This guide will primarily be useful for chemists, or someone else willing to play with pipes.
Summary: Plumbing is chemical factories to automate chemical production for bulk amounts of methamphetamine healing chemicals.
Essence
Plumbing is a system for the creation of piss and shit chemical factories. Plumbing is also an innaccurate name, since you'll be making chemical factories and not toilets.
The plumbing system is made up of three basic things: A supplier, a duct network and a demander. A supplier supplies chems through a network of fluid ducts to a machine that demands that reagent. A supplying machine has a blue duct sticking out of it. A demanding machine has a red duct sticking out. Red is mean so red take, blue is nice so blue gives. A machine can be both a supplier and a demander.
The maximum transfer amount is 10 units per 2 seconds.
YOU NEED A DUCT IN-BETWEEN MACHINES. Will be changed soon enough
Fluid Ducts
These can be found instacks in autolathes and in the chemical laboratorium. Simple click them on a tile to place them down. You can click it in-hand to change the color and layer. Different colors and layers will not connect. You can force two different colors to connect by click dragging them to each other while holding a wrench. You can connect different layers with a multilayered duct, wich is crafted in Misc with ducts and a welding tool.
Ducts can be wrenched to turn back into an item for retrieving.
Physics
Plumbing physics might not be entirely as you expect. Due to pressure technology, there will never be any leftover in ducts. Thus, reagents transfer instantly from supplier to demander.
If a machine holds 5 water, 5 sugar and 5 mannitol and a machine requests 5 units, the requesting machine will receive 5 water for the first request. Normal chemistry would get you 1.66... water, 1.66... sugar and 1.66... mannitol. This might seem unlogical, but necessary for Floating Point Errors advanced factories.
Machinery
Most of the basic plumbing machinery is available through a specialized custom RCD, wich can be found in the chemical lab or a hacked autolathe. These machines can be deconstructed by welding.
Remember, just because they aren't in the plumbing RCD doesn't mean they don't take chems. The smoker is one of those machines. Have fun.
Synthesizer
These buggers create the chemicals. You select an amount and a reagent and they'll create that every five seconds. They need a valid output to keep going, since it only stores one dose.
Reaction Chamber
Extremely important for advanced set-ups. You can give a set of reagents and amounts. It will then only take in those reagents and amounts, from top to bottom. While doing this, the reagents are in stasis and do not react. Once it has all the specified reagents with the given amounts, it will react and start emptying. Very sane, and a powerful tool for fighting surplus contamimants.
Can get stuck if you are entering target reagents while it can take them. Either let it flow out or empty it with a plunger.
Acclimator
The automated brother of chemical heater. You simply give it a temperature and it will heat to that. You should set Allowed Temperature Difference to something aswell. It wont empty till it reaches the target temperature, wich takes extremely long if you want it precise. Setting Allowed Temperature Difference to 4 and target temperature to 379 means it will heat to 379 but start the emptying fase at 375.
Just like the reaction chamber, it does not empty and fill at the same time to avoid contaminants.
You can also set a custom volume under 200. Might be useful, for when you don't want it to over fill beyond a certain point, to once again avoid contaminants getting in.
Filter
Very simple. You can give one or two reagents and it will funnel it to the side and push the rest through the front.
Splitter
Got 15 of a reagent and only want 10? This cheap machine allows you to do just that. Set it to a 10 to 5 ratio and it will send 10 through and 5 left.
Disposer
Simplest machine of all. Sucks up all reagents and breaks them down.
Pill Press
This is where the fun begins. Takes a name, amount and icon and will then constantly create pills based on those parameters.
Tank
Technicly not a machine. Has a massive storage of 400u, doesn't do anything else.
Input
Accepts manual chemical input.
Output
Accepts manual chemical output. Simply grab a beaker and fill it.
Equipment
There's a few pieces of equipment available for chemists wanting to be plumbers. Including these and probably a few more I forgot.
Plumbing Constructor
The magical plumbing RCD. It can construct the basic plumbing machinery. Will eventually need to be refilled. Can be printed in a hacked autolathe.
Plunger
All of the basic plumbing machinery can be plungered to empty their contents on the floor. Can be very useful if you got some machines that need to be emptied quickly. Can be printed in the medical and engineering lathe.