Insulation is too expensive.

[MTzu]

Is it only me or is insulation too expensive?

The big problem for me isn't even niobium it's mostly the reed fiber. I run a 12 dupe colony (2 astronauts, that are permanently in space) and have only two low output cool steam vents as a water source. I don't see where I can get enough polluted water to get a lot of reed fibers.

Since the tile and regular pipe nerf you pretty much need insulated tiles and pipes if you are serious about insulating your stuff which means that you need 20 reed fibers for only one insulation pipe ...

I'm at cycle 600 and have only been using ceramic for most of the high/low temperature stuff I've been doing. Most of the coal on my map is used up, since you need so much of it for ceramic production.

 

[Christophlette]

Just now, MTzu said:

I don't see where I can get enough polluted water to get a lot of reed fibers.

Don't forget that you get reed fibers when you shears regular dreckos. They are a really good source of reed fibers. And it's easy and free once you get it running

[MTzu]

Just now, Christophlette said:

Don't forget that you get reed fibers when you shears regular dreckos. They are a really good source of reed fibers. And it's easy and free once you get it running

oof

yeah i forgot that one ^^

[Neotuck]

This is why I leave wild thimble reeds alone when I dig out swamp biomes early game

[chemie]

there is little benefit to insulation vs ceramic or double igneous insulated.  the pw water cost is prohibitive but even if you ranch for the fiber  why bother?

[cblack]

I've never bothered with insulation, as ceramic is almost as good as much easier to get both earlier in the game and in much greater quantity.

The bigger "problem" is keeping an area insulated, but still providing access to it for your duplicants.  There are no insulated airlocks, and the only materials you can make them out of are quite thermally conductive.

[Lilalaunekuh]

18 minutes ago, chemie said:

there is little benefit to insulation vs ceramic or double igneous insulated.

I got only one use for insulation pipes, but I would say in this case there is a huge difference:

A fuel pipe filled with liquid hydrogen inside a hot rocket silo ...

 

[Soulwind]

I use a small bank of Reeds (6 plants) being fed by the bathrooms.  They don't grow continuously, so it takes a bit longer than the normal domesticated growth rate, but still provides plenty of fiber.  That plus what I get from the dreckos is sufficient to meet all my fiber needs.

 

[ishakaru]

I don't suppose you've set up at least a petrol boiler, if not a full on sourgas boiler? You have at least 1 oil well, and you can gain more water than you spend by boiling crude. This would be the one situation where you don't use smart batteries to shut off generators. You want the pWater that they generate instead.

 

For reference a single oil well can net you ~250g/s from petrol gens, and ~500g/s from NG gens before considering slicksters/carbon skimmers to deal with the CO2(numbers are after the 1kg needed to run the oilwell). This is on top of the pWater from the NG generated by the oil well it's self which generates ~25g/s. Disclaimer: these numbers are in a "perfect world". Since it takes dupe time to keep the oil well going...

 

[chemie]

1 hour ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

I got only one use for insulation pipes, but I would say in this case there is a huge difference:

A fuel pipe filled with liquid hydrogen inside a hot rocket silo ...

 

ceramic has work fine for me but it is in vacuum

[Lilalaunekuh]

3 hours ago, chemie said:

4 hours ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

I got only one use for insulation pipes, but I would say in this case there is a huge difference:

A fuel pipe filled with liquid hydrogen inside a hot rocket silo ...

 

ceramic has work fine for me but it is in vacuum

If you launch a rocket you will end up a "temporary atmosphere"

=> Your fuel will heat up (only a problem if you use "just barely condensed" hydrogen without a way to empty the pipes)

[chemie]

20 minutes ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

If you launch a rocket you will end up a "temporary atmosphere"

=> Your fuel will heat up (only a problem if you use "just barely condensed" hydrogen without a way to empty the pipes)

I run O2 and H2 in a loop back to the tank so it drains

[Lilalaunekuh]

Just now, chemie said:

I run O2 and H2 in a loop back to the tank so it drains

It´s the only "real" use-case I found for insulation.

(Allowing me to not use a loop^^)

[chemie]

7 minutes ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

It´s the only "real" use-case I found for insulation.

(Allowing me to not use a loop^^)

not a great use case given the amount of effort to produce versus just building a short pipe run.

[Lilalaunekuh]

3 minutes ago, chemie said:

not a great use case

Just to satisfy my curiosity:

Do you know anything else you coudln´t do using insulated ceramic pipes or pipes inside a vacuume ?

[Lawnmower Man]

8 hours ago, Soulwind said:

I use a small bank of Reeds (6 plants) being fed by the bathrooms.  They don't grow continuously, so it takes a bit longer than the normal domesticated growth rate, but still provides plenty of fiber.  That plus what I get from the dreckos is sufficient to meet all my fiber needs.

 

+1.  I only have 4 and I only irrigate with bathroom water from 12 dupes.  I guess I get maybe 1 fiber every 2-3 cycles this way, but it's been on autopilot for a very long time, and I have 150+ fiber just laying around after building suits/paintings.

[Nitroturtle]

When all you're using fiber for is suits and paintings, it's easy to have enough.  But the fiber cost for insulation is prohibitively high for building much of anything.  Couple this with the fact that by the time insulation is an option, you've already been forced to come up with other solutions for any situations it may have been useful.  I don't even bother at this point.  Abyssalite is simply a waste product in the current game, unfortunately.

[biopon]

13 hours ago, chemie said:

not a great use case given the amount of effort to produce versus just building a short pipe run.

@Lilalaunekuh's use case is actually very good as it makes rocket automation much simpler and reliable. (You can keep a pump running and just wait for the rocket ready signal from the top.) Otherwise it's near impossible to start the pump at the right time (and not get early shutoffs) due to the lack of a "rocket present" signal, and the high variance in the rocket landing detection.)

But in any case, I don't have near enough insulation to pull this off. I use a few bits (maybe 4-6 per build) to handle aquatuner input/output from the "hot box" in very high temp gradient situations. It helps efficiency a bit.

[KittenIsAGeek]

17 hours ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

Just to satisfy my curiosity:

Do you know anything else you coudln´t do using insulated ceramic pipes or pipes inside a vacuume ?

If you have a very high temperature delta, then you'll want Insulation.  An example would be a single-tile separation between molten lava and living space.  Ceramic does just fine with 100c to 500c temperature deltas, especially if you double-wall it, but Insulation will happily prevent thermal power transfers with much higher temperature deltas.

[chemie]

50 minutes ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

If you have a very high temperature delta, then you'll want Insulation.  An example would be a single-tile separation between molten lava and living space.  Ceramic does just fine with 100c to 500c temperature deltas, especially if you double-wall it, but Insulation will happily prevent thermal power transfers with much higher temperature deltas.

I think will just avoid putting living spaces within one tile of active volcanoes instead

[0xFADE]

Coming to terms with needing 3 wall thick insulation takes awhile but when you get used to it the problem goes away. Once you start using a vacuum for perfect insulation you can use the walls as a heat buffer. 

[6Havok9]

1 hour ago, chemie said:

I think will just avoid putting living spaces within one tile of active volcanoes instead

Then what about Naples? Or those under Etna? Those poor souls in Pompei clearly didn't have enough reed fiber to afford insulation. Argument invalid =v

[chemie]

3 hours ago, 6Havok9 said:

Then what about Naples? Or those under Etna? Those poor souls in Pompei clearly didn't have enough reed fiber to afford insulation. Argument invalid 

 I would never order my dups to build cities like that.  talk to the overlord who thought was a good idea.  maybe they need a vacuum tile instead which is easier than all that reed fiber.

[riwenna]

On 15/01/2019 at 5:04 PM, cblack said:

The bigger "problem" is keeping an area insulated, but still providing access to it for your duplicants.  There are no insulated airlocks, and the only materials you can make them out of are quite thermally conductive.

I present: thermo-insulated air lock. It takes quite a bit of space so is clunky, but if the liquid you're using for the airlock doesn't absorb enough heat in itself, you can use a double air-lock with vacuum in between like so:

If all the insulated tiles are perfect insulators (which mine aren't here, they're ceramic, but good enough for 40*c drecko farm temperatures), the only heat transfer that can happen is between air and water (liquid); outside and the left water-lock, inside and the right one. vacuum+insulation tiles prevent heat transfer between water and water. (and it actually needs even less insulation then used here to be just as effective)

[cblack]

Yeah, I considered something like that at first.  Then I just gave up and put a room within a room, with a vacuum between them, and access to it via a transport tube.  It requires more tech than your solution, but it's a lot faster to access.

Still, an insulated airlock would be much appreciated, but I suspect someone else has asked for it before me.