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Gas/liquid INPUT vent


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Topic title says it all :)

Input vents will allow to create more beautifully designed pipe systems. And more realistic. Install pump in pump room and take gas/liquid from distance.

Setup pipe with many input vents at floor (preferably at gas permiable tile) and collect CO2. Or at roof and collect hydrogen. Etc...

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Pumps are the input vents.

The pipes have some peculiar properties - there's no pressure in them, there's no gravity in them, and the transport of the contents is for free, the pipe uses "peristaltics" to always move its contents from outputs to inputs without requiring any power. You only pay power for some special handling of the pipe contents, or for actual placing of ambient gas/liquid into the pipe.

 

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17 hours ago, Kasuha said:

Pumps are the input vents.

I think that's the point of this post: it would make piping systems a lot more elegant if you didn't have to place a pump *on* the tile you want to pump from. As it is, getting rid of unwanted gasses is a bit tedious and fiddly.

From an HVAC perspective, having input vents is more realistic. I don't think you would need to simulate pressure or suction to make it work, either... just take the maximum throughput of the pump and divide it evenly between connected intake vents.

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29 minutes ago, Buldric said:

I think that's the point of this post: it would make piping systems a lot more elegant if you didn't have to place a pump *on* the tile you want to pump from. As it is, getting rid of unwanted gasses is a bit tedious and fiddly.

Let me repeat what I already wrote in different words.

First, there are no pumps in the game. They're not needed since the pipe transport is provided by pipes' intrinsic properties.

Second, input vent is a device that places ambient gas or liquid inside a pipe. The device performing that function in ONI is called pump. It's a misnomer, since it does not do any pumping, it only provides the vent action at a cost of some power.

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I already understood what you wrote. I use the word "pump" because that's what the game calls them. Now let me repeat what *I* already wrote in different words.

The point of the original post, and my post, is that it would be nice if this worked differently. That is, make the pump more like an actual pump. This would be accomplished by having the pump "draw" fluids from connected input vents (really just telling them to accept a certain volume of fluid from the environment).

Now do you understand?

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Buldric is absolutely right!

We do not need to change mechanic. Just allow "pump" to sit in the middle of the pipe network. Inbound pipe will be counted as "extended input slot". Nothing really changed from the "pump's" work logic. If "pump" can suck - let's suck from "pump's" input. Be it integrated input or distantiated input vent(s) via pipe

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That will not work without a mechanic change. Doing it without a mechanic change would essentially make the vents a pump, which then makes the actual pump useless and you can pipe the vents to any input and be used a pump.

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5 minutes ago, Buldric said:

I think what Kaaloks is saying is that you don't need to change the physics for fluids in pipes. You only need to change the pump and the input vents, which seems like a much easier lift.

Without substantial change of pipe physics, there's no point in having actual pumps. 

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The breakdown of the question seems to me is why are pumps 4 tiles in size instead of one and why do they cost 240w instead of 60w.

That seems to be the issue when you say you want to build an intake vents instead of a pump but arent interested in changing pipe physics.

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1 hour ago, Buldric said:

I think what Kaaloks is saying is that you don't need to change the physics for fluids in pipes. You only need to change the pump and the input vents, which seems like a much easier lift.

Without changing the pipe physics what you get are vents that are pumps. That means that vents will suck in gas/liquids without any power usage and then the "pump" becomes useless because it is not doing anything but wasting energy so now people pipe the vents directly to the output. TLDR Vents becomes free pumps.

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5 hours ago, Kasuha said:

Without substantial change of pipe physics, there's no point in having actual pumps. 

I disagree. Here are a few upsides of pump + intake vent:

1) No need to run power all the way to the intake point. That means generally neater and faster builds (geysers, for instance, would be a lot easier to deal with).

2) More design flexibility and compactness. I think this speaks for itself.

3) Pull from multiple intake points with a single pump. For instance, I find that certain spots tend to build up high concentrations of unbreathable gases. One pump could probably cover all of those spots, but at the moment I need a pump for each one if I want to try and keep them clear.

