I don't think anyone plays factorio the way it was meant to be played.

With the new belt reading mechanics, I'm trying a single sushi belt play through and have made it as far as blue science so far.

Oil is where Factorio becomes factoriohno

With the update, even if you don't have the DLC, fluids have been rebalanced. You just have to place a pump every 200-250 tiles and everything flows.

For oil specifically, you don't need anything but petroleum until what used to be late game. So just build a few (like a dozen) refineries and make sure that there's actually oil coming in.

Once you actually need lubricant, and light oil, set up chemical plants to turn heavy oil into lube and light oil, and light oil into petroleum. It won't be fast, but it won't clog and it will produce what you need, slowly. You can use storage tanks as a buffer for your lube, light oil, and petroleum. Heavy oil isn't used as a direct input for any assembler recipe.

I consider myself a Factorio apprentice, as I have yet to actually set up a proper train system. I'm slowly learning circuit logic, but can get to Gelba without getting stuck.

Don't stress optimization, brute force works as well.

According to my father, who is an absolute Epic Wizard level computer programmer consultant, Factorio teaches you the basics of computer programming.