Liquid Pipe

Liquid Pipe
Carries Liquid between Outputs and Intakes. Can be run through wall and floor tile.
Liquid pipes are used to connect the inputs and outputs of plumbed buildings.
Research	Plumbing (Research)
Dimensions	1×1 tiles
Rotation	Directional
Category	Plumbing
Decor	0
Storage Capacity	10 kg
Materials
Plumbable or Metal Ore	100 kg

Liquid Pipe transports liquid between building intakes and outputs.

Capacity

Each liquid pipe segment can hold 10 kg of liquid. The pipe system updates once per second, and a "packet" of fluid can move from one section of pipe to another in that time. As such, the maximum throughput for a single pipeline is 10 kg/s.

For reference, a single Carbon Skimmer outputs a maximum of 1000 g/s (1 kg/s) of Polluted Water, meaning that at most 10 Carbon Skimmers can share a single pipe or Liquid Vent without risking holdup. Serving 11 or more will require two parallel liquid pipes to maintain a constant flow.

Overlay

Liquid pipes can occupy the same tiles with other buildings (but not with other liquid pipes). Clicking the Plumbing Overlay button in the upper right will highlight all liquid pipes, building intakes and outputs.

Heat Exchange

The liquid content exchanges heat with the liquid pipe segment, and the pipe segment exchanges heat with the tile. The thermal conductivity of the pipe segment is a major factor in the process. Among the qualified building materials, Granite has the highest thermal conductivity and Ceramic has the lowest thermal conductivity before Thermium and Insulation is available.

Note that a liquid pipe segment does not exchange heat with nearby segments.

Tips

• Avoid having fluids in pipes change phase (either to gas or to solid), as this will damage the pipes. Damage can be prevented by decreasing the packet size to 1/10 (1 kg).
• Building pipes in natural ground blocks will mine those ground blocks.
• Note that the regular pipe variety has no decor penalty, unlike the radiant and insulated varieties.

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