4) More realistic behavior. Not that this game is super realistic, but still.

5 hours ago, AlexRou said:

That means that vents will suck in gas/liquids without any power usage and then the "pump" becomes useless

I don't think you're paying attention. This is *not* the idea at all. Intake vents, as laid out in this proposal, wouldn't intake anything without an active pump somewhere down the line requesting them to do so.

They don't need to rework pipe physics to get this to work. Just make the pump detect and activate intake vents that are connected to its pipe network. It's a cheap way of pretending to simulate suction physics.

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1 hour ago, Buldric said:

They don't need to rework pipe physics to get this to work. Just make the pump detect and activate intake vents that are connected to its pipe network. It's a cheap way of pretending to simulate suction physics.

You actually end up requiring a method to link up pumps with intake vents. With more complex pipe layouts, that is not a simple matter. Then the pump has to tell whether it is a push or pull. Again, what you really seem to be asking for is smaller pumps.

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6 hours ago, Buldric said:

I don't think you're paying attention. This is *not* the idea at all. Intake vents, as laid out in this proposal, wouldn't intake anything without an active pump somewhere down the line requesting them to do so.

They don't need to rework pipe physics to get this to work. Just make the pump detect and activate intake vents that are connected to its pipe network. It's a cheap way of pretending to simulate suction physics.

I know it is not the idea, but without changing the pipe physics that is one way of making them work. Even if you can trigger vents with a pump, in a complex network how do you decide which vent belong to which pump? There would be no way to tell the gas/liquid of any vent that it has to go to a specific pump, it will go wherever it wants. Also whats stopping players from connecting other buildings to that network? If anything other than a pump is connected to the vents then the gas/liquid can and will flow to those buildings as well. And that is easily exploitable.

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9 hours ago, Whispershade said:

You actually end up requiring a method to link up pumps with intake vents. With more complex pipe layouts, that is not a simple matter.

I don't think it's as complicated as you're making out. The game already needs to determine valid destinations for fluids to travel to upon entering a pipe network. I don't see why it should be so hard to also check if one of those destinations is an active pump. They would need to extend the logic a bit to work across pipe bridges, of course, but I still don't think that would be too tough.

Not that I've looked into the game's code at all, so who knows.

 

9 hours ago, Whispershade said:

Again, what you really seem to be asking for is smaller pumps.

That's clearly not true. Smaller pumps would have *some* of the benefits I mentioned, but not all of them. For example, smaller, less powerful pumps would *increase* wire clutter and make wiring systems *more* complicated, and you would still need to run wires all the way to each input point.

 

9 hours ago, Whispershade said:

Then the pump has to tell whether it is a push or pull.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Obviously, an inline pump would have an input and an output. Pull from input, push to output.

 

4 hours ago, AlexRou said:

I know it is not the idea, but without changing the pipe physics that is one way of making them work.

I realize this is an overused comeback, but you've constructed a strawman argument. I get that reworking pipe physics is a heavy lift, but you don't need to do that for this idea to work.

 

4 hours ago, AlexRou said:

Even if you can trigger vents with a pump, in a complex network how do you decide which vent belong to which pump?

I don't see why pumps would need to be paired 1-to-1 with vents.

 

4 hours ago, AlexRou said:

There would be no way to tell the gas/liquid of any vent that it has to go to a specific pump, it will go wherever it wants.

Piping systems already have this problem. You just have to design with that constraint in mind.

 

4 hours ago, AlexRou said:

If anything other than a pump is connected to the vents then the gas/liquid can and will flow to those buildings as well. And that is easily exploitable.

How is that exploitable? If the pump requests 10kg of water and the vent sends 10kg of water, what does it matter whether the water made it to the pump or was used by something else?

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10 minutes ago, Buldric said:

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Obviously, an inline pump would have an input and an output. Pull from input, push to output.

I'm afraid you don't really understand how pipes in ONI work and that's where your confusion comes from.

An "inline pump" that has an input and output and "pulls" from input and "pushes" to output is called valve in the game. It is not powered, its intended use is to limit throughput of the pipe but by default it is fully open and does not place any restrictions. There's nothing better the valve can do about "pumping" the pipe contents, it does exactly what you're asking for and more with no power consumption.

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4 minutes ago, Kasuha said:

I'm afraid you don't really understand how pipes in ONI work and that's where your confusion comes from.

That's really patronizing.

Also, you've completely misunderstood what is being suggested here, so let me explain it again.

You have an intake vent that doesn't intake fluid unless requested from a pump. You have a pump that requests intake vents to intake fluid.

I'm talking about *adding* a feature whereby pumps and vents are "aware" of each other, and the vent "knows" when the pump is requesting fluids. It's a way of indirectly simulating suction without having to actually incorporate it into pipe physics.

A valve doesn't request for any fluid to enter the pipe system. It serves as a valid destination for fluids, which *enables* fluids to enter the system, but you still need a powered "pump" or other machine to place the fluids into the pipes.

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All i got from this is basically he wants to be able to build a pump in its own room away from the "Source of gas" that sucks up gasses. (From input pipe device 1x1 vent for example)

A vacuum cleaner is a good example, the point of suction isn't the tip like a current pump but the engine which is at the beginning of the pipe. 

That way he can power it, and have the clunky machine not sit in a place that he wants to look nice

Is that correct?

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Wrote a wall of text but then gave up as there wouldn't be a point, so I just ask this of you.

What situation would this setup be a benefit over a 1x1 pump? I cannot think of a single benefit where this would make any sense without changing pipe physics. So please explain this part to me, how would this be implemented without having to change pipe physics that would have any benefit over a 1x1 pump? Your argument over the wires is a pretty weak argument for dev time required. 

To keep input vents from being exploited each pump must have a maximum number of input vents connected. And the total max output of the vents must match the output of the pump. Since there is no such thing as dynamic max output, each vent will have a static max output that is 1/x of the pump. This makes it more or less the same as a 1x1 pump in terms of pumping volume and energy usage. Even with dynamic max output, it is not any different that just adding more 1x1 pumps.

There is nothing stopping you from connecting buildings to the input vents and have the gas/liquid flow into them directly ignoring the pump. This makes the piping exactly the same, minus the big pump that does nothing but trigger the input vents.

Because of these 2 points, both a 1x1 pump and having input vents will behave in the same manner while a 1x1 pump will take significantly less development time even without changing pipe physics. The only way this system could make sense is if pipe physics changed.

 

If the wires are your only argument then please suggest something wire/electricity related instead.

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1 hour ago, Buldric said:

You have an intake vent that doesn't intake fluid unless requested from a pump. You have a pump that requests intake vents to intake fluid.

I think I understand very well what are you talking about and I think it is very sad that you don't make any effort trying to understand what we are trying to tell you. Stop thinking about things in terms of their names and try thinking about them in terms of their functionality for a while.

The game already has both "vent that doesn't intake fluid unless requested" and "pump that requests intake vents to intake fluid", they're just in different form than what you're imagining. You want the signal to perform the "intaking" to be transferred through the pipe. That's not supported by the game implementation. In real world it is done by the pump creating low pressure area at its input which then gets filled up by pressure difference on the input vent. But there's nothing like pressure, low or high, in pipes. Empty is empty, there's no vacuum in it. It's like an empty snake skin. 

"vent that doesn't intake fluid unless requested" is called pump in ONI

"pump that requests intake vents to intake fluid" is called power switch in ONI.

Yes, it sure would be possible to reimplement ONI pipes to work with pressures like real world pipes, vents and pumps. Then your suggestion would make sense, but in that case we would already probably have all of that.

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I don't think it's exactly impossible to do with the current games mechanics, but there is a massive exploit which could be used that would essentially break the game.

For this example please refer to the following; IV = Intake Vent, Pump = The New machine which "sucks gas" through pipes, Please note that I don't mean literally sucking, just to make things easier to understand.

Lets say the IV vent is able to be aware that their is a Pump connected and it is powered. Then yes it would be possible to do what Buldric wants. Similarly a wire can tell if it has a battery connected (Different systems but same concept) Congrats.

Now that's great but there are a very massive exploit that can and would be taken advantage of here.

If we made a pipe branch off before reaching the Pump the packets would be split evenly between the two pipes (This means half of it can be put to whatever devices you want.

Now for how to break the game. 

If you put a valve before the Pump you could literally put its allowed quantity to zero, and create a loop using whatever gas is in the pipe to circulate whatever small quantity of gas you leave in the system, this would mean the Pump is always ON & CONNECTED which would then tell your IV to keep sucking up the gas which never actually gets directed to the pump. Connect multiple IVs and you have 1000g/s of gas flowing all for the cost of 1 pump, and if you do it correctly then you could have multiple sections which are all seperated by valves.

 

I really like the concept of having a vent suck up gas if their is a suction pump connected to the same pipe system. But if you do loop the gas and lock it off as long as it is connected it wont know the difference. 

Thats my thoughts on it anyway, I will provide an image of what i mean when I am home.

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44 minutes ago, BlueLance said:

Similarly a wire can tell if it has a battery connected (Different systems but same concept) Congrats.

Wires behave very differently than pipes. You have one wire and lots of things connected to single wire but you usually don't have devices splitting the wire. Exceptions are bridges which are trivial extension, and transformers which really split the grid. The wire can't see a battery behind a transformer. Also everything on single wire acts as if it is connected to single point. The game doesn't send half power left and half right on each wire joint.

33 minutes ago, BlueLance said:

Lets say the IV vent is able to be aware that their is a Pump connected and it is powered.

There are two options. Either it must be a single pipe (no devices like valves or filters in between) or it must be a single pipe network (devices allowed).

1/ single pipe (no devices in between allowed) - generally you'd need to double the number of pipe interfaces. Instead of inputs and outputs, you'd need "passive output" (on the vent), "active output" (on the pump), "passive input" (e.g. on a valve) and "active input" (again on the pump). And define how the pipe would behave in presence of all these four on it. I don't think people would get any less confused about that than about current input->output mechanic. And when you're done, you get a system that's essentially equal to having a pump at each vent place, and a valve or bridge at the pump place, with common power switch to turn them all on at the same time. Nothing gained, nothing lost, the only point to discuss is size and performance of these pumps. In fact I would quite like a 1x1 pump that needs 60 W to pump at 25% the full capacity of the pipe, it would be great. Plus the current implementation allows routing the scooped material to multiple outputs while with the "inline pump" these would all have to be pumps or the pipe shouldn't send the material to it.

2/ single network (devices allowed) is just even more substantial implementation change because it would have to switch to pressure-driven transport. Which would be sure nice and realistic but you'd have to reimplement how not just inputs and outputs work but even how all devices handle their input and output. 

 

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1 minute ago, Kasuha said:

There are two options. Either it must be a single pipe (no devices like valves or filters in between) or it must be a single pipe network (devices allowed).

I didn't think that either of those would be possible without having to rework large parts that is why i went with explaining how I would exploit it if it was done the way I had mentioned. That's me assuming that what i mentioned also wouldn't require large amounts of rework.

I would also love a smaller pump, I could run 4 pumps at the same time in separate areas of my base to clean my air, heck id even be alright with 80W if they implemented it, would give me much more adaptability.

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After reading discussion I can agree with idea of 1x1 pump with a little addition...

If you ever play modded Minecraft you possibly know abot COFH's Thermal Expansion. Thermal Dynamics (part of) delivers different pipes. For liquids, for items. And one of the very useful pipes is powered ones! You connect to powered liquid pipe an electric cable and pipe transport liquids AND power. Such an addition to 1x1 pump can eliminate any problems. Small pump and not problematic infrastructure.

Also colored pipes/wires can be a good addition. Colored versions can intersect without connection. There are no need for bridges. ;)

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