I did a quick test with a steam boiler a few days ago.
Liquiducts don't simulate fluid movement at all. Instead, they instantly teleport liquid from all available inputs to all available outputs, regardless of how long the pipe is. This has the following implications:
- Throughput of liquiducts is for all intents and purposes
infinite, limited only by the speed you can pump liquid into it.
- Since there's no flow, there's no such thing as backflow either.
- A liquiduct pipe has a certain storage capacity, which seems to be around 4 buckets of liquid, independent of pipe length. A single section stores as much as a five kilometer long pipe does.
Here's a screenshot of my test setup.
Ignore the texture bug in my test world, these black things are industrial steam engines. Each one produces 8 MJ/t. A single golden waterproof pipe will feed one. A single liquiduct will feed two, because the boiler will not output any faster than that. However, with four liquiduct inputs hooked up to the boiler, you can feed all eight industrial steam engines even though the connection is only a single liquiduct.