Hi!

I have noticed an issue (at least in Factorio 2.1.14) with recipes for color variants of storage tanks, pumps and pipes unlocking too early, if the setting for showing fluid color recipes is enabled! As an example, Oil Processing is set to unlock colored variants based on fluids (Crude Oil and Petroleum Gas), even if their base variant can't be expected to be unlocked at that stage (like storage tanks from supported mods). The same can even happen with pipes and pumps at earlier stages in Krastorio 2. There are many other examples. Since tech unlock effects are defined at the prototype stage, I am not sure about a solution.

But maybe the issue could be circumvented entirely by just unlocking all the fluid color variants alongside the base variant, the way it's done with all the other colors? After all, the color is just an aesthetic property. It doesn't really seem necessary to release them according to available recipes, and it doesn't make sense to have no access to, for example, water/steam colored variants either, when water can be pumped and turned into steam in a boiler, simply because no selectable recipes yet require any of these.