Radioactivity/Decay/Reactors

[Kawasaki]

50 minutes ago, Nightinggale said:

Two things can happen. If it is implemented precisely like you describe, then dupes have no awareness of radiation. This means they are perfectly fine with idling or sleeping in the reactor room and then die from radiation poisoning.

Alternatively we have to teach dupes to avoid radiation whenever possible. This makes pathfinding harder because it's more data to consider and the more data used for pathfinding, the slower it will be. To make matters worse, the dupe might go through a radiated area if the radiation is concentrated at the top of the room and they can walk under it. A moment late it has fallen to the floor and they want to avoid it and a few seconds later it's on the top and they can walk through it again. This will cause the back and forth motion we are all annoyed with when dupes seek out oxygen.

Just because an idea use the existing game mechanics doesn't mean it won't break either performance or gameplay.

How is this any different than slimelung or any other danger out there for that matter tho? Dupes can idle near slimelung aswell? Also dupes like humans can have a daily max dose they can take and depending on the concentration there it would mean from a whole day to 10 sec , still it doesnt mean they will instantly die. Add something like lead blocks alternative in the game and there you go you can block of any radiation decay from the roof nothing to fear. ATMO costumes with upgraded shielding will probably exist anyway. Let me stop here before someone scolds me for SUGGESTING game material.

[Nightinggale]

15 minutes ago, Kawasaki said:

How is this any different than slimelung or any other danger out there for that matter tho? Dupes can idle near slimelung aswell?

You can actively do something about slimelung and effectively get rid of it, particularly in late game. Radiation is something, which apparently can't be cleaned by any mean (like chlorine) and you can't do anything but wait. That makes it a different game mechanic.

16 minutes ago, Kawasaki said:

Also dupes like humans can have a daily max dose they can take and depending on the concentration there it would mean from a whole day to 10 sec , still it doesnt mean they will instantly die.

That's a flawed comparison because as you said, there is a timer for how long a person can be in a certain amount of radiation. The dupes have no timer and with no restrictions they don't mind spending hours in heavily contaminated areas.

Also it's worth adding that there is no "safe level of radiation". Even natural background radiation pose a risk as in worst case (some natural rocks are more radioactive than others) the risk is around one in a million for getting cancer. Yes it's low, but it's not 0, which means the classification of "safe areas" means "estimate max out of X people will get cancer" where X is decided by some committee or similar.

The same goes for areas with time restrictions. Being exposed to increased level of radiation will increase the risk of cancer. The idea is that a human decided increase of risk is accepted and that risk means a max daily dose of whatever. This is then calculated backwards to max time in a certain level of radiation.

As for dropping dead from radiation, then that's possible too. Radiation poisoning, which grant certain death within two weeks is a dose, which is equal to around 1000 years of natural background radiation. If you go up even further in radiation level, then dropping dead before leaving the room can occur and it has happened. One reason why the cleanup of Fukushima takes decades is that you can't send in people to clean up. The radiation level in reactor 2 (the only one measured so far) grants a deadly dose in just 6.3 seconds.

2 hours ago, Kawasaki said:

Add something like lead blocks alternative in the game and there you go you can block of any radiation decay from the roof nothing to fear. ATMO costumes with upgraded shielding will probably exist anyway. Let me stop here before someone scolds me for SUGGESTING game material.

What crazy stuff are you proposing. You want to give dupes lead poisoning?

I'm not really sure what you want the lead tiles to do as using the current germ system means the radiation germs wouldn't be able to travel through even regular tiles. Also it doesn't solve the problem that dupes doesn't mind spending ages in radiated areas. Sure adding new suit protection would work, but if you have a leak (which will happen to some players. We know that) then exposed dupes will still not mind spending ages in radiation.

[Zerathzul]

I'll raise my hand and say I hope we someday have nuclear power generation. I enjoy Factorio, and am currently playing a bit of Minecraft with the Industrialcraft2 mod. I occasionally get a craving to play a game of some kind that lets me refine uranium fuel. Weird, I know.

[Sasza22]

Actually radium could be used for nuclear transmutation. A source of radiation can change one element into another. Maybe thy could introduce a machine that can change certain elements into something else using radium as fuel.

[Kawasaki]

15 hours ago, Nightinggale said:

You can actively do something about slimelung and effectively get rid of it, particularly in late game. Radiation is something, which apparently can't be cleaned by any mean (like chlorine) and you can't do anything but wait. That makes it a different game mechanic.

That's a flawed comparison because as you said, there is a timer for how long a person can be in a certain amount of radiation. The dupes have no timer and with no restrictions they don't mind spending hours in heavily contaminated areas.

Also it's worth adding that there is no "safe level of radiation". Even natural background radiation pose a risk as in worst case (some natural rocks are more radioactive than others) the risk is around one in a million for getting cancer. Yes it's low, but it's not 0, which means the classification of "safe areas" means "estimate max out of X people will get cancer" where X is decided by some committee or similar.

The same goes for areas with time restrictions. Being exposed to increased level of radiation will increase the risk of cancer. The idea is that a human decided increase of risk is accepted and that risk means a max daily dose of whatever. This is then calculated backwards to max time in a certain level of radiation.

As for dropping dead from radiation, then that's possible too. Radiation poisoning, which grant certain death within two weeks is a dose, which is equal to around 1000 years of natural background radiation. If you go up even further in radiation level, then dropping dead before leaving the room can occur and it has happened. One reason why the cleanup of Fukushima takes decades is that you can't send in people to clean up. The radiation level in reactor 2 (the only one measured so far) grants a deadly dose in just 6.3 seconds.

What crazy stuff are you proposing. You want to give dupes lead poisoning?

I'm not really sure what you want the lead tiles to do as using the current germ system means the radiation germs wouldn't be able to travel through even regular tiles. Also it doesn't solve the problem that dupes doesn't mind spending ages in radiated areas. Sure adding new suit protection would work, but if you have a leak (which will happen to some players. We know that) then exposed dupes will still not mind spending ages in radiation.

If you want to get techinical yes i accept that its a different mechanic. What i am arguing is that wich you said that dupes will have to avoid it and can stay near it without realising, but that happens in the game even now so there is no difference here you will just have to keep a look out like always.

And yes again you are being technical, there is no safe level of radiation in that sense. But there are levels that can be negligible and this can be the case in the game aswell so no problem here.

The time spend in radiation is a factor as i said, but consider this that radioctive materials can be put in the far places of the map, meaning you will need to be a bit into the game to just let your dupes randomly idle in those rooms for radiation to start kicking and lower their immune systems/death.

No lead poisoning with costumes  . Also its not needed to be lead they could just add radiation resistance stats to most blocks or any block that is less used in the game per say.

And finaly the germ problem. Firstly i didnt say radiation should be integrated to persist like germs. There are 2 viable options here. Either they will just make blocks and dropped ore to emit radiation in straight lines from the items/blocks ONLY. Or that + some kind of particle/dust that falls of during mining and et cetera.I personaly dont see how the particle/dust mechanic will work like you said it, it cant be cleaned by means of temperature or other gases. So imo no particles and only emiting decay in straight lines. In that case we will only need to build around them and block it off.

[Rainbowdesign]

Technically i think it would be right now possible to make a new mod, i had a nuclear power mod already but i have trouble to get it going again.

Also the catastrophic failure needs explosions that can destroy the containment vessel its a bit hard to simulate (but maybe with enough effort that might be already possible too).

Anyways i hope it will come but it should be balance, the huge amounts of powers should come with huge risks.

[Gurgel]

2 hours ago, Rainbowdesign said:

Also the catastrophic failure needs explosions that can destroy the containment vessel its a bit hard to simulate (but maybe with enough effort that might be already possible too).

Lets say this is more like a THTR than a conventional nuke. Then the thing basically stops by itself before it melts. To simulate a "China Syndrome", you could just convert it to a few 10t of very hot, radioactive lava.

[mathmanican]

2 hours ago, Rainbowdesign said:

the catastrophic failure needs explosions

This could solve the abysallite problem.  Gather all your abysallite near a reactor, then purposefully cause it to blow, wiping out all materials within some radius of it.   

[Nightinggale]

15 minutes ago, mathmanican said:

This could solve the abysallite problem.  Gather all your abysallite near a reactor, then purposefully cause it to blow, wiping out all materials within some radius of it.   

Why do you want to spread radioactive abysallite all over your base?

You do realize the hardness means it won't vanish from the explosion, just spread across a large area in small pieces, right?

[mathmanican]

9 minutes ago, Nightinggale said:

You do realize the hardness means it won't vanish from the explosion, just spread across a large area in small pieces, right?

Well, the mod could just vaporize it.   No need to be realistic. We see elements changing all the time to new elements. If we want to conserve mass, then take everything with a  certain region and change it to something, that after we cool and deal with it, then it becomes useful.  Then we have a way to work with abysallite.  

[Coolthulhu]

Judging by all the hype over "nuclear update", if it happens, it will be a massive letdown, like germs or tubes. "It sounds cool" is not a good way to come up with a feature, "I can turn it into a meaningful mechanic" is.

So I hope it won't happen, because we don't need yet another energy source when we still don't have good energy sinks. Nor do we need another "if you walk here, penalties happen".

[Nightinggale]

1 hour ago, Coolthulhu said:

So I hope it won't happen, because we don't need yet another energy source when we still don't have good energy sinks. Nor do we need another "if you walk here, penalties happen".

I fully agree with this statement. Adding something for the sake of adding without good gameplay reasons is on the path of failure.

[Rainbowdesign]

1 hour ago, Coolthulhu said:

we still don't have good energy sinks

My mod has automatic refinerys needing around 2k in power...

[goboking]

2 hours ago, Coolthulhu said:

we don't need yet another energy source

You may not, but I sure do.  Well, "need" is a bit strong, but I'd love to have a new source of power to tinker with.

[Gurgel]

7 hours ago, Coolthulhu said:

Judging by all the hype over "nuclear update", if it happens, it will be a massive letdown, like germs or tubes. "It sounds cool" is not a good way to come up with a feature, "I can turn it into a meaningful mechanic" is.

So I hope it won't happen, because we don't need yet another energy source when we still don't have good energy sinks. Nor do we need another "if you walk here, penalties happen".

Agree to that, for the moment. It could make a nice DLC though, with several preview steps before release. Could be the thing needed to drive a rocket even farther as well. It is kind of an obvious evolution. Next one after that: Antimatter!

[badgamer123]

Mining uranium FROM space would good,currently space seem boring...
a chnace of really blow up / making a lot of heat would be nice too.Rad germ killing could be used as well

[Outrate]

Using mod with dark and absolute zero drunk my precious energy very fast. New source of electricity are always great idea, but radiation is not about it. Radiation is a source of danger and heat, more like germ, pollute everything around.

Building NPP in ONI would be really fun, but there is a lot more topical things like FIRE for example. We still doesn't get burning things but already talk about radioactivity, cool.