Heat Management / Stirling Engines

[WilliamR]

Hi, 

I've started playing ONI and I quickly felt frustrated because there currently is no good way to deal with heat. There are a few methods some of which are pure magic (Wheezewort,...) and others seem to be buggy game mechanics which probably will be fixed at some point. I think there really needs to be a way of dealing with heat that solves the issue, not only delays it. 

So my idea would be something like a stirling engine, or generally heat gradient engines. Afaik, the core principal is that a stirling engines can convert heat to first mechanical and in extension electrical energy. It relies on a heat gradient, typically the difference between atmosphere temp and heat applied with fire. However, it should also work with fluids.
For instance, a engine could use the difference between a fluid's temp and the atmospheric temp to generate electricity. It can be balanced by tweaking the efficiency (some temp exchange will happen) and the electricity that is generated.

Something like this would, imo, nicely fit in the game. You'd still need to keep temperatures separate since stirling engines only work with heat gradients. So there is some effort necessary to set it up properly. What do you guys think? Other than that, I really enjoy the game. So I'd really like to see some additions to heat management that are not pure magic or frustrating. 

Cheers

EDIT: Just noticed that it's apparently requested every once in a while. Sorry for that. ;D

[OxCD]

55 minutes ago, WilliamR said:

Hi, 

I've started playing ONI and I quickly felt frustrated because there currently is no good way to deal with heat. There are a few methods some of which are pure magic (Wheezewort,...) and others seem to be buggy game mechanics which probably will be fixed at some point. I think there really needs to be a way of dealing with heat that solves the issue, not only delays it. 

What about the steam turbine ? & buildings like generator that does consume the element undepending the t° ?

[WilliamR]

3 minutes ago, OxCD said:

What about the steam turbine ? & buildings like generator that does consume the element undepending the t° ?

Yes, that basically uses the same principle but very late-game ish. You also need to create the high temperature gradient in the first place. It doesn't help you when one part of the base is constantly warm (but < 100°C)... 

[OxCD]

14 hours ago, WilliamR said:

Yes, that basically uses the same principle but very late-game ish. You also need to create the high temperature gradient in the first place. It doesn't help you when one part of the base is constantly warm (but < 100°C)... 

I personnaly don't agree but that's my opinion. Gen like H gen or NG gen are available from the beginning, to eat high t°. Petro gen comes in mid-game.

In early game you've also the ice maker.

Then the turbine can be built quickly if you prioritize your researches during the early game. I personnaly prefer to check all tier 1 and tier 2 researches before to move an ear from the starting cocoon.

[WilliamR]

5 minutes ago, OxCD said:

In early game you've also the ice maker.

Then the turbine can be built quickly if you prioritize you research during the early game. I personnaly prefer to check all tier 1 and tier 2 research before to move an ear from the starting cocoon.

What does the net heat production look like? ONI Database tells me that the icemager has a net heat "production" of -111 kDTU/s. But We have to deal with heat generated from batteries, coal engine and additional equipment used for the setup, for instance carbon skimmer. Database tells me that it's still net negative, I had the feeling (very scientific!) that the producing the heat the ice maker needs would still create more heat then the ice maker removes. But looks like I was wrong with that assumption.

Anyway, I still think that a little, low power stirling engine might be a fun addition in the early / mid game.

[OxCD]

4 minutes ago, WilliamR said:

What does the net heat production look like? ONI Database tells me that the icemager has a net heat "production" of -111 kDTU/s. But We have to deal with heat generated from batteries, coal engine and additional equipment used for the setup, for instance carbon skimmer. Database tells me that it's still net negative, I had the feeling (very scientific!) that the producing the heat the ice maker needs would still create more heat then the ice maker removes. But looks like I was wrong with that assumption.

Anyway, I still think that a little, low power stirling engine might be a fun addition in the early / mid game.

I'm thinking you're wrong about ice maker net heat production  I didn't have tools to check, nor time, nor courage, before a long time, but maybe some people here who are far better scientist than me can confirm or not your assumption.

 

AND, anyway, something like a stirling engine could be fun to set-up. I do agree with this part of the OP, even I didn't come up to it earlier

[Sasza22]

The heat calculations for the ice maker are a bit wonky now. From what i remember it`s confirmed to change so it doesn`t magically delete (as much) heat.

As for dealing with heat earlygame for me it`s more about placement of the heat generating stuff and the stuff that doesn`t like heat (mostly farms). If you place your batteries and generators too close to the farms without insulating the walls it`s going to cause problems after a while. But if you put it far away, like in another biome and use the natural abyssalite layer to help insulation it will work for a long time before needing attention.

To cool water you can always sacrifice an ice biome and use it as a heat sink by running hot water through it. It can suffice for long enough until you can set up a steam turbine system.

