Distillation Column

alaindustrial:distillation_column

Fluid MachinesLVImplementedtier-lvprocessingfluid_inputoildieselfuel-oilmultiblock

Summary

The Distillation Column is a tower three blocks tall — the tallest machine in the mod and its first multiblock. The tower is assembled from three identical segments stacked on top of each other. Inside are three tanks: crude oil is poured into the middle, diesel — the light target fraction — condenses at the top, and fuel oil — the heavy residue — runs down to the bottom. There is nothing to configure: the layout is the same on every column and reads itself — "light at the top, heavy at the bottom".

Mini-example: a pump feeds oil from a lake into the middle of the tower, a second pump draws diesel off the top, a third takes fuel oil at the base. A cable to the base — and the mini-refinery runs on its own for as long as the lake holds oil.

A cold column first warms up (~10 seconds under power), and only then starts distilling. A warmed-up working tower has glowing windows and steam rising from the top — from far away the base's silhouette tells you whether the refinery is running or standing idle.

Multiblock

Hand-built (round 3): a single kind of segment block is crafted; stack three segments on top of each other — the tower assembles itself (the bottom one becomes the "brain" base, the upper two turn into the middle and top sections, an anvil clang is heard). A lone segment is an inert blank: it has no ports and no menu, and a click hints how to finish the build. Disassembly is mirrored: breaking any segment degrades the tower — the broken one drops as a segment item, the others revert to blanks in place, and the base keeps the tanks and the coke fouling inside. Nothing vanishes and nothing is duplicated. The GUI opens with a click on any segment of an assembled tower. The Rectification Section (a separate craftable block) is placed onto the top of the tower — the tower grows to four blocks and the losses drop from 10 % to 5 %: every distillation yields +50 mB of diesel (750/200). The steam moves up to the section. The section is an ordinary block with its own drop; take it off and the bonus is gone.

Energy

The column only consumes EU/FE; power is fed into the base on any of its faces (sides and bottom). The middle and the top take no energy — a cable will not connect to them.

Warm-up

For a continuously running refinery the warm-up is invisible; flicking the power on and off is a losing proposition.

Fluid

Three tanks of ten buckets each. The input tank accepts any oil with the conventional c:oil tag; the output tanks are filled only by the machine itself — neighbours may only extract.

Processing

1000 mB of oil + 400 EU/FE → 700 mB of diesel + 200 mB of fuel oil. That is 900 out of 1000 mB — 10 % is lost "to light gases": processing in this mod never multiplies volume. With the Rectification Section — 750 mB of diesel + 200 mB of fuel oil (5 % losses).

Cracking. The column can also distil its own residue: pour fuel oil into the input tank — 1000 mB of fuel oil + 400 EU/FE → 600 mB of diesel. Energy-wise it is a solid gain (6 000 EU/FE of fuel oil → 7 200 EU/FE of diesel minus the 400 EU/FE of the run), but the real point is conversion into the dense fuel: the player decides whether to burn the cheap fuel oil as is or send it through a second pass.

If either output tank cannot fit its fraction, the column freezes entirely: no EU/FE is spent, no oil is consumed, nothing is destroyed. Both fractions always come out together — there are no half-operations.

Maintenance

Every distillation builds up coke fouling in the column (+2 %); at 100 % (≈50 operations) the column stops with the "Coked up" status — no EU/FE is spent, no feedstock is consumed. A right-click with the wrench on any segment scrapes the fouling out: the column is clean, and the player receives 1–3 coal (how many depends on the degree of fouling). Shift-right-click with the wrench remains the tower's disassembly. The fouling shows on a gauge in the GUI and survives a relog and a tower break — re-placing is no substitute for cleaning.

Inventory

Six slots — three container pairs, one per tank.

Automation puts containers only into the pairs' input slots and takes from the output ones.

Interface

In the centre of the screen sits a mini-silhouette of the tower itself: its three windows show the real levels of the three tanks (diesel at the top, oil in the middle, fuel oil at the bottom), bubbles rise through the oil window while it works, the base glows with heat as the warm-up progresses, and with the section installed the silhouette grows a fourth storey. On the left is the oil gauge with its container pair, on the right the fraction gauges with their own pairs, next to the silhouette the fouling gauge, and at the right edge the energy reserve. Below sit a permanent status line ("Distilling", "Warming up… N %", "No energy", "No feedstock", "Diesel tank full", "Fuel oil tank full", "Coked up") and a line of exact volumes in mB with coloured tank markers.

Block Properties

The tower is a volumetric 3D column (a faceted ~12px pipe with flanges, a side ladder and a valve), not a stack of cubes. Each segment carries coloured nozzles on the side of its fluid: black (oil) in the middle, yellow (diesel) at the top, brown (fuel oil) at the base — where to point the pump is visible without tooltips. The windows glow while it works; steam rises only from a warmed-up working column.

Sound

Silent — a deliberate decision (2026-08-09), recorded in the sound registry. All the indication is visual: the windows, the steam, the status line.

Recipes

Both fractions then go to the liquid fuel generator (the branch's next task): diesel — 12 EU/FE/t, fuel oil — 6 EU/FE/t.

Progression

Tier: LV. Built after the pump and the first oil; noticeably more expensive to craft than an ordinary machine — two machine casings, a circuit and plates for the "pipe". Net per bucket of oil: 9 600 EU/FE out − 1 400 EU/FE spent (pump + distillation = 8 200 EU/FE — weaker per unit than coal (12 800) and lava (15 000), but a lake next to the base feeds the refinery on its own. The "Oil Refining" advancement — for placing the column (the "Black Gold" branch).

Related

Oil — the feedstock: where to look and how to pump it out. Diesel — the target fraction. Fuel Oil — the heavy residue. Pump — moves oil into the column and fractions out of it. Portable Tank — a fraction buffer next to the tower.

Crafting

Shaped Crafting

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Distillation Column