to flow upwards
because it is gas.


A pipeline pump can provide a supply when energized 20 meters of additional liftallows the fluid in the pipe to move up to 20 meters more vertically. Pipeline pumps can be combined to lift the fluid higher, but the second pump must be The first pump is located near the end of the 20-meter lifting head To maximize the vertical distance traveled

Pipeline pumps do not affect the flow rate, so they
It cannot be used to increase fluid velocity
Moving through the pipe

Flow rate

Flow rate statistics in a pipeline segment.


The flow rate of a fluid It is determined according to the amount of liquid in the pipe. As a pipe fills, the pressure inside increases, and thus the velocity of fluid flow increases as it pushes it into the next section of pipe. By using fluid along the pipeline or moving more in the pipeline, the flow rate is increased or decreased.

Liquid will always try
be placed at its original starting point
. This means that liquid flowing through a U-shaped pipe from the top left will rise to the right without the need for a pipeline pump.

The same concept when using a Pipeline connection To split the flow of a fluid A Pipeline Junction is essentially both a conveyor belt splitter and a merge, but for fluids. Fluids passing through the pipeline joint will be be divided equally between all connected partiesif possible to equalize


Because of this, you don't have to worry about balancing the amount of liquid going through each tube, as it will. Always try to spread evenly in all tubes. This means you really only need to focus on getting the right amount of fluid for the machines you are using.

Suppose you have eight coal-fired generators, each of which requires 45 cubic meters of water per minute to operate. In total, you need to supply 360 cubic meters of water per minute to be enough for each generator. Since water extractors produce 120 cubic meters of water per minute, you need exactly three for a sufficient water supply.

However, since the flow rate of a Mk.1 tube is only 300, you It is not possible to put so much water in one pipeotherwise you will lose some. To solve this problem, you need to put a water extraction device at the other end of the pipe. This means that all 360 cubic meters of water are inside the pipes, but not all flowing in one place (the “inlet” of the pipeline).


Valves allow you to do this Limit the flow rate of a pipeline. Using our previous example, this can be useful if you instead have Mk.2 pipes that have a flow rate of 600m3, but you only need 360 of that. You can use a valve at the beginning of the pipeline to limit the amount of water in the next section, allowing you to use the remaining water elsewhere.

Finally, you There is really no need to focus on pipe flow rate optimization. As long as there is enough fluid in the pipeline to supply each connected machine, the flow rate is unimportant.

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