As for Stirling engines i saw people claiming this would be easymode if you could just set up some of those between an ice biome and a caustic biome just producing free energy based on the natural temperature difference between those biomes. I don`t really know how such an engine works so i`m not sure if it would be broken or not.

[WilliamR]

2 minutes ago, Sasza22 said:

As for Stirling engines i saw people claiming this would be easymode if you could just set up some of those between an ice biome and a caustic biome just producing free energy based on the natural temperature difference between those biomes. I don`t really know how such an engine works so i`m not sure if it would be broken or not.

The absolute basic is that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_engine
And this basically would work whenever you have something hot and something cold. It's not free energy. And I think the best use case would be to use it as a heat sink, converting unwanted heat into power, instead of a engine. So you could balance it so that it#s not easymode.

[PhailRaptor]

I stopped reading when "magic" Weezeworts were referred to negatively.  It's an established game object, that was expressly designed for that purpose.  Pretending that it's somehow cheating is patently ridiculous.

A more controversial subject to lament over, the Water Sieve, is a much more suitable topic for such complaints, if you feel the need for such.

[OxCD]

10 minutes ago, PhailRaptor said:

I stopped reading when "magic" Weezeworts were referred to negatively.  It's an established game object, that was expressly designed for that purpose.  Pretending that it's somehow cheating is patently ridiculous.

A more controversial subject to lament over, the Water Sieve, is a much more suitable topic for such complaints, if you feel the need for such.

Don't be rude. I share your opinion on WW, and I keep thinking it's a good idea to have added those, but the point of view of the OP is understandable : WW are deleting heat, in exchange of nothing. One of the most developped approach of this game is things never come alone nor from nothing. You use 1, 2 or 3 elements (+ electricity, + dup operation, and so on) , it turns those into 1, or 2, or 3 elements (+ electricity, +/- heat, and so on) and you're trying to balance the whole stuff. The WW goes against this methodology, as it does not have any needs (i don't considere min/max t° as a need because there is no consumption).

The OP just seems to have an approach of this game a bit too much "scientific" but hey, we've already seen that way of thinking on this forum and many times it was more needless aggressiveness, than here suggesting a new system that could bring new fun concept !

But indeed, you need to read till the end

[Yunru]

51 minutes ago, OxCD said:

But indeed, you need to read till the end

Why? It's just yet-another-over-requested-request-in-the-wrong-forum.

He didn't miss anything.

[Lacost]

16 hours ago, WilliamR said:

I've started playing ONI and I quickly felt frustrated because there currently is no good way to deal with heat.

1. You don't have to deal with ambient heat for roughly 300 cycles since the heat capacity of your starting biome is enough to soak up heat from batteries, generators etc. Just don't smelt anything aside from gold and you should not experience any problems. Your Dupes will still do fine at temperatures around 50°C.

 

2. Significant heat producers (smelters) are best placed in the ice biome for passive cooling. Up to now I have never managed to melt all the water in even a single ice biome so don't underestimate the amount of heat you can dump in there. However, really high heat producers (steel smelters) will have problems with heat conductivity.

 

3. Aquatunter + Steam turbine. Basically, you get a cooling fluid (water) and run it in a circle through the aquatuner until it reaches your desired temperature. Lay pipes through anything you want cooled and let the cooling fluid soak up the heat. The aquatuner is placed in an insulated chamber with a bit of water to produce steam which is then used by the steam turbine to convert the heat to electricity. You can build such a setup before 100 cycles have passed so you are not really in a hurry to build it.

 

4. Wheezeworts are pretty weak since they are hard to set up and don't provide a lot of cooling. Since the steam turbine has been patched into it's current state I never used them for cooling anything important.

[WilliamR]

5 hours ago, PhailRaptor said:

I stopped reading when "magic" Weezeworts were referred to negatively.  It's an established game object, that was expressly designed for that purpose.  Pretending that it's somehow cheating is patently ridiculous.

A more controversial subject to lament over, the Water Sieve, is a much more suitable topic for such complaints, if you feel the need for such.

I think they are magic. Many things in the game are based on real physics, when it comes to heat. WW are not. But I still think they are a good game mechanic. They are (afaik) limited and thus not overpowered and they help to solve some heat issues. Also, I've never mentioned anything about cheating.

What's the issue with the water sieve? Afaik it just filters water, right?

3 hours ago, Lacost said:

1. You don't have to deal with ambient heat for roughly 300 cycles since the heat capacity of your starting biome is enough to soak up heat from batteries, generators etc. Just don't smelt anything aside from gold and you should not experience any problems. Your Dupes will still do fine at temperatures around 50°C.

 

2. Significant heat producers (smelters) are best placed in the ice biome for passive cooling. Up to now I have never managed to melt all the water in even a single ice biome so don't underestimate the amount of heat you can dump in there. However, really high heat producers (steel smelters) will have problems with heat conductivity.

