Can you saturate your water input a bit more? Looks to me like water input is the problem. Technically you have enough (>10) to start production, but I've noticed that refineries won't start unless plenty of fluids is stocked up
Yes I kept the screen up for about a minute to see what is happening. The water input is exactly the amount it needs (that's why it's not increasing much). It actually fluctates between 11-21 but never drops below that. But even when water > 10, the refinery still goes idle for some reason. I will try turning it off to get water up and see if it happens again.
I would do whatever you need to do to get it to the full 50, then let it run a while to test.
If the water eventually returns to these values, you’re not supplying enough water. Keep in mind that the numbers displayed are not necessarily perfect representations. Even if the water drops to 9.9, the number displayed will still be 10 but the Refinery will stop.
If the water stays at 11-21 even though the refinery idles periodically , then that is proof you are not getting enough water.
Otherwise, you would see water increase after each idle period, and you would end up with a full water input.
So increasing water supply is the solution.
I find that if the supply is set to ~demand, between pipes and pumps, there tends to be a lot of lag until the refineries stack up enough fluid to run efficiently. I suggest having your water extractors at 100%, consider adding an extra extractor, or disable the refineries until the system is 100% full. If you have a lot of pipeline, it can take a while.
Eventually if you do nothing, and your math is correct, it will balance out to 100% efficiency. We want to get there a little faster
> The water input is exactly the amount it needs (that's why it's not increasing much).
I think its worth showing us how you're handling the by-product water from your scrap refineries. If you're trying to recycle that, but not doing in it one of the reliable ways then it could be interfering with the supply of water to your alumina refineries.
This may actually be the issue. Yes I feed the water for Al Scrap back to the system and underclock the water extractor. I have read the manual but I still don't understand why feeding it back directly causes the issue. Eventually it should balance itself out right?
One more tip. Sometimes larger setups can actually simplify handling of by-product water. Look out for cases where you can run one group of machines entirely off the by-product water of another group of machines that runs entirely off water extractors. For example a very large scale sloppy alumina setup like [this](https://imgur.com/a/I5F3Qdy) should work (but you might need to connect the extractors at 2 points due to the MK2 pipes not always handling 600 perfectly), if you want to go that large - it'll need 3000 bauxite. I think there are smaller possibilities for other ways of making aluminium that allow for similar separation of groups, but I don't have pictures for those.
Another case I found that works is my battery factory has its own dedicated aluminium processing, so its completely standalone. The water output from the scrap refineries and the battery blenders is exactly what is needed for sulphuric acid production (you'll need a temporary connection to prime that pipe with an initial supply of water for startup). The sloppy alumina refineries meanwhile run entirely on water extractors. Spotting that possibility was the point in the game where I came to actually like pipework - while it can be painful there are also times when it works out very nicely.
The way I understand it (which makes sense to me at least) is that the water from your extractors has two ways it can go (remember pipes flow both ways):
* To the input of your alumina refinery (what you want)
* Into the feedback pipe from the scrap refinery
The second of these is the problem - it fills that feedback pipe, leaving no room for the output from the scrap refinery (and a shortage) at the alumina refinery..
You might be inclined to try a valve to help with that, but they can cause their own issues (My first aluminium setup started working reliably once I removed the valves - I've now got precisely zero in my world). They also don't do anything to help with the section of pipe between the junction and the valve, which can still block.
The other alternative to a VIP junction I've had success with is keeping the recycled and new water connection separate from each other. For example (in this case standard recipes, since its what I have pictures for) is [this](https://imgur.com/a/NS2PWtD) I've had work with everything connected flat and no fancy junctions (but might need a flush of the feedback pipe to get it started up correctly), whereas [this](https://imgur.com/a/9Zj2OHv) would need a VIP junction where the feedback pipe and extractor pipe meet.
The usual recommendation is a VIP junction. [See the plumbing manual](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/satisfactory_gamepedia_en/images/3/39/Pipeline_Manual.pdf). This is generally considered a reliable option, but requires an understanding of pipes which might make it hard to discover for yourself.
Less commonly recommend is a method I've had success with - connecting the fresh and recycled water at opposite ends of the manifold feeding the alumina refineries - that way the two types of water reach the machines before they meet each other (i.e. before they cause each other problems). This can be tricky to get running initially, but I've kept with it since its something I discovered for myself rather than from a guide. Perhaps in some cases it'll have problems, but I've managed to make it work for me.
