Perfect gases, phases and pressure

[Ehloim]

Hi,

I searched a little in this forum but found few information about the reason pressure was ommited from the game mechanics. Is there a reason ?

There are interesting fluid mechanics, but the game lacks flexibility regarding phase conversions and pressure management. As I understand it, there is no pressure in the game. You can follow masses, volumes and temperatures, but pressure is missing as a parameter of the ideal gas law. This results in increasing difficulty to manage temperature and control over the different states of matter.

For example, it is not possible to convert gases to liquids without decreasing the temperature, while this is the base mechanics of turbomachinery (through the use of turbines and compressors). It would offer far more possibilities to transfert both matter and energy through the base. A few examples of uses :
- It is actually not possible to reproduce the effects of a refrigerator and it would be possible with the properties of several gases such as Hydrogen,
- It is not possible to stock gases as liquids by increasing the pressure in a given volume,
- It is not possible to produce electricity through mechanical means except for the initial wheel though it would be an interesting way to use :
    - The geysers which produce gases in large amount at high temperatures,
    - The heaters to increase pressure in pipes in order to use turbines to produce electricity.
Especially, there are too few ways of controlling temperatures. In my knowledge, base means are cold plants and the alien machinery while very effective means using thermodynamics and fluid mechanics exist.

I hope this gives a few ideas of new machinery and game mechanics !

Thank you guys ! This game is all in all a very good one

[Neotuck]

there is no pressure mechanics in the game, The game physics is based on weight by volume (example, how many grams of O2 is in one block of space)

[Sasza22]

It`s been suggested a lot of times to make the game more physics based. Actually the lack of proper pressure mechanics is why the steam turbine is so bad atm.

I think at this point they shouldn`t add another layer of physics. Most of the stuff is balanced around the simplified model using only mass. Yes it causes some problems but rebalancing everything would surely cause more.

[D.L.S.]

I saw in decompiled game code that Element class actually have parameter pressure, and some functionality as PressureToMass. But it is not used, probably leftovers from old times and if it is the case then i dont think pressure will ever come back.

Without pressure normal explosions not possible(only fake), without gas diffusion normal combustion not really possible.

[Ehloim]

Too bad. 

It would increase the possibilities and solve some issues. For instance, the blocking mechanics of some machinery requires huge setups to manage or glitch exploit like with the "pressure" threshold of the electrolyzer. Some weird mechanics are there due to the lack of the pressure parameter. 

Anyway, that's the way it is. 

[Neotuck]

5 hours ago, Ehloim said:

It would increase the possibilities and solve some issues

solve some perhaps,

but cause others, for example increase lag issues

[Sasza22]

14 hours ago, D.L.S. said:

saw in decompiled game code that Element class actually have parameter pressure, and some functionality as PressureToMass

Well they could give each gas a "max" mass per tile over which it is considered overpressurized and blocks gas vents but with high pressure vents, popped eardurm mechanics and gas tanks it would get super confusing really quickly. I guess the game is easier to understand this way. Even if it`s not too accurate sometimes.