 

3. Aquatunter + Steam turbine. Basically, you get a cooling fluid (water) and run it in a circle through the aquatuner until it reaches your desired temperature. Lay pipes through anything you want cooled and let the cooling fluid soak up the heat. The aquatuner is placed in an insulated chamber with a bit of water to produce steam which is then used by the steam turbine to convert the heat to electricity. You can build such a setup before 100 cycles have passed so you are not really in a hurry to build it.

 

4. Wheezeworts are pretty weak since they are hard to set up and don't provide a lot of cooling. Since the steam turbine has been patched into it's current state I never used them for cooling anything important.

I maybe should have phrased it differently. Games like ONI are like puzzles to me. I need to find a solution so that everything is balanced and the base can grow. I got into the same situation were many things were balanced but I still had no good way to deal with the heat that was building up. Probably would have been fine but it was  a bit frustrating anyway. 
Since then, I've noticed that Ice Makers actually do help. 

 

3 hours ago, Yunru said:

Why? It's just yet-another-over-requested-request-in-the-wrong-forum.

He didn't miss anything.

Thank's for the toxicity. 
 

[Sasza22]

36 minutes ago, WilliamR said:

What's the issue with the water sieve? Afaik it just filters water, right?

It`s the static 40<sup>o</sup>C output. You can pump 99<sup>o</sup>C polluted water and get 40<sup>o</sup>C water out. Technically it`s supposed to be distilling the water but somehow germs survive the process. It just can potentially delete over 60^oC from 5kg/s of water for 240W while the aquatuner uses 1200W and only cools for 14^oC. Sounds kinda imbalanced when you think about it.

[WilliamR]

Just now, Sasza22 said:

It`s the static 40<sup>o</sup>C output. You can pump 99<sup>o</sup>C polluted water and get 40<sup>o</sup>C water out. Technically it`s supposed to be distilling the water but somehow germs survive the process. It just can potentially delete over 60^oC from 5kg/s of water for 240W while the aquatuner uses 1200W and only cools for 14^oC. Sounds kinda imbalanced when you think about it.

Yeah, that's obviously something that will be fixed at some point right? That's what I mean with bugs and exploits. Afaik there is something similar with showers?

[Sasza22]

3 minutes ago, WilliamR said:

Yeah, that's obviously something that will be fixed at some point right?

Well we,ve been telling that ourselves since alpha. The sieve didn`t change much since then and only word from the devs we got was that they intended some buildings to have a fixed output temperature. There are a few others like the oil refinery but none of them is such a severe balance issue. We have to wait and see if it changes at release or not.

[Fischer_L]

2 minutes ago, WilliamR said:

Yeah, that's obviously something that will be fixed at some point right? That's what I mean with bugs and exploits. Afaik there is something similar with showers?

At this point it can be not exploit or bug, but intended mechanic... It was there for such a long time, but not fixed till today. To use it, you still need some non trivial setup, so i doubt it will be fixed.

[WilliamR]

My bet is that it's somewhere on their list of improvements that's just slowly moved down by high prio bugs etc. I don't think that, with how realistic many mechanics in ONI are, deleting heat is an intended mechanic. Constant temperature output also is fine, it's just a matter of were the energy went instead.

Still, I personally don't like using those mechanics because, even when they don't intend to fix it, it goes against the games principle.

[Nightinggale]

There is one important thing, which has gone completely missing from this thread. If a sterling engine is to be implemented, how is it supposed to work? I don't mean a link to wikipedia or something like that, but rather how should it work in game mechanics?

All I get is that it is something, which is hot and then there is something, which is cold and you get electricity. That is fairly vague. Should it be a tile, which has a hot and cold side? Should it be a machine with two piped inputs? There is no hint of what you actually want in the game. If I am to design some code to do what you request (I'm most likely not), one thing I'm sure of is that it would end up being nowhere what you imagine because what you have written so far is so unspecific that we can all imagine something different in the game while we all match what you wrote.

I'm also a bit puzzled that you want a way to get rid of heat and when people write how you can get rid of heat, you write "that's magic and should be removed". It's a fair point of view to want the game different than it is and part of the idea with mods is that we don't have to all play the same game. However argue that a sterling engine is absolutely needed to fix the broken gameplay you broke by wanting to get rid of existing heat deleting features. You come through as something like a car wash owner, who just "by chance" have the hobby of spraying mud on random cars.

[WilliamR]

4 minutes ago, Nightinggale said:

There is one important thing, which has gone completely missing from this thread. If a sterling engine is to be implemented, how is it supposed to work? I don't mean a link to wikipedia or something like that, but rather how should it work in game mechanics?