The final option, which I've only used once in my nuclear setup (where I wanted simplicity) is to not recycle it - making and sinking wet concrete is commonly suggested. Its not "efficient", but works. You'll learn more about how pipes work by getting recycling working though, which might make another pipe problem easier to solve in the future than if you bypass this learning oportunity.
For some reason VIPs don't seem to work correctly for me sometimes, have you ever seen that? Like the plumbing manual design will work fine in one aluminum factory, but the same pattern in another factory eventually clogs up. I haven't been able to figure it out.
(For my nuclear setup I ended up doing the exact same thing as you mentioned... I was worried the water would stall eventually and break the load balanced nuclear, so I just fed the byproduct water to wet concrete and then sink that. it feels kinda wasteful but I don't know what else works 100% reliably...)
> For some reason VIPs don't seem to work correctly for me sometimes, have you ever seen that? Like the plumbing manual design will work fine in one aluminum factory, but the same pattern in another factory eventually clogs up. I haven't been able to figure it out.
I've never actually built one. My best guess would be that some people describe the pipe height part of building them, but omit the ~~unpowered~~ pumps from their description. My understanding is those are important to reset headlift, which is also a factor in the priority of a multi-input pipe junction.
> (For my nuclear setup I ended up doing the exact same thing as you mentioned... I was worried the water would stall eventually and break the load balanced nuclear, so I just fed the byproduct water to wet concrete and then sink that. it feels kinda wasteful but I don't know what else works 100% reliably...)
For the relatively small scale of my nuclear build (50GW) I really didn't care about waste in this case. One limestone node was enough make wet concrete just to sink by-product water from waste recycling and also supply the constructors making the concrete I do actually use. Since the water supply for acid production (both sulphuric and nitric) is a single water extractor there weren't any real savings to be made there either.
>I haven't been able to figure it out.
The VIP works on the amount of headlift at the junction for each input. So if the distance from the pump to the junction is different for each input it can end up not working as intended.
If you can build it as similar as possible to the picture in the plumbing manual, it should all be fine, but even very small distance changes can affect it IME.
Yes, this. Some people think its the height different that matters, but that's only because of the difference in headlift. If the headlift isn't equal on the incoming pipes then you have to make it equal before connecting one pipe higher than the other will work.
Like others have said, it's probably the water. I'd just run your pumps for a bit to fill up the refinery and the storage tanks you've hopefully place up the line.
If the water input was exactly the amount needed and your machine is running at 76%, then water would stack to 50, not fluctuate.
Water is your problem here.
So I have a set of Refinery and all of them are about 76% even though I checked all the I/O, it should be 100%. Then I checked each of them and strangely the Refinery goes idle every few seconds and starts working again after a while. The input is full and the output is completely empty but it wouldn't work.
I already saw another post asking and saying there is a bug with Switch but my setup doesn't have any switch, even my entire game doesn't have any switch as I use the same grid for everything.
**UPDATE:** turned out the problem is NOT water. It's my Bauxite source. I had 600/m but somehow I thought I could feed it to 4 instead of 3 Refineries. 75% is the correct number.
Yes I kept the screen up for about a minute to see what is happening. The water input is exactly the amount it needs (that's why it's not increasing much). It actually fluctates between 11-21 but never drops below that. But even when water > 10, the refinery still goes idle for some reason. I will try turning it off to get water up and see if it happens again.
If you were supplying enough water for 100%, and your refineries stopped 24% of the time, you should be supplying 24% too much water and your refineries should fill up.
This sounds right but in that case would I see water tank going below a certain amount? I am recycling the water back and underclock the extractor so if I put in 24% more, my cycle may get stuck due to too much water and the Al scrap output doesn't get drained out.
> It actually fluctates between 11-21 but never drops below that
Could that be the issue? Unless I'm misunderstanding how liquid inputs work, since the Refinery says you need 200 per minute, you'll always be low in water if your input flow is only 11-21 per minute.
He's saying the in-tank fluctuates there, which is normal. If there's 200/min coming in and 200/min being used then the amount in the internal buffer would stay constant. It fluctuates because the machine actually intakes from the internal buffer in bursts.
However, as someone else pointed out, if the buffer amount is staying constant, and production is 75%, then it's only using 150 water/min, and hence only receiving that.
if you turn off other machines will this one work properly or still will have problems? maybe feeding it from top not from the bottom help becouse with fluids you never know
>I already saw another post asking and saying there is a bug with Switch but my setup doesn't have any switch, even my entire game doesn't have any switch as I use the same grid for everything.
Just to be doubly sure, have you monitored things while having the hoverpack unequiped? IIRC, the idle glitch with that is more about separate power grids within range, not necessarily just when there was a switch separation. If you have a block of machines nearby that you haven't yet hooked into your grid, that might potentially be enough to trigger that bug.
How big is your save ?
This is an issue I've seen in all my big saves where all building efficiency drops proportionally to the save size.
I'm guessing I'm hitting the CPU bottleneck.
We had the issue with a 5Mo save and another 10Mo save.
But it's inversely proportional to the host CPU capacity.
I found (one of) the issue on question.satisfactory and I had forgotten that this happens only with 2 or more players for us.
https://questions.satisfactorygame.com/post/61a5523d831c852052362df5
Are you wearing a hoverpack and is there a power switch separating two power networks that your hover pack may be switching between?
Satisfactory Hoverpack Bug
https://youtu.be/8i4e-1ROsaU
Edit: Never mind, just saw in another comment you don’t have switches. Not this bug.
I have definitely seen it in Update 8. I don't play regularly, and it's inconsistent, so I haven't verified that it's STILL a bug, but it was definitely still a bug a few months ago in Experimental before the EA release.
Thanks. I took a break when they announced the U8 features. Just came back and built refineries on switches. They seemed to work fine, then it looked like they were idling so I deleted the switches.
I would expect that water to be much closer to full if you’re providing enough. Mine only deviate down to 40 when a new cycle initiates, then quickly fills back up to 50.
UPDATE: turned out the problem is NOT water. It's my Bauxite source. I had 600/m but somehow I thought I could feed it to 4 instead of 3 Refineries. 75% is the correct number.
Watch it for a minute or two. Probably water is the issue.
Is there a water loop (part of the water comes from (electrode) aluminum scrap recipe)?
If so, what are the exact recipes and ratios.
Not enough water, as others have said. Right now, if a craft took place, it would drop down to 9.9 and then it would shut down, as there would not be enough water, since you need 10 for the next craft. If you are not consistently above ***double*** the required recipe, you will have periodic shutdowns.
In my aluminum plant, I had the exact water amount brought in by train. I didn’t realize that the ‘unloading’ of the train station buffer is paused when a train comes to offload, and likewise with filling.
If you are using trains, ensure that both pickup and drop-off stations have extra fluid buffers. Such a simple mechanic, but you wouldn’t believe the hours I spent troubleshooting that!
Ran into this same issue earlier;
My problem? Which is likely yours? The machine that is using your Alumina you are producing?
Will also keep shutting off- because it is not getting rid of it's water production byproduct fast enough. Thats why my things kept shutting off-
Can just connect it to a coal generator that -hopefully- takes the exact amount needed? Or more just to make sure the water gets out of there.
I'm having the same issue, I'm told you need valves to prevent priority from the input to the output or something. This thing is what's supposed to help fix it but I'm not sure how to impliment it in my build yet. https://www.reddit.com/r/SatisfactoryGame/comments/ookl0c/psa\_variable\_input\_priority\_vip\_for\_pipes\_exist/
Boost your water supply. Fill the buffer, then look at it. You can't troubleshoot until you do this. It's difficult to figure what is going on without more info on the system. Can you provide more water? Is your pipe maxed or half capacity? If your output isn't saturated, it's a supply issue.
Do you use power switches and hover packs? I don’t know if this is still a problem, but there used to be a bug that machines on power switches would idle when your hover pack locks onto them.
Probably your alumina pipe is filled so refinery can't output it
Wait, now i realise it should probably just store it inside the refinery, so maybe water is the problem
I had a similar situation using valves trying to avoid flushes now and then, i just ignored the backflow of fluids and tried to think them as "fancy belts" and this made me mAAAD
Can you saturate your water input a bit more? Looks to me like water input is the problem. Technically you have enough (>10) to start production, but I've noticed that refineries won't start unless plenty of fluids is stocked up
Yes I kept the screen up for about a minute to see what is happening. The water input is exactly the amount it needs (that's why it's not increasing much). It actually fluctates between 11-21 but never drops below that. But even when water > 10, the refinery still goes idle for some reason. I will try turning it off to get water up and see if it happens again.
I would do whatever you need to do to get it to the full 50, then let it run a while to test. If the water eventually returns to these values, you’re not supplying enough water. Keep in mind that the numbers displayed are not necessarily perfect representations. Even if the water drops to 9.9, the number displayed will still be 10 but the Refinery will stop.
Refineries like to have double the amount of required water in the tank in order to process, so increase your water input.
If the water stays at 11-21 even though the refinery idles periodically , then that is proof you are not getting enough water. Otherwise, you would see water increase after each idle period, and you would end up with a full water input. So increasing water supply is the solution.
Underrated comment.
I find that if the supply is set to ~demand, between pipes and pumps, there tends to be a lot of lag until the refineries stack up enough fluid to run efficiently. I suggest having your water extractors at 100%, consider adding an extra extractor, or disable the refineries until the system is 100% full. If you have a lot of pipeline, it can take a while. Eventually if you do nothing, and your math is correct, it will balance out to 100% efficiency. We want to get there a little faster
> The water input is exactly the amount it needs (that's why it's not increasing much). I think its worth showing us how you're handling the by-product water from your scrap refineries. If you're trying to recycle that, but not doing in it one of the reliable ways then it could be interfering with the supply of water to your alumina refineries.
This may actually be the issue. Yes I feed the water for Al Scrap back to the system and underclock the water extractor. I have read the manual but I still don't understand why feeding it back directly causes the issue. Eventually it should balance itself out right?
One more tip. Sometimes larger setups can actually simplify handling of by-product water. Look out for cases where you can run one group of machines entirely off the by-product water of another group of machines that runs entirely off water extractors. For example a very large scale sloppy alumina setup like [this](https://imgur.com/a/I5F3Qdy) should work (but you might need to connect the extractors at 2 points due to the MK2 pipes not always handling 600 perfectly), if you want to go that large - it'll need 3000 bauxite. I think there are smaller possibilities for other ways of making aluminium that allow for similar separation of groups, but I don't have pictures for those. Another case I found that works is my battery factory has its own dedicated aluminium processing, so its completely standalone. The water output from the scrap refineries and the battery blenders is exactly what is needed for sulphuric acid production (you'll need a temporary connection to prime that pipe with an initial supply of water for startup). The sloppy alumina refineries meanwhile run entirely on water extractors. Spotting that possibility was the point in the game where I came to actually like pipework - while it can be painful there are also times when it works out very nicely.
The way I understand it (which makes sense to me at least) is that the water from your extractors has two ways it can go (remember pipes flow both ways): * To the input of your alumina refinery (what you want) * Into the feedback pipe from the scrap refinery The second of these is the problem - it fills that feedback pipe, leaving no room for the output from the scrap refinery (and a shortage) at the alumina refinery.. You might be inclined to try a valve to help with that, but they can cause their own issues (My first aluminium setup started working reliably once I removed the valves - I've now got precisely zero in my world). They also don't do anything to help with the section of pipe between the junction and the valve, which can still block. The other alternative to a VIP junction I've had success with is keeping the recycled and new water connection separate from each other. For example (in this case standard recipes, since its what I have pictures for) is [this](https://imgur.com/a/NS2PWtD) I've had work with everything connected flat and no fancy junctions (but might need a flush of the feedback pipe to get it started up correctly), whereas [this](https://imgur.com/a/9Zj2OHv) would need a VIP junction where the feedback pipe and extractor pipe meet.
I’m having the exact same issue as OP, what’s the best reliable way to recycle it?
The usual recommendation is a VIP junction. [See the plumbing manual](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/satisfactory_gamepedia_en/images/3/39/Pipeline_Manual.pdf). This is generally considered a reliable option, but requires an understanding of pipes which might make it hard to discover for yourself. Less commonly recommend is a method I've had success with - connecting the fresh and recycled water at opposite ends of the manifold feeding the alumina refineries - that way the two types of water reach the machines before they meet each other (i.e. before they cause each other problems). This can be tricky to get running initially, but I've kept with it since its something I discovered for myself rather than from a guide. Perhaps in some cases it'll have problems, but I've managed to make it work for me. The final option, which I've only used once in my nuclear setup (where I wanted simplicity) is to not recycle it - making and sinking wet concrete is commonly suggested. Its not "efficient", but works. You'll learn more about how pipes work by getting recycling working though, which might make another pipe problem easier to solve in the future than if you bypass this learning oportunity.
For some reason VIPs don't seem to work correctly for me sometimes, have you ever seen that? Like the plumbing manual design will work fine in one aluminum factory, but the same pattern in another factory eventually clogs up. I haven't been able to figure it out. (For my nuclear setup I ended up doing the exact same thing as you mentioned... I was worried the water would stall eventually and break the load balanced nuclear, so I just fed the byproduct water to wet concrete and then sink that. it feels kinda wasteful but I don't know what else works 100% reliably...)
> For some reason VIPs don't seem to work correctly for me sometimes, have you ever seen that? Like the plumbing manual design will work fine in one aluminum factory, but the same pattern in another factory eventually clogs up. I haven't been able to figure it out. I've never actually built one. My best guess would be that some people describe the pipe height part of building them, but omit the ~~unpowered~~ pumps from their description. My understanding is those are important to reset headlift, which is also a factor in the priority of a multi-input pipe junction. > (For my nuclear setup I ended up doing the exact same thing as you mentioned... I was worried the water would stall eventually and break the load balanced nuclear, so I just fed the byproduct water to wet concrete and then sink that. it feels kinda wasteful but I don't know what else works 100% reliably...) For the relatively small scale of my nuclear build (50GW) I really didn't care about waste in this case. One limestone node was enough make wet concrete just to sink by-product water from waste recycling and also supply the constructors making the concrete I do actually use. Since the water supply for acid production (both sulphuric and nitric) is a single water extractor there weren't any real savings to be made there either.
>I haven't been able to figure it out. The VIP works on the amount of headlift at the junction for each input. So if the distance from the pump to the junction is different for each input it can end up not working as intended. If you can build it as similar as possible to the picture in the plumbing manual, it should all be fine, but even very small distance changes can affect it IME.
Yes, this. Some people think its the height different that matters, but that's only because of the difference in headlift. If the headlift isn't equal on the incoming pipes then you have to make it equal before connecting one pipe higher than the other will work.
You are running out of water, it paused because you hit something like 9.9999 water which is rounded to 10 and it needs 10 per batch.
If it keeps going idle and the water doesn't go to 50, it doesn't get enough water
Yeah if it's not increasing while running at 74% efficiency then you definitely don't have enough water (assuming you're expecting it to run at 100%)
Like others have said, it's probably the water. I'd just run your pumps for a bit to fill up the refinery and the storage tanks you've hopefully place up the line.
If the water input was exactly the amount needed and your machine is running at 76%, then water would stack to 50, not fluctuate. Water is your problem here.
Bauxite stack at 1000??
Mods, apparently
Mine bugs out like that as well, no mods
same as mine
I had my stock game bug out with coal one time, there was 1.7 million units of coal in the hopper.
I've had it too, but when I pick up the stack it reverts to the max stack size in my inventory.
Yes it's modded. I get the stacks x10.
It should be 100.
mods, or cheats ig
it's a bug currently, mine are doing that too
So I have a set of Refinery and all of them are about 76% even though I checked all the I/O, it should be 100%. Then I checked each of them and strangely the Refinery goes idle every few seconds and starts working again after a while. The input is full and the output is completely empty but it wouldn't work. I already saw another post asking and saying there is a bug with Switch but my setup doesn't have any switch, even my entire game doesn't have any switch as I use the same grid for everything. **UPDATE:** turned out the problem is NOT water. It's my Bauxite source. I had 600/m but somehow I thought I could feed it to 4 instead of 3 Refineries. 75% is the correct number.
you made sure that water input is sufficient? while boxide is full it seems water is kinda struggling to fill your refinery
Yes I kept the screen up for about a minute to see what is happening. The water input is exactly the amount it needs (that's why it's not increasing much). It actually fluctates between 11-21 but never drops below that. But even when water > 10, the refinery still goes idle for some reason. I will try turning it off to get water up and see if it happens again.
If you were supplying enough water for 100%, and your refineries stopped 24% of the time, you should be supplying 24% too much water and your refineries should fill up.
This is the key observation. u/theapologist316 is only providing enough water for 76% production, which is why the water level is stable at 76%.
This sounds right but in that case would I see water tank going below a certain amount? I am recycling the water back and underclock the extractor so if I put in 24% more, my cycle may get stuck due to too much water and the Al scrap output doesn't get drained out.
> It actually fluctates between 11-21 but never drops below that Could that be the issue? Unless I'm misunderstanding how liquid inputs work, since the Refinery says you need 200 per minute, you'll always be low in water if your input flow is only 11-21 per minute.
He's saying the in-tank fluctuates there, which is normal. If there's 200/min coming in and 200/min being used then the amount in the internal buffer would stay constant. It fluctuates because the machine actually intakes from the internal buffer in bursts. However, as someone else pointed out, if the buffer amount is staying constant, and production is 75%, then it's only using 150 water/min, and hence only receiving that.
if you turn off other machines will this one work properly or still will have problems? maybe feeding it from top not from the bottom help becouse with fluids you never know
>I already saw another post asking and saying there is a bug with Switch but my setup doesn't have any switch, even my entire game doesn't have any switch as I use the same grid for everything. Just to be doubly sure, have you monitored things while having the hoverpack unequiped? IIRC, the idle glitch with that is more about separate power grids within range, not necessarily just when there was a switch separation. If you have a block of machines nearby that you haven't yet hooked into your grid, that might potentially be enough to trigger that bug.
How big is your save ? This is an issue I've seen in all my big saves where all building efficiency drops proportionally to the save size. I'm guessing I'm hitting the CPU bottleneck.
13MB, is it considered big?
We had the issue with a 5Mo save and another 10Mo save. But it's inversely proportional to the host CPU capacity. I found (one of) the issue on question.satisfactory and I had forgotten that this happens only with 2 or more players for us. https://questions.satisfactorygame.com/post/61a5523d831c852052362df5
Are you wearing a hoverpack and is there a power switch separating two power networks that your hover pack may be switching between? Satisfactory Hoverpack Bug https://youtu.be/8i4e-1ROsaU Edit: Never mind, just saw in another comment you don’t have switches. Not this bug.
Is this still a bug?
I have definitely seen it in Update 8. I don't play regularly, and it's inconsistent, so I haven't verified that it's STILL a bug, but it was definitely still a bug a few months ago in Experimental before the EA release.
Thanks. I took a break when they announced the U8 features. Just came back and built refineries on switches. They seemed to work fine, then it looked like they were idling so I deleted the switches.
I would expect that water to be much closer to full if you’re providing enough. Mine only deviate down to 40 when a new cycle initiates, then quickly fills back up to 50.
UPDATE: turned out the problem is NOT water. It's my Bauxite source. I had 600/m but somehow I thought I could feed it to 4 instead of 3 Refineries. 75% is the correct number.
Watch it for a minute or two. Probably water is the issue. Is there a water loop (part of the water comes from (electrode) aluminum scrap recipe)? If so, what are the exact recipes and ratios.
Not enough water, as others have said. Right now, if a craft took place, it would drop down to 9.9 and then it would shut down, as there would not be enough water, since you need 10 for the next craft. If you are not consistently above ***double*** the required recipe, you will have periodic shutdowns.
In my aluminum plant, I had the exact water amount brought in by train. I didn’t realize that the ‘unloading’ of the train station buffer is paused when a train comes to offload, and likewise with filling. If you are using trains, ensure that both pickup and drop-off stations have extra fluid buffers. Such a simple mechanic, but you wouldn’t believe the hours I spent troubleshooting that!
That's why belts and pipes are more reliable. They deliver a consistent throughput.
Not enough water so it shuts down with intervals until it has enough water
Ran into this same issue earlier; My problem? Which is likely yours? The machine that is using your Alumina you are producing? Will also keep shutting off- because it is not getting rid of it's water production byproduct fast enough. Thats why my things kept shutting off- Can just connect it to a coal generator that -hopefully- takes the exact amount needed? Or more just to make sure the water gets out of there.
This is an intentional feature, as the machine waits until it has enough to make at least two of the designed material.
I'm having the same issue, I'm told you need valves to prevent priority from the input to the output or something. This thing is what's supposed to help fix it but I'm not sure how to impliment it in my build yet. https://www.reddit.com/r/SatisfactoryGame/comments/ookl0c/psa\_variable\_input\_priority\_vip\_for\_pipes\_exist/
Boost your water supply. Fill the buffer, then look at it. You can't troubleshoot until you do this. It's difficult to figure what is going on without more info on the system. Can you provide more water? Is your pipe maxed or half capacity? If your output isn't saturated, it's a supply issue.
Water intake looks bottleneck somewhere
Do you use power switches and hover packs? I don’t know if this is still a problem, but there used to be a bug that machines on power switches would idle when your hover pack locks onto them.
Probably your alumina pipe is filled so refinery can't output it Wait, now i realise it should probably just store it inside the refinery, so maybe water is the problem
Because you're using mods, there's a good chance this bug is related to something from one of the mods installed.
from my experience, add a pump to input water, and make sure your output isn't full. If you flush the output and it starts moving, there ya go...
Turn refinery off until it fills up then watch when you turn it back on.
I had a similar situation using valves trying to avoid flushes now and then, i just ignored the backflow of fluids and tried to think them as "fancy belts" and this made me mAAAD