Jump to content

Big thanks to devs for addressing heat deletion


Recommended Posts

11 minutes ago, mathmanican said:

My comment is hopefully clearly tongue and cheek.  I do know that the question "what is an exploit" has already led to quite a few very heated discussions (over the years). Fun times (dark times... sometimes very dark.)  I've loved the discussion the last few days.  Thanks for being willing to share.  Keep up the great work. 

Ah, sorry. I am a bit humor challenged after today. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, Yunru said:

I think it's the "unfairly" part. Some would see things such as matter duplication against the intent, and thus unfair. 

Although even then the only person it would be unfair to is yourself, so...

Indeed. Hence "virtue".  You cannot actually be "unfair" against yourself without something like that. 

If you read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling and then the one on "virtue", the whole thing seems to be pretty messed up, but apparently quite common. 

15 minutes ago, beowulf2010 said:

I guess the moral of the story is that the mechanic itself isn't the exploit, it's how you use the mechanic. 

But that is the issue here: This is not multiplayer. There is nobody you can be unfair against. And moreover, this is a simulation, so _any_ use is fair game. You cannot "break" it. That is the very nature of a simulation. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, Cairath said:

It's 0C min now :)

Well, then, with a big tank, you can at least do the bathroom-loop for along time before things heat up too much. Much more reasonable than the 40C minimum.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Virtue signalling is a pretty loaded term these days, I wouldn't use it if you can avoid it.

 

I shouldn't be getting into this whole exploit discussion, but...

It's a single player simulation game. Goals will always be self-imposed. However, the devs will naturally tend to privilege some playstyles over others. If the devs support your preferred playstyle, then you can expect them to work so that it's a fun way to play. If they don't support it, then you may or may not have fun with the game.

When someone calls something an exploit, irrespective of the actual definition of the word, they are expressing their opinion that some feature (intended or not) is taking away from the fun of the game by trivializing some aspect of it. The usual reply from the people that are ok with the feature is that, since it's a single player game, those other people are free not to use the "exploit", so there's no need for the devs to nerf it.

The main issue with that reply is that the game may be *less* playable by ignoring the "exploit", because the devs were balancing the game around it. It may also lead to wide differences in difficulty if you refuse to use it, and a division in the forums between the people that use it or not. This being an early-access game, people calling something an exploit are communicating that they don't want to use a certain feature, and that hey hope the devs will offer a game that is playable and fun *even if you don't use it*.

 

As for the topic of the sieve, I hope we can all agree on two points:

- there is a large proportion of players that doesn't want to use the sieve for cooling;

- the ways of cooling without (ab)using the sieve are not very well balanced right now, partially because of how much weaker they are than the sieve;

People calling sieve-cooling an exploit are mostly hoping that this second issue was fixed. If it was, then you would have had a lot less complaints about the sieve for the last months. There are other things in the game right now that many people consider exploits, but you don't have as many complaints about it because you can play just fine without them, and not feel like you are missing out.

 

...This post ended up being much longer than I wanted it to be. Hopefully it's not too meandering.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Gurgel said:

Well, then, with a big tank, you can at least do the bathroom-loop for along time before things heat up too much. Much more reasonable than the 40C minimum.

I agree it's reasonable now. I liked that they are looking into heat deletion cause it always has been one of my biggest annoyances, but I've always wanted it both ways - not just 40C and hotter, so was only partially satisfied. Now I'm happy and can retire my sieve mod :D 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

46 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

But that is the issue here: This is not multiplayer. There is nobody you can be unfair against. And moreover, this is a simulation, so _any_ use is fair game. You cannot "break" it. That is the very nature of a simulation. 

Ah. To me, an exploit in inherently different from "cheating". Cheating is something that matters much more in the whole single player versus multiplayer settings while exploits don't really care about that. 

To put it another way, cheating is a behavior, an exploit is just a descriptive name of something built to take advantage of something. 

And I beg to differ. The Borg Cube, the DIY geysers, and Mathmanican's Matter Conversion Factory are definitely things that break the game. 

Is there anything inherently bad about using them? Nope. It's your game, do what you want. I use some of the exploits, but not others.

Does it break intended game mechanics? Oh yeah. 

As long as people refrain from suggesting that newer players use the more major exploits, I have no problem with them. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, beowulf2010 said:

As long as people refrain from suggesting that newer players use the more major exploits, I have no problem with them. 

That's kind of a problem too though because that's like being a game design apologist. "Hey this game is broken but I'll just skirt around that fact while giving you suboptimal builds" probably doesn't pan out too well. If games break their own rules too often for no reason it'd be bad for immersion anyways.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, pacovf said:

Virtue signalling is a pretty loaded term these days, I wouldn't use it if you can avoid it.

Well, since some of the people harping on about exploits like to use absolutes and like to imply that, of course, _their_ view of things is obviously the correct one, I think the "loaded" meaning of "virtue signalling" does actually describe pretty well what is going on. Essentially they are imposing some subjective definition of how the world should be viewed on others and that is just not acceptable. Does explain why they are not accessible to rational argument though. I think I will simply ignore these people from now on, they are already living in a hell of their own making. 

Of course, there may also be ones that simply have a non-standard definition of "exploit" and these may be worth listening to and that was the whole point to my question.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Technoincubus said:

Everyone was anticipating heat deletion removal. Now we need additional cooling ways because if things will be left as they are now every base will be Aqua+turbines

yeah that the thing most important....early game 5 dupe.....until you got Aqua+turbine setup...unlimited heat deletion ...worst choice

10 minutes ago, Cairath said:

I agree it's reasonable now. I liked that they are looking into heat deletion cause it always has been one of my biggest annoyances, but I've always wanted it both ways - not just 40C and hotter, so was only partially satisfied. Now I'm happy and can retire my sieve mod :D 

wait until actual release plz haha,you never know what happen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, beowulf2010 said:

Ah. To me, an exploit in inherently different from "cheating". Cheating is something that matters much more in the single player versus multiplayer while exploits don't really care about that. 

To put it another way, cheating is a behavior, an exploit is just a descriptive name of something built to take advantage of something. 

And I beg to differ. The Borg Cube, the DIY geysers, and Mathmanican's Matter Conversion Factory are definitely things that break the game. 

Is there anything inherently bad about using them? Nope. It's your game, do what you want. I use some of the exploits, but not others.

Does it break intended game mechanics? Oh yeah. 

As long as people refrain from suggesting that newer players use the more major exploits, I have no problem with them. 

Ok, I think I just very roughly get the idea here. But why do you think breaking the "intended game mechanics" is in any way an issue? Is this something along the lines that Klei wants to tell one story and these people make it a different one? Or is this about a software maintenance aspect where you believe improvements are made harder for Klei? I really do not get what the "bad" angle here is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

Essentially they are imposing some subjective definition of how the world should be viewed on others and that is just not acceptable.

...Are they? Is there no other, more charitable way you can read posts that call sieve-cooling an exploit? I've tried to offer one in my previous post, in the hope that we can go past the definition of the word, and get to what I believe is the actual core of the issue, in this kind of discussions. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, pacovf said:

...Are they? Is there no other, more charitable way you can read posts that call sieve-cooling an exploit? I've tried to offer one in my previous post, in the hope that we can go past the definition of the word, and get to what I believe is the actual core of the issue, in this kind of discussions. 

I gave that more charitable aspect in the part of the quote you removed. Besides that, no. With the standard definition of "exploit" calling anything in a single player simulation game an "exploit" is extremely problematic, because it implies unfairness and malicious intent.

Of course the English language is really a marvel of overloading terms. Maybe I will just think of "something unusual, brave, or funny that someone has done" whenever somebody here laments about an "exploit". That is from the Cambridge Dictionary and they should know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, enragedcamel said:

I mean if it needs to add heat, it should add it in a way that is DTU-based, rather than as static output.

The results will be the same, since the output is always pure water and polluted dirt.  The metal refinery can use many different inputs and give many different outputs, so the DTU system is needed for that.  I can say I'm adding 20 kDTU to the system, or I can say I'm heating the calculated temperature of the water and sand by 5 C.  Both will result in the outputted water and polluted dirt being 5 degrees hotter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

Ok, I think I just very roughly get the idea here. But why do you think breaking the "intended game mechanics" is in any way an issue? Is this something along the lines that Klei wants to tell one story and these people make it a different one? Or is this about a software maintenance aspect where you believe improvements are made harder for Klei? I really do not get what the "bad" angle here is.

It isn't an issue to me. The word exploit is purely a descriptive word that defines any combination of actions/parts/buildings/whatever that take advantage of normal game mechanics and modify them to perform unintended behaviors. Exploits are neutral, neither good nor bad. 

The word itself has no moral/virtue loaded meaning, unlike the word cheating which definitely carries its own moral/virtue loading. 

Using an exploit in single player? Who cares. It's your game, play it how you want. Using an exploit in multiplayer? Depends. It might be fine, it might be cheating. Is it co-op? Do the others know you're using it? Etc, etc, etc. 

Rocket jumping in Quake is a good example of an exploit that everyone used, no one had a problem with, and thus was not cheating. And we see again the difference between the descriptive exploit versus the moral loaded cheating. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, pacovf said:

Ah well, at least I tried.

That you did. But I think you are too charitable to some people.

1 minute ago, beowulf2010 said:

It isn't an issue to me. The word exploit is purely a descriptive word that defines any combination of actions/parts/buildings/whatever that take advantage of normal game mechanics and modify them to perform unintended behaviors. Exploits are neutral, neither good nor bad. 

The word itself has no moral/virtue loaded meaning, unlike the word cheating which definitely carries its own moral/virtue loading. 

Using an exploit in single player? Who cares. It's your game, play it how you want. Using an exploit in multiplayer? Depends. It might be fine, it might be cheating. Is it co-op? Do the others know you're using it? Etc, etc, etc. 

Rocket jumping in Quake is a good example of an exploit that everyone used, no one had a problem with, and thus was not cheating. And we see again the difference between the descriptive exploit versus the moral loaded cheating. 

While all the dictionaries I found disagree on the "no moral meaning", if you use it that way, I have no issue with you using it. 

Multiplayer is something else, there the situation is fundamentally different and much more complex.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, pacovf said:

 

As for the topic of the sieve, I hope we can all agree on two points:

- there is a large proportion of players that doesn't want to use the sieve for cooling;

- the ways of cooling without (ab)using the sieve are not very well balanced right now, partially because of how much weaker they are than the sieve;

 

I don't agree with your second point; there are many very strong methods of cooling which remain.  I would even say that the methods which consist of feeding hot input liquid into a machine which deletes the heat, i.e. petroleum generator feeding in hot petroleum or hot ethanol, feeding in hot water to an oil well,hot crude to a refinery, hot petroleum to a plastic maker, hot petroleum to a rocket, etc; that these methods are fundamentally the same as the old sieve cooling method and the idea that 'variety' has been lost is not very true, the same basic technique is still available but made slightly (appropriately) more difficult to achieve.

3 hours ago, Gurgel said:

 

While all the dictionaries I found disagree on the "no moral meaning", if you use it that way, I have no issue with you using it. 

 

Dictionaries adapt slowly; words pick up new meanings online.  This isn't a case of someone talking about real life online, we're talking about a computer game.  Referring to the dictionary definition in this circumstance is like asking an artist to check your load safety factors.  ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Gurgel said:

But why do you think breaking the "intended game mechanics" is in any way an issue?

As explained by @pacovf just earlier in this thread, people find different aspects of the game fun. For example, I find establishing a way to survive fun. When we had just one map, it was really a small part of the game, since it was the same every play-through, so we might say it's not the focus of the game, go find another. Now we have so many maps with so many worldgen features that it starts to seem that developers actually do want to focus on this aspect of fun.

Now, let's look at matter conversion. It's not an easy build to come up with, but once done and published on the forum it looks like something I could learn for example and do quite early in the game. If I start using it, it will help me to equalize maps, so my fun will be gone. On the other hand, looks like @mathmanican is after another kind of fun, namely designing new things, so for them it's not so. Nevertheless they advocate for the removal of this one.

We may not call it an exploit, I suggested to use "game-breaking" term for things that render obsolete a substantial part of the game mechanics. It does not even have to be glitchy (buggy), that is give an impression that devs made it without intent. The way wild plants can maybe render obsolete farming and ranching for food will be an example of game-breaking something that is clearly intended and coded into the game as intended (I have not played sufficiently long to claim that they can do that but it looks like they can). 

So I understand why someone who uses the word "exploit" to cover this definition of "game-breaking" above would say that water-locks are an exploit. In a sense they are, because there's indeed almost no need for filtration, airlock doors are almost never used for actual airlocking (and rather used for heat transfer and building shutoff), and germs are not cured but prevented by exos + locks. So, a lot of things that are in game and were coded in by purpose are used way less (and in other ways) because of one-tile rule. This is not realistic to expect that this will go away anytime soon, I doubt development team has that much resources spare to overturn the core world mechanics. Still it is a good example of how something relatively easy and totally harmless and so convenient everyone (ok, almost everyone) is using it - can be still game-breaking (if we apply my definition).

These game-breaking things matter most for people who play for adapting and overcoming, I believe, hence why I started with different kinds of fun. For inventors it does not matter that much what the things are for initially. For us, if there's a universal way to do things much simpler, we lose variety and adaptation difficulty and play-through optimization depth. And it's indeed a loss, because variety is there in the game, those mechanics that are rendered obsolete by being hugely sub-optimal are there coded in, they are just not balanced. