Heat Management / Stirling Engines

[WilliamR]

3 hours ago, OxCD said:

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.

OK, disclaimer: Totally my opinion and I'm fine with whatever the devs decide to do, it's their game and I'm in the same situation on work. However, ONI does put a heavy focus on realistic mechanics when it comes to some parts of physics and I would say that heat is the number one thing. Being able to freeze or vaporize is very realistic compared to other games.Some oddities that break real word physics for a better experience is the ice fan, wheezewort, entropy nullifier etc. 

I'd say that most mechanics are balanced in a intuitive way. Ice maker produces ice but generates heat itself. It doesn't generate enough heat for the whole thing to make sense but still it makes sense. The Water sieve creates 40° output fluid for what reason? If the intention was to balance the water sieve, why not make the output fluid a bit hotter but not colder? This mechanic breaks the paradigm of the game, that everything has a drawback, even if the drawback is balanced so that the game still makes fun. I bet with you that it's simply an oddity that was implemented this way either because nobody noticed or because it was originally easier this way. And now the issue is siting on the pile of low priority issues, partially because most people won't care and partially because people started to exploiting the mechanic. 

It seems to be a very powerful method to "delete" heat above 40° with an item that main purpose is not to delete heat. This doesn't sound like intentional game design to me.

And coming back to my first sentence: That's my opinion, I'm totally fine with it being this way and with people using it. I don't like it and thus I'll simply not use it to manage heat and thus everyone is happy  

[OxCD]

39 minutes ago, WilliamR said:

The Water sieve creates 40° output fluid for what reason?

Because during alpha it was one of the only way to get ride of the heat.

 

39 minutes ago, WilliamR said:

I bet with you that it's simply an oddity that was implemented this way either because nobody noticed or because it was originally easier this way.

And I bet you're wrong. As said it was completely designed.

 

39 minutes ago, WilliamR said:

And now the issue is siting on the pile of low priority issues, partially because most people won't care and partially because people started to exploiting the mechanic. 

None. It's still sitting on the pile of game mechanisms under open-debate since alternatives have now been implemented. If you were regular of this forum you'll notice it. Even devs from time to time are confirming this subject is still discussed internally. If you're not following ONi's news from a long time, you should not skip the steps and draw hasty conclusions.

Soon, at the release, Klei should have rule if it's maintained, or not.

[WilliamR]

14 minutes ago, OxCD said:

Because during alpha it was one of the only way to get ride of the heat.

OK, I searched for the topic and yeah, 'it's been discussed to death'. Just because something had a reason to be implemented that way back in alpha days doesn't mean it needs to stay like this. And when people mistake a feature for a bug, guess what..  
This is very much what I deal wit at work, we have source code dating back 15 years now, and we constantly clash due to this. New dev's come in an wonder why stuff behaves odd. The person responsible immediately goes into defense, listing (very reasonable) reasons why it was developed the way it was. It's not a good idea to leave bad design as is just because it once was a reasonable got solution to an issue.

Don't want to start a discussion here. It's one odd mechanic in a otherwise very good indie game. I can live with that.

[Nightinggale]

1 hour ago, WilliamR said:

I bet with you that it's simply an oddity that was implemented this way either because nobody noticed or because it was originally easier this way.

Let's look at the source code.

elementConverter.outputElements = new ElementConverter.OutputElement[]
{
	new ElementConverter.OutputElement(5f, SimHashes.Water, 313.15f, true, 0f, 0.5f, false, 0.75f, 255, 0),
	new ElementConverter.OutputElement(0.2f, SimHashes.ToxicSand, 313.15f, true, 0f, 0.5f, false, 0.25f, 255, 0)
};

Now let's convert it to not having a fixed temperature.

elementConverter.outputElements = new ElementConverter.OutputElement[]
{
	new ElementConverter.OutputElement(5f, SimHashes.Water, 313.15f, true, 0f, 0.5f, true, 0.75f, 255, 0),
	new ElementConverter.OutputElement(0.2f, SimHashes.ToxicSand, 313.15f, true, 0f, 0.5f, true, 0.25f, 255, 0)
};

What's the difference? The 7th argument changed from false to true. That's it. It has nothing to do with lazy programmers and it has nothing to do with "nobody noticed". It is 100% a design decision.

[axxionx12]

The closest you'll probably get to your heat transfer engine is an aquatuner with polluted water or super coolant that heats water to stream, which is then deleted by steam turbines. Super coolant has high enough heat capacity that converting the transferred energy with steam turbines is weakly power positive with the right setup. 

[OxCD]

2 hours ago, WilliamR said:

OK, I searched for the topic and yeah, 'it's been discussed to death'. Just because something had a reason to be implemented that way back in alpha days doesn't mean it needs to stay like this. And when people mistake a feature for a bug, guess what..  
This is very much what I deal wit at work, we have source code dating back 15 years now, and we constantly clash due to this. New dev's come in an wonder why stuff behaves odd. The person responsible immediately goes into defense, listing (very reasonable) reasons why it was developed the way it was. It's not a good idea to leave bad design as is just because it once was a reasonable got solution to an issue.

Don't want to start a discussion here. It's one odd mechanic in a otherwise very good indie game. I can live with that.

Never told you this design was a "good" thing or a "bad" one. Just told you, 2 or 3 times, that it is "wanted". Thing @Nightinggale proved you. But you're right, I was supporting your suggestion from the OP, I'm starting to deal with tat, so I quit.

I really hope you've as much fun into this game as you said. Klei deserves this gratitude.

[WilliamR]

7 minutes ago, OxCD said:

I really hope you've as much fun into this game as you said. Klei deserves this gratitude.

We totally got sidetracked on the water sieve thing, sorry about that! :'D We might go in circles here but I try again to be clear on this; I don't criticize the dev's for implementing it that way. They most likely had reasons back then and that's just the side effect of early access that this seems to be heavily discussed.. I just want to point out that valid reasons for implementing something might not be valid reasons for keeping it later on. And bad features by design are still bad features. I cry myself into sleep knowing that I also released stuff with bad features by design.  

 

[pacovf]

5 hours ago, Nightinggale said:

Let's look at the source code.

elementConverter.outputElements = new ElementConverter.OutputElement[]
{
	new ElementConverter.OutputElement(5f, SimHashes.Water, 313.15f, true, 0f, 0.5f, false, 0.75f, 255, 0),
	new ElementConverter.OutputElement(0.2f, SimHashes.ToxicSand, 313.15f, true, 0f, 0.5f, false, 0.25f, 255, 0)
};

Now let's convert it to not having a fixed temperature.

elementConverter.outputElements = new ElementConverter.OutputElement[]
{
	new ElementConverter.OutputElement(5f, SimHashes.Water, 313.15f, true, 0f, 0.5f, true, 0.75f, 255, 0),
	new ElementConverter.OutputElement(0.2f, SimHashes.ToxicSand, 313.15f, true, 0f, 0.5f, true, 0.25f, 255, 0)
};

What's the difference? The 7th argument changed from false to true. That's it. It has nothing to do with lazy programmers and it has nothing to do with "nobody noticed". It is 100% a design decision.

The water sieve outputs fixed temperature water, so of course the code will say that the sieve outputs fixed temperature water. This doesn’t prove anything one way or another.

The devs have been notoriously silent on whether this is behaviour that will stay for the release version or not. The closest they have said is that it’s been discussed internally. That’s all we know.

To the OP: as you’ve noticed by now, this is a controversial topic. Everyone that cares already has their opinion formed and won’t change it. Discussion beyond this point tends to be fairly pointless.

As for the Stirling engine per se, I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t be in the game, but I doubt we will be seeing it. Best use would be for “free” energy by dumping heat in frozen biomes, but there’s already a lot of sources of energy in game. The work spent on coding it would likely be better spent elsewhere.

[KittenIsAGeek]

On 6/20/2019 at 10:10 AM, 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)... 

The steam turbine currently in the game  is, effectivley a stirling engine.  As far as I can tell, a stirling engine needs a heat source.  The heat energy is converted into mechanical energy that does work -- in your example, turning mechanical motion into electricity.  This is exactly what the steam turbine does -- except that it is orders of magnitude more powerful than any stirling engine I've seen demonstrated.

Basically, the steam turbine turns heat into electricity.  With the new design, the steam condenses into water and is emitted through a pipe.  You can easily make a closed-loop turbine, dumping the water into your steam chamber.  Then you can apply heat to the steam chamber in whatever method you prefer -- aquatuners, metal plates and doors connected to a hot spot, whatever.  The point is that what you're looking for already exists in the game -- its just named "steam turbine" instead of "stirling engine."

[Snotfroth]

I agree the game needs to have the heat system improved a bit. Right now heat seems to be an issue for farm crops, then something that only becomes interesting late game. How about a mid-game challenge to keep something at < 25c. Maybe the plastic-making machine? Suddenly dreckos aren't quite so flawed.

As KittenIsAGeek said the steam turbine is basically the stirling engine. It can't swap "heat polarity" as you suggested but it generally fits and has understandable in-game mechanics that, for me at least, makes it a very satisfying way to produce magical cooling.

As for the water sieve, I think it sucks and is bad game design. It does feel like contradicting the spirit of the game. Heat killed my first colony when I fed the water sieve into bristle blossoms. I thought, ok, the output needs to be cooled; makes sense. But then I read about the sieve on the forum and realized that I probably never would have discovered on my own that it has a hidden mechanic as a powerful cooling device. As far as I can tell, this mechanic is not documented anywhere in-game. Whether or not the devs intended it to fill this role is a moot point. It's a very rough part of the game that needs attention. Either present and document in-game the sieve as a refining *and* cooling device, or make the output at least as hot as the input. I hope at release they finally put this issue to rest.

WilliamR you mentioned that you don't like to dump heat in ice biomes because it is only a temporary solution. I think delaying the inevitable is worth doing when that delay lasts for probably several hundred cycles, all the while permanent solutions are being constructed. It also seems to be a good way to harvest the water present in the ice biomes so I feel like dumping heat there is a natural path for game progression.

[Mantak]

On 21. 6. 2019 at 2:58 PM, Nightinggale said:

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

 The thermal calculation  is CPU intensive, so Klei put in SimDLL.dll. Which is native dll (not .net) You can also look at : Game.StepTheSim() .

 

On 21. 6. 2019 at 3:03 PM, Yunru said:

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

If you don't sleep for 3 days you will be dead. Oops sorry,  it is about water, not sleep (if you don't drink for 3 days you will be dead.) In this case, Unleash the fury, Jean!!!!

 

[Rainbowdesign]

I had that idea myself, but i considering it low priority with the steam engine since it is already possible to use heat as power source, also the reverse stirling engine (heating one liquid in one pipe and cooling the other while consuming power)  is essentially possible with the aquatuner.

 

All in all i think it would also be a little overpowered, but if properly balanced it should be a nice addition to the buildings.

[Glassyfo]

On 6/21/2019 at 2:51 PM, WilliamR said:

The Water sieve creates 40° output fluid for what reason? If the intention was to balance the water sieve, why not make the output fluid a bit hotter but not colder? This mechanic breaks the paradigm of the game, that everything has a drawback, even if the drawback is balanced so that the game still makes fun.

I don't see it that way. There are several items in the game that do this: the electrolyzer, oil refinery and oil wells all output at set temps. This coming from someone who's actually adding heat to the base every time the sieves turn on.

[bobucles]

I think with the new heat deletion devices there isn't really any reason to force a fixed temperature output from any device. In the early days yeah, without clamping heat you would eventually cook and die and it was a big deal. Now we have turbines and wort farms and AETNs and aquatuners and piles of sensors to take care of any problem that shows up. Fixed temperature output is not necessary for base design in any way and is largely an obsolete mechanic.