A Single Gas Geyser Supports 7 Generators

[natemiddleman]

Natural Gas -> Gas Generator -> Air Scrubber -> Fertilizer Maker -> Natural Gas

Fertilizer Makers Return 76% of the natural gas from the byproducts of a Gas Generator. This means it takes 2 Air Scrubbers, 16 Fertilizer Makers, and about 4250 g/s Water (a little over 1 Steam Geyser) to balance a singe Gas Geyser and it will support about 6.9 Gas Generators with a net of over 3 KW of power. I haven't tested it in game yet, but I found the numbers so ridiculous that I wanted to see if anyone else has done this before I went ahead and started building it.

[rezecib]

@natemiddleman Yup, I've built it before. I put up the math and a guide on the wiki.

Edit: Also, fun fact I calculated last night was that polluted water on its own is worth a net of up to 3.72 J per gram, using a triple system (scrubber + fertilizer maker + natural gas generator) like this.

Edit 2: Also, it uses less water. Only 1919 g/s-- the only water input required is for the scrubbers, and two scrubbers can only use 2 kg/s total.

[Risu]

If only lag didn't cause a desync between the simulation (geyser output and pumps) and the pipes and schedulers (generators and fertilizer makers). Running at 3x speed you get delta time of (3 / 60) IF the FPS is 60. This means the simulator ticks every 5 frames at a minimum; 0.25 seconds. If the game lags then the simulator may miss a frame and run at the sixth frame. This means a delta time around 0.30 seconds. The simulator assumes the delta time is always a constant 0.25 seconds and it returns results with this assumption. Everything that depends on the simulator uses the real delta time and this is where problems arise. The impact is less on 1x and 2x but it's still there. If you want to see how it looks when the delta time is beyond desynced, Press Ctrl-U for 30x.
 

[Michi01]

Yep I've built it before and it works really well. I think the best way to solve this would be to make air scrubbers produce something different.

[brummbar7]

I'd like to see gas production from fertilizer makers nerfed. Personally I think it's ridiculous that people use them to generate natural gas as a primary benefit.  They have no downside, essentially.   They 1) get rid of polluted water, 2) make fertilizer, and 3) make natural gas.  All good things.  The natgas production is only a downside until one realizes that they can contain it and use it.   I'd suggest either doubling fertilizer maker power requirements, or reducing the natgas production to 10 or even 5g/s, making them either break even, or a net power loser, returning them to the realm of primarily making fertilizer, and also producing a little natgas, which is annoying if not contained, or maybe just enough to even out a geyser if contained.  It's just too easy to have tons of essentially free power otherwise, imo. 

Then there could perhaps be a separate building that turns polluted water into natgas - perhaps with addition of algae, since algae has basically no use once one moves beyond deoxidizers as primary O2 production, and terrariums as CO2 removers.

[Whispershade]

Not only that, the gas generators produce output equal to their own temperature. So if you can cool them down, you can use their polluted water as coolant before sending it into the fertilizer makers.

[NurdRage]

Not sure i would want to nerf it until more/better power options are available.

What do we have so far? 

 

Manual generator - works great but puts a dupe out of commission and through them it uses food, time and other dupe resources.

Coal generator - Fuel runs out pretty quick, good for starting up but not good for a long term or even a moderate term colony.

Hydrogen generator - no long term source of hydrogen. The production from an electrolyzer works, but the huge oxygen production must be dealt with. Overall it's really difficult to get it self-sustaining on a scale-able level unless you happen to have a void where you can chuck excess oxygen into.

Natural gas generator - Sustainable by both fertilizer maker/scrubber cycle and natural gas geyser.

I say rather than kill fertilizer makers, instead reduce the amount of polluted water the air scrubber produces. Maybe 1/10th. There is LOTS of polluted water laying around so the fertilizer maker can still be used, but it won't be sustainable. Eventually you will run out of polluted water, but hopefully by then you would have found a natural gas geyser. 

Rather than becoming an annoying obstacle, polluted water then becomes a valuable resource that indirectly fuels your generators. It'll bridge the time period after running out of coal, and finding a natural gas geyser.

 

[brummbar7]

2 hours ago, NurdRage said:

Not sure i would want to nerf it until more/better power options are available.

I guess I've never failed to find at least 1 natgas geyser in an immediately-adjacent-to-spawn slime biome.  But coal generators should be able to bridge the gap if they're further, as long as the player is not wildly wasting their coal, or trying to run a dozen condensers at turn 20.  If you don't have a slime biome near, you'll definitely have a hot biome, which have tons of coal.  I usually skip coal generators entirely and go straight from wheels to NG, but I realize there's other strategies.  I can only speak for myself.  But it's certainly *possible* to use coal generators to bridge, from my experience.

In my current game I still have only 1 natgas geyser, having exposed maybe 2/3 the map.  My more typical experience has been 2+ fairly close in.  There of course needs to be options, but the current situation is too easy-mode, it seems to me.  And that's probably fine for this stage of alpha-testing, as it lets people focus on testing other systems (I'm assuming a lot of things will be re-balanced for full release).  But longer-term, I think they should be changed.

Fwiw, someone file-diving (I forget which thread) found some sort of plant coming that, iirc, takes in chlorine and outputs hydrogen.  Which, depending on whether or not chlorine is a finite resource, may or may not be particularly helpful. 

[NurdRage]

How about just reducing scrubber output?

[Whispershade]

I was hundreds of cycles in before first finding a natgas geyser. None were near the starting biome they have all (4 now) been near the border. I just found a forth and it is partially covered in neutronium.

Scrubbers already jip you on output. They take in 1300g/s of material and output just 1000g/s. That is 18kg a cycle of disappeared mass.

And of course nothing is stopping people from planting fertilizer factories on hatch ranches for absurb quantities of coal.

Of course energy production may not be intended to be a perpetual challange. But one of a number of problems to balance. Heat, and soon disease, may linger as issues that require constant attention. So it is hard to say energy production needs better balancing without a broader view on other types of associated challenges.

[NurdRage]

 

I agree.

I actually really like the current perpetual energy machine because it provides a real sense of accomplishment in the game. I can stand back and look at it chugging away and say "I made that!"

It's like a Tier 4 research project. Except YOU are the one researching it and not your dupes.

The game needs some rewards like this so it isn't a painfully arduous slog through every challenge.  If you never feel you're making real progress through the world then every task becomes tedious and unfulfilling. The other parts of the game can be perpetual battles, but i want some places in the game i can have a perpetual win.

The perpetual energy machine is that win. 

 

 

[brummbar7]

28 minutes ago, NurdRage said:

It's like a Tier 4 research project.

I mean, technically yes, the natgas generator is the peak of research *at this time*.  But considering that radium is 'on the list', it seems also obvious that, at least in the future, natgas is *not* going to be the apex - nuclear may be.  Natgas is not even that big an accomplishment at this moment, since one unskilled dupe can complete all research around turn 20.   This fertilizer maker->natgas loop (for me) feels good because it's easy, not because it's a challenge.  Using animals, or hot/cold radiator pipe engineering, THOSE are challenges.   I'm really hoping the research timeline will be stretched for release.  Because right now research is a blip on the timeline. 

 

1 hour ago, Whispershade said:

So it is hard to say energy production needs better balancing without a broader view on other types of associated challenges.

Obviously I don't know what Kei's intent and plans are.  But if I wait for the full scope of the game to come into view to make suggestions, then it may well be too late for suggestions.  So I'm just saying, as I see the game right now, I think it would be much better for the balance and challenge, if fertilizer production and gas generation - as primary functions - were split into separate machines, so the player has more of a dilemma.  It seems to me pretty clear that if you have a machine, named for producing a product, and yet the primary use of that machine in practice is to produce a by-product, then you have an imbalance.  You've either named the machine incorrectly, or the by-product is too attractive at the cost.

[NurdRage]

 

4 minutes ago, brummbar7 said:

This fertilizer maker->natgas loop (for me) feels good because it's easy, not because it's a challenge.  Using animals, or hot/cold radiator pipe engineering, THOSE are challenges.

 

And what's so horrible about that? It might be easy for you, but it's not easy for me. We can't all be as smart as you.

And why does every part of the game have to be a challenge for YOU in particular? Why can't we have a few "easy" parts for morons like me? Let the rest of the game be hard, but if there isn't a ladder, a range of challenges for everyone, then people like me would play for 5 hours and then give up in frustration for never being able to start, let alone play. 

Now i'm not saying they shouldn't change the fertilizer maker. But the concept, of having a few easy challenges with real end-solutions, should be kept. Look at all those people that are so proud of figuring out how to make a self-recycling shower using a water purifier. Yeah, it's really easy to figure that out, and its not truly sustainable since sand runs out. But should that joy and personal fulfillment be taken away because it's "easy"? Should the water purifier be removed and everyone *required* to build a steam distiller right from the get go?

There are some very hard problems in the game, like dealing with heat without using exploits. THERE is YOUR challenge, let me have mine. 

You can have the hard parts, i'm not proposing to tear them out. I realize that the hard parts are future challenges for if i ever get that good, if it all. I want the hard parts to stay in even if i can never solve them. But why should the easy parts be torn out? is the game required to be universally hard? 

If you feel that ONI should be like Dark souls, that people like me should not be playing, and only people like you should be, okay fine, i'll stop. But i think Klei wants layers of complexity for everyone. From the simple morons like me, to the Ph.D. professors like you. 

 

 

 

[Kasuha]

1 hour ago, brummbar7 said:

if you have a machine, named for producing a product, and yet the primary use of that machine in practice is to produce a by-product, then you have an imbalance.

The spirit of the game is that you have some tools and you can do whatever you like with them. You can use the fertilizer maker to produce fertilizer. But you still have to do something with the natural gas produced, and there's not much you can do with it.

The situation is similar to the one with electrolyzer, it also gives you one useful output (oxygen) and one pollution element (hydrogen) which you need to get rid of. And voila, you get a nifty way of getting rid of that pollution that even produces power.

Amount of power provided by the natural gas loop isn't all that spectacularly greater than power acquired using electrolyzers. It's more, but it also requires more complex machine. If renaming fertilizer maker into 'water outgasser' that also produces fertilizer as byproduct fixes the issue for you, then I believe no change is really needed at this stage of the game development. 

[Haivland]

What is the best way to deal with the heat produced by the NG generator/ fertilizer complex you have to make?

[rezecib]

4 hours ago, Haivland said:

What is the best way to deal with the heat produced by the NG generator/ fertilizer complex you have to make?

I ran mine for over 100 cycles without needing to do anything about the heat (granted, mine wasn't 100% thermodynamically sealed-- I had some doors). If you want, you can try dripping the 40C polluted water coming out of the scrubbers to cool the rest, but for the most part the fixed-temperature outputs of the fertilizer makers do a lot to keep the temperature stable. As long as you build everything out of gold amalgam it should be fine, and stabilize around 60-80C.

[Whispershade]

4 hours ago, Haivland said:

What is the best way to deal with the heat produced by the NG generator/ fertilizer complex you have to make?

NG generators also produce output equal to their temperature so if you specifically cool them you can use their product, particularly their polluted water, as a very effective coolant. I made a whole thread on my go of it, as a matter of fact.

[brummbar7]

5 hours ago, Kasuha said:

The situation is similar to the one with electrolyzer, it also gives you one useful output (oxygen) and one pollution element (hydrogen) which you need to get rid of. And voila, you get a nifty way of getting rid of that pollution that even produces power.

Spoiler

 

Except that the very concept of an electrolyzer has *baked into it* the notion of producing those two things.  That's what it is, and it would be surprising if it did not do that.   Granted, ONI takes liberties with what is consumed and produced with any given process, but electrolysis of water is a very specific process. The making of fertilizer is not that specific.  It's further my understanding that using electrolysis as a primary power producer in ONI is problematic in terms of dealing with all the surplus oxygen (I personally don't use them this way, so maybe I'm wrong - it does seem like you should just be able to pump it into other caverns).  Fertilizer makers do not have the same limitation.  I had hoped they would at least bury themselves in fertilizer and become entombed if I didn't remove the fertilizer fast enough, but I have yet to see that behavior.  Moreover, freshwater is essentially limited to however many geysers you have, plus whatever you can filter.   Polluted water is so abundant naturally, in addition to being a byproduct of all that geyser water as it gets process (heck, for toilets it gets DOUBLED), it feels practically unlimited.  I'd be interested to know if anyone has ever run out of PW, and if so at what cycle, and how many dupes they had.  Electrolyzers you can run 4-ish per geyser right?  But then you still need to irrigate your bristle blossoms, and run your scrubbers, toilets, and showers.  The fresh water choices seem to me more critical, vs polluted-water-using choices. 

Changing the name would at least acknowledge what they get used for.  They'd still be unbalanced.

 

 

7 hours ago, NurdRage said:

And why does every part of the game have to be a challenge for YOU in particular?

Spoiler

And why should every part conform to your preferences?  See how that goes both ways?  Look, I'm making a suggestion, and I was not trying to deride you with that wording, I was trying to make clear that what I'm talking about is my experience.  I'm trying to acknowledge that these are just my opinions.  Not put others down.  If you expect me to jump into everyone elses' heads and make suggestions based on a hive-mind concensus, well, I'm going to have to disappoint you - that is beyond my capabilities.  And I am far from an ONI genius.  I don't do all the super-cooling wheezewort stuff people post.  I say systems incorporating mobs are 'hard' because they're luck-based, and it can be hard to move the mobs.  Unlike buildings which you place wherever you want.  Pipe radiator projects are hard because they're ill-defined.  They take a lot of experimentation.  How long does the pipe need to be?  The gas? Gas temperature?  The materials?   Tons of variables,  no hard-and-fast answers for these (well, not easy ones).  I actually don't like the pipe radiator stuff very much, and hope there will be simpler alternatives, so in that you and I are perhaps alike.  When I say the natgas loop is easy, I mean that it has very well defined producers and consumers, that are for the most part discreet, predictable, and easily controlled (natgas from FMs the least so), and easily enough scaled.  I have no problem with any part of the loop except the FMs.  They remove an omni-present pollutant and give two good things in return, and produce no dupe jobs.  I believe they are unbalanced, and I believe the challenge gradient would be improved it they cost more to use (in dupe jobs, power, or both, or if they entombed themselves when you don't remove the fertilizer fast enough), or produce less natgas, or even better were split into two separate machines.  That is my opinion.  I understand that others might disagree.  I you want to say 'I disagree, and am happy with how things are' that's fine, that's valid.  But if you want to make it sound like I'm attacking you or your enjoyment of the game, you need to get some perspective.

 

[NurdRage]

18 minutes ago, brummbar7 said:

I you want to say 'I disagree, and am happy with how things are' that's fine, that's valid.

I DID say that, but apparently it wasn't valid.

[Buldric]

8 hours ago, NurdRage said:

Why can't we have a few "easy" parts for morons like me? Let the rest of the game be hard, but if there isn't a ladder, a range of challenges for everyone, then people like me would play for 5 hours and then give up in frustration for never being able to start, let alone play.

The problem is that, at the moment, natural gas is the most effective power system, with the easiest large-scale setup process, easiest renewability, and lowest maintenance cost. (Try setting up a power system with hydrogen, for instance, that produces net 3KW, let alone 5 or 6 of them).

That's not how games are supposed to work. There are "ladders": manual generators are dead easy to set up and use. Gas generators aren't "ladders", they're an elevator straight to the top floor. (I say this, of course, as someone who uses the crap out of them). It renders that facet of the game very boring once you figure out how to use them.

[Kasuha]

35 minutes ago, Buldric said:

It renders that facet of the game very boring once you figure out how to use them.

What isn't 'very boring once you figure out how to use'? The game is in development and there's so much progress it offers. Gas power is the top, there's nothing more complex than that in the game at the moment in my opinion. Building it from the bottom - setting up your first gas geyser and one gas generator - works, but then you get to deal with pollution problems, natural gas all over the place, then CO2, then polluted water, and last comes heat. In result an average player needs to either rebuild it several times, or even try different designs in subsequent playthroughs. It leaves a lot of room for failures and experimentation and brings replayability. But once you get it figured out, yeah, there are no more surprises awaiting you in that area, just like with anything else.

[Buldric]

5 minutes ago, Kasuha said:

Building it from the bottom - setting up your first gas geyser and one gas generator - works, but then you get to deal with pollution problems, natural gas all over the place, then CO2, then polluted water, and last comes heat. In result an average player needs to either rebuild it several times, or even try different designs in subsequent playthroughs.

I don't find this to be the case. Generally I just jump straight from all hamster wheels to 7 gas generators with full supporting infrastructure.

 

6 minutes ago, Kasuha said:

It leaves a lot of room for failures and experimentation and brings replayability.

I don't find this to be the case at all. There's a pretty straightforward layout- big rectangle with generators and fertilizers, smaller rectangle with air scrubbers, done.

[Kasuha]

3 hours ago, Buldric said:

I don't find this to be the case. Generally I just jump straight from all hamster wheels to 7 gas generators with full supporting infrastructure.

 

I don't find this to be the case at all. There's a pretty straightforward layout- big rectangle with generators and fertilizers, smaller rectangle with air scrubbers, done.

So you say you downloaded the game and immediately started building everything into such optimized rectangles? Well, I don't know if I should consider you lucky or unlucky with the game, then.

[BlueLance]

20 hours ago, NurdRage said:

Hydrogen generator - no long term source of hydrogen. The production from an electrolyzer works, but the huge oxygen production must be dealt with. Overall it's really difficult to get it self-sustaining on a scale-able level unless you happen to have a void where you can chuck excess oxygen into.

This isnt an issue when you have lots of dupes...I have lack of oxygen issues to deal with XD

[Buldric]

41 minutes ago, Kasuha said:

So you say you downloaded the game and immediately started building everything into such optimized rectangles? Well, I don't know if I should consider you lucky or unlucky with the game, then.

That's not what I said. I played probably 100 hours before making any serious effort to utilize natural gas. It's such an obviously unsustainable power source without the full supporting infrastructure (what with all the CO2 and polluted water it produces), so I didn't see any point in doing a slap-dash job. And because it's such a simple and blunt concept compared to, say, designing a sleet wheat farm, I didn't really feel the need to experiment or make prototypes. It's also not like a cooling system, where you might need to change your design based on the application.