All I get is that it is something, which is hot and then there is something, which is cold and you get electricity. That is fairly vague. Should it be a tile, which has a hot and cold side? Should it be a machine with two piped inputs? There is no hint of what you actually want in the game. If I am to design some code to do what you request (I'm most likely not), one thing I'm sure of is that it would end up being nowhere what you imagine because what you have written so far is so unspecific that we can all imagine something different in the game while we all match what you wrote.

I'm also a bit puzzled that you want a way to get rid of heat and when people write how you can get rid of heat, you write "that's magic and should be removed". It's a fair point of view to want the game different than it is and part of the idea with mods is that we don't have to all play the same game. However argue that a sterling engine is absolutely needed to fix the broken gameplay you broke by wanting to get rid of existing heat deleting features. You come through as something like a car wash owner, who just "by chance" have the hobby of spraying mud on random cars.

Here is my suggestion: a 2x2 item with one pipe input and output. The thing then creates energy based on the temperature difference between the fluid and the surrounding temperature. As a side effect, the temperature of the fluid and the surrounding air are slowly evening out a bit. So some heat simply diffuses, some heat is used to create energy. 

The nice thing about stirling engines generally is that you can power them with relative heat or relative cold. So the fluid could be cold and the surrounding air could be hot and it would still work the same. 

How does the modding API look like? I'm a software developer so maybe I just write a mod?  

Just to clarify the part about magic: 
-  I don't think it should be removed. ONI is a game and doesn't need to follow physics. Otherwise, probably won't make fun. I think WWs and other things are totally fine but for me personally, using them doesn't feel very fulfilling.
- Bugs or odd game mechanics that delete heat as a side effect I think we could get rid of. We have a bunch of those things in indie games, Minecraft was full of them and generally, people worked with them until they got fixed. I don't like using those because, to me, it feels like cheating or exploiting the game.

So: Ice maker doesn't make sense physically, afaik, but it's still fine because it's intended to help the player remove heat. The same goes for WW. I personally don't, like using mechanics like dumping heat in biomes because I know that it's no final solution. I simply didn't know about the steam engine so that's my fault. The game currently is not broken regarding heat management. In my opinion, some buggy mechanics should be fixed and some gaps should be filled out so that heat management can be tackled early on in the game.

I hope this clarifies stuff abit.  Didn't intend to post my first thread and ****storm because of a game mechanic I think is not fleshed out yet. It's a in-development indie title... 

[Nightinggale]

3 minutes ago, WilliamR said:

How does the modding API look like? I'm a software developer so maybe I just write a mod?  

Be warned however. Particularly temperature calculations seems a bit complex and not quite as one would expect based on physics. First step would be to figure out where in the source code the temperature transfer calculations take place. If you can find those, then I would be very interested to know where they are

[Yunru]

1 hour ago, WilliamR said:

Thank's for the toxicity. 

Sorry, I've been ill and haven't slept well in three days. It shows.

[Nightinggale]

18 minutes ago, Yunru said:

Sorry, I've been ill and haven't slept well in three days. It shows.

I guess that means we shouldn't try to farm sporechids

[OxCD]

9 hours ago, Yunru said:

Why? It's just yet-another-over-requested-request-in-the-wrong-forum.

He didn't miss anything.

If everyone here has already choosen to be so rude for free, I cannot & don't want to fight against. I'm not the police. I was expecting this forum, especially regulars to be more lenient and attentive when the OP is peacefully bringing his opinion and also an idea. But after all human's still human.

 

EDIT : just seen the apologises. Fair.

5 hours ago, WilliamR said:

My bet is that it's somewhere on their list of improvements that's just slowly moved down by high prio bugs etc. I don't think that, with how realistic many mechanics in ONI are, deleting heat is an intended mechanic. Constant temperature output also is fine, it's just a matter of were the energy went instead.

Still, I personally don't like using those mechanics because, even when they don't intend to fix it, it goes against the games principle.

Don't bring heat management tools we're talking about as bugs. Those are all intended. Those are choice from devs. The "game principles" you're judging are designed entirely by them. And this has already been said many time, ONI is NOT a real physic simulation. There is some good and interesting concept coming from the real world, but deeper into them Klei takes decision to change them and to adapt them for a more playable experience, and to balance for everyone. Newbie, experienced, developper, gardener, scientist, teenager, astrophysician in nuclear-quantum-suprascience-I'vegotadamncomputerinmyhead 

That's the same game for everyone, and not supposed to be a niche market.

[0xFADE]

Early game dealing with heat seeping in from nearby biomes is more of a concern than the heat put off by early machinery.

Once you move away from bristle berries the majority of your base can get in to the 40-50c range no problem. You’ve got hundreds of cycles to prepare for it.

You should be focusing on other actual issues.