plz fix physics

[feynman]

The inconsistencies in the physics are really wearing on me. 

It feels like the game can't decide whether it wants to take the full poetic license to ignore physics and focus on gameplay, or to stick to a semi-realistic physics simulation and create a fun game within that. 

It's at the point to me that I don't really want to play anymore, I can't reason about what behavior will be allowed and what won't. Mass very obviously isn't conserved. Violations of energy conservation and thermodynamics are not as obvious but still everywhere. 

Where did all my goddamn oxygen go?! cycle 300 and I juuuuust barely established a stable colony but then it collapses because I run out resources. That's the farthest I've ever gotten. 110 hours so far. 

You can't even get to the mid-game without what feels like cheating. Countless videos on the 'tubes that show how to exploit the infinite problems created by the whims and the vagaries of the game's physics engine. 

Base heating up? No problem, put down this handy plant that consumes no energy and destroys heat. Cool. Or just concentrate the heat into some kind of matter and destroy that, in anyone of a number of ways. Cuz mass isn't conserved, remember? 

The huge problem here, is that once you break physics in one way (eg break mass conservation), anything goes. The bottom drops out. Although aesthetically the game still strongly resembles a physics simulation, it is now not even a toy physics simulator. It's just some ********. You can't have a sort of physics engine. Once you've violated one law, every tiny decision made to ease development, or enhance gameplay has a universe of unintended consequences. 

 

[qda]

Hey Richard, haven't heard from you for a long time, how you doing ?

[Gus Smedstad]

I think he really should have provided us with some diagrams outlining exactly what is wrong.

[Saturnus]

Instead of complaining how it violates your own creationist view of physics why not take a step back and apply the scientific principle here. Make a framework of physics that would fit observation and testable theory instead of trying to shoehorn some mundane theories that may or may not exist in a different reality into our Universe.

[Zarquan]

On 3/26/2019 at 7:18 PM, feynman said:

The inconsistencies in the physics are really wearing on me. 

It feels like the game can't decide whether it wants to take the full poetic license to ignore physics and focus on gameplay, or to stick to a semi-realistic physics simulation and create a fun game within that. 

It's at the point to me that I don't really want to play anymore, I can't reason about what behavior will be allowed and what won't. Mass very obviously isn't conserved. Violations of energy conservation and thermodynamics are not as obvious but still everywhere. 

Where did all my goddamn oxygen go?! cycle 300 and I juuuuust barely established a stable colony but then it collapses because I run out resources. That's the farthest I've ever gotten. 110 hours so far. 

You can't even get to the mid-game without what feels like cheating. Countless videos on the 'tubes that show how to exploit the infinite problems created by the whims and the vagaries of the game's physics engine. 

Base heating up? No problem, put down this handy plant that consumes no energy and destroys heat. Cool. Or just concentrate the heat into some kind of matter and destroy that, in anyone of a number of ways. Cuz mass isn't conserved, remember? 

The huge problem here, is that once you break physics in one way (eg break mass conservation), anything goes. The bottom drops out. Although aesthetically the game still strongly resembles a physics simulation, it is now not even a toy physics simulator. It's just some ********. You can't have a sort of physics engine. Once you've violated one law, every tiny decision made to ease development, or enhance gameplay has a universe of unintended consequences.

I would disagree with you about the inconsistency ONI. 

Mass and energy conservation isn't a law of the ONI universe.  There are transitions that permanently create and destroy heat.  But that isn't inconsistent with the universe they are creating.  It is only inconsistent with our universe.  One of the most important things to know when handling the ONI universe is recognizing its own distinct physics and learning to work around it like humanity has with our universe.  Since mass/energy conservation doesn't exist, wheezeworts are completely fine as well.

Exploiting the physics of the game to maximum effect (excluding obvious bugs like mass duplication) is nothing worse than what we are doing in the real world.  If you were to take our technology back in time 1000 years (computers, phones, cars, weapons, etc), they would assume it is magic.  Magic is just another word for things outside the acceptable physical rules of the universe.  Except computers and cars and other things are not magic, they are very precise machines that exploit the physical laws of our universe to an attempted maximum effect.

The way I see it, the sooner you realize ONI is its own universe with its own physical laws for us to exploit, the happier you will be with the game.

Also, you can't keep using algae for oxygen.  You have to switch to electrolyzers at some point.

[SharraShimada]

So, you dont ike, a GAME is not realistic, and you cant manage to go beyond cycle 300, because you want, want, WANT use physical correct ways, that are not in the game... 

I have only one suggestion: Play in your local sandbox. Thats physics in perfection, you can build what you want, and no game developer can ruin "your" game. 

Oh man... I´d like to have your problems, if they are your only ones.

[Sasza22]

16 hours ago, feynman said:

You can't even get to the mid-game without what feels like cheating.

Depends on what you call cheating. I`m avoiding most exploits if i can and i`m easily surviving 500+ cycles on hard options (not very hard but i think it`s possible too).

I don`t use water sieves for cooling, instead i pump hot water to the ice biomes and later switch to aquatuners. I use the AETN to cool my oxygen before pumping it to the base and some wheezeworts to keep the base temperate (do you consider wheezeworts cheating?)

I never use infinite storage exploits. I just build countless reservoirs for gas and gigantic pools for liquids. I don`t even use the hydrogen generator since it feels wrong to produce energy out of an electrolizer (i use them when i get oo much hydrogen stored just to get rid of it).

It`s possible to play exploitless but it`s harder and a lot of people just go the easy way.

 

As for physics inconsistency i think the game is supposed to be a simplified physics simulator so that it looks realisitc but isn`t fully accurate. There are some simplifications with the pressure and some stuff doesn`t make much sense but it`s still a pretty nice representation of most problems you`d encounter in a space asteroid colony.

[pacovf]

...the replies to the OP are way worse than any fault the OP may have committed. It is perfectly valid to complain about the fact that a game that so closely matches the physics of our world, then goes ahead and disregards some very important rules. Especially when no other game, to my knowledge, has even attempted to be this "realistic" before. It can feel like a let down. No need to shoot the OP down.

To the OP: yes, the game flaunts conservation of mass and energy in various ways. I hope that by the time of release we will get some updates that will allow us to play the game without resorting to those violations on purpose, but we are certainly not there yet. The game is still playable though! Many processes are already simulated well enough to enjoy the challenges they pose.

Heat management is the "biggest" offender right now, with no realistic way to deal with it besides venting matter into space. I am personally just turning a blind eye to the magic Wheezeworts and AETNS until we hopefully get space radiators, better heatsinks and/or a reworked steam turbine.

[Gus Smedstad]

1 minute ago, Sasza22 said:

(do you consider wheezeworts cheating?)

He does.

16 hours ago, feynman said:

Base heating up? No problem, put down this handy plant that consumes no energy and destroys heat.

In all fairness, when I first started playing, wheezeworts felt like a bit of a cheat as well. In time I re-adjusted my views of the game, and accepted the internal logic of the various heat-removal mechanisms. Wheezeworts and fixed-heat outputs like the sieve no longer trouble me, they're an intentional part of the game.

It's something that somewhat disappears in the late game, since the steam turbine is one of the more versatile and effective ways of removing heat, and it's not really a cheat. It's transforming heat to electrical energy.

Oh, OK, it's true that it has a fixed temperature output, though in practice I've found that turbine systems will heat up well beyond that output temperature. It's actually kind of hard to determine the output temperature empirically, since the turbine itself reaches 230+ C and exchanges heat with the output steam immediately. I just take the Wiki's word for it that the output temperature is actually 152 C since the output temperature is never visibly that low.

In any case, at this point my personal rules are to avoid doing anything that feels not intended by the developers. No door compressors, no matter conversion, no weird things tricking turbines into thinking their requirements are met when they really aren't. I'm willing to use anything that is working as intended, and that includes fixed output temperatures from sieves, destroying heat by burning 500 C petroleum in a generator, etc.

I won't use the electrical exploit where you can send infinite energy over a 1 kw wire as long as the only receivers are batteries.

I'm kind of on the edge where door pumps are concerned. I think door compressors are clearly an exploit, but I'm not so sure about just moving large volumes via doors instead of pumps.

The argument for door pumps is that it's macro gas or liquid physics as part of the game. It's clearly not an exploit to move a large volume of water by building a tank below pool, and then drilling a hole in the bottom of the pool. Water will move over 1000 kg/s this way, even though pumps and pipes are limited to 10 kg/s. Is it really any different to move hot steam the same way?

8 minutes ago, pacovf said:

It is perfectly valid to complain about the fact that a game that so closely matches the physics of our world, then goes ahead and disregards some very important rules.

It's not so valid to complain that the game is unplayable because it has its own idiosyncratic rules, or that once you break any real-world rule of physics everything is destroyed.

16 hours ago, feynman said:

It's at the point to me that I don't really want to play anymore

The huge problem here, is that once you break physics in one way (eg break mass conservation), anything goes. The bottom drops out. 

What he's complaining about, at root, is his inability to learn the game rules and abide by them. That's not really all that admirable.

I suspect what's really eating at him is that the game's kind of hard. Basically, the rest of it is window dressing around this:

16 hours ago, feynman said:

Where did all my goddamn oxygen go?! cycle 300 and I juuuuust barely established a stable colony but then it collapses because I run out resources. That's the farthest I've ever gotten. 110 hours so far. 

It's something I understand well enough. For much of the game, particularly for a first time player, it's this forward stumble where you're constantly running out of one resource or another. It takes a long, long time to get a truly stable colony.

I understand that a lot of players run into colony collapse over and over. That didn't happen to me, personally. I've got 500 hours into the game, and I've only ever run one colony. It almost collapsed at cycle 200 when I ran out of dirt, but with some help here I managed to keep my dupes alive. But I can see how it would happen to most players.

That doesn't make it a bad game, or something that needs to change. The learning curve's a bit steep, but not nearly as steep as say FTL.

[pacovf]

Some of the physics violations are egregious enough that it robs the game of any pretense of being a reasonable simulation of living in an asteroid. That doesn’t make the game unplayable, but it’s still a valid concern.

Whether the OP was complaining because the game is hard instead of because it’s unrealistic... maybe, but it’s not a discussion I am interested in.

[Junksteel]

Hey, message people when you release your own game. Seems you know exactly what to do. Btw, welcome and nice debut. haha

48 minutes ago, pacovf said:

...the replies to the OP are way worse than any fault the OP may have committed.

You are right, but it isn't a good idea to enter a japanese restaurant for the first time screaming that japanese food is ****. Not the best way to have some meal. haha

[Yunru]

Well, I guess the OP has a stronger grasp of physics than where the feedback and suggestions subforum is

[MorsDux]

git gud

[Gus Smedstad]

46 minutes ago, pacovf said:

Some of the physics violations are egregious enough that it robs the game of any pretense of being a reasonable simulation of living in an asteroid. That doesn’t make the game unplayable, but it’s still a valid concern.

It's true the physics violations are significant. I can't agree that it's a valid concern, not really. The aesthetic is very much a cartoon game in just about every aspect. Art, text, and rules. It has Duplicant Thermal Units, fer gosh sakes. Excessive concern about "realism" is rejecting the basic nature of the game.

I think it's a question that only really arises because the game introduces far more mechanics that feel like physics than any other I can recall. Heat transfer rules and an overriding concern for waste heat being the obvious ones. This appeals to players who are at root nerds, guys who have thoroughly absorbed the rules of high school physics (which is as far as ONI ventures). Including myself, of course.

I wanted very much to avoid the "git gud" response. That the OP finds the game difficult is reasonable, and if the learning curve is steep, that's a concern. But complaining about the ways in which the game violates physics is pretty much at right angles to that.

[blash365]

I am in cycle 1500+ without (intentionally) using any exploits. I dont even use weezeworts for cooling (i placed them somewhere, but i cool my base from a slush geyser and with turbines).

I dont vent stuff into space (apart from rocket exhaust) and i have sufficient food, power, oxygen, water and resources (apart from organics & dirt apparently).

 

Not sure what you are doing different buddy, but the path to play a non-exploit-ish way is definitely there.

[pacovf]

5 minutes ago, Gus Smedstad said:

It has Duplicant Thermal Units, fer gosh sakes.

Note that they were originally noting down heat in Watts and Joules (you can still find that in some places where the tooltip wasn't updated), before they realized that it was confusing people that expected conservation of energy. This sort of thing points to Klei wanting to make a physics simulation at first, and moving away from it as they realized it was hard to balance the game that way.

I also disagree that the art style and lore mean anything, for that matter. The same argument could be used to justify that ONI should be a simple/easy game, yet it very much isn't.

[Gus Smedstad]

4 minutes ago, blash365 said:

 I dont even use weezeworts for cooling (i placed them somewhere, but i cool my base from a slush geyser and with turbines).

I'm not sure what how you'd play the mid-game without using wheezeworts if you don't have a slush geyser. I don't have one on my map. Of the various endless supply sources on my map, almost all of them supply material at 90 C or above (hot water geyser, cool steam geyser, copper volcano, etc.) The two cold CO2 geysers supply a trivial amount of material and can't be used for cooling.

Maybe if I used ice better in my game? In retrospect I stored a lot of ice that I never used.

Steam turbines are great cooling devices, but feel pretty late game to me. Maybe you can build them earlier than I did.

[Gurgel]

18 hours ago, feynman said:

The inconsistencies in the physics are really wearing on me. 

I think you are overthinking things. This is a game with a limited number of mechanics. It is really not hard to see it as physics-inspired but not as physics-simulating.

[blash365]

1 minute ago, Gus Smedstad said:

if you don't have a slush geyser.

To be fair, i do have a slush geyser. And i also used a few wheezeworts before i had enough space materials to get proper cooling cycles going.

But my point is, that you dont need to overrely on wheezes. They are not that strong anyway.

 

There are alot of heatsinks in the game. You can choose the poison you are most comfortable with or mix them as you wish. But if you come along like the OP and declare them all improper playstyles, then what is left to argue about?

[Zarquan]

The main problem is that accurate real time realistic physics calculations are extremely expensive and, honestly, outside the reasonable field of expertise of most game developers and physics programmers.  And most people who create computational physical models don't focus as much on real time consistency on consumer computers. 

Your gaming computer is nothing compared to the computer clusters that real physics simulations are run on. 

Honestly, when I heard of what ONI was attempting, I assumed it would be essentially impossible for the system to run properly (based on expectations from the real world). 

And it didn't work by super accurately modeling real world physics, but instead created its own physics with its own effects and mechanics.  But that is okay, because they accomplished something else. 

This is the most scientific game I have ever played.  Not because it models our universe super accurately, but because it models another universe that you don't know the rules to and have to figure out.  The only real way to do that is through experimentation (or understanding other people's experiments), which is the core of the scientific process.  It hones the more abstract skills in science, where you need to not rely on preconceived notions and figure out how this universe actually works.

[Oozinator]

So far i know, ONI is the most realistic game in pee / physics!

[Gus Smedstad]

 

21 minutes ago, blash365 said:

To be fair, i do have a slush geyser.

"But I have one!" is not really a helpful response to "how do you play if you don't have a slush geyser?"

Earlier, you said:

36 minutes ago, blash365 said:

I dont even use weezeworts for cooling

And then you said:

21 minutes ago, blash365 said:

 And i also used a few wheezeworts before i had enough space materials to get proper cooling cycles going.

You see how that's contradictory, right? Because the question I asked was "how do you get through the mid game without wheezeworts?" not "how do you cool your colony in the late game."

I totally agree that wheezeworts aren't that powerful. I don't even regard AETNs as being that useful in the late game. Wheezeworts peak at 12k DTU/s cooling in hydrogen, and AETNs consume 80k DTU/s. A steam turbine running 2kg/s of 227 C -> 152 C steam converts 600k DTU/s to electricity, and that's the energy efficient version. Run the full 10kg/s of steam through it and it consumes 30,000k DTU/s. Turbines are so ridiculously powerful at cooling that you pretty much stop caring about other methods once they're viable.

That's not really the issue, though. The issue is getting through the mid game when heat is a serious concern, but you don't have the sort of steel and plastic production that makes throwing together turbine setups easy.

I'm not saying it can't be done, getting through that part of the game without wheezeworts. I'm just saying I sure didn't manage it, personally. Maybe if I started a new colony, knowing now all that I didn't then.

[Guest]

OP: "Physics is broken. Please fix."

Fanbois:

[lee1026]

Steam turbine heat deletion setups are really not that end game; plastic and steel are all you need. 

 

I built one to tame the first cool steam vent on my map; certainly not an end game task. 

 

P.S. the way to think of oni physics is that water have an extremely large amount of potential energy in this game. 

[Saturnus]

Look. This diagram clearly demonstrate that liquid multiplication is perfectly within the physical laws of the game