Fluid system
Liquids are non-solid items. They behave very differently from solid objects:
- Liquids can only exist inside pipes and certain buildings. They cannot be carried by the player, moved with inserters, or dropped on the ground.
- Liquids are counted in continuous fractions, rather than discrete integers.
- Liquids may be silently destroyed when removing buildings, by mixing types of liquid, or at the output of a steam engine.
The first type of liquid used by the player is water, which is used for generating electricity with steam engines. Later in the game, crude oil can be extracted and processed into various other liquids.
Note: Properly speaking, this category of item should be called "fluid", as it includes petroleum gas.
Flow Mechanics
The different types of liquid all behave the same. They have the same fluidity, need the same energy to heat and so on.
Using Water to Generate Power
You can use every type of liquid, but hot water is the obvious solution.
Oil Processing
History
The only liquid available in Factorio before v0.9 was Water. See also
In v0.9 the oil processing system was added. This introduced new liquids, including crude oil or petroleum gas.
See also
- About creating energy: http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2755&p=20280#p20265
- About splitting liquids equally: http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4823&p=47506#p47048
- About throughput in a pipe (and how to check it): http://www.factorioforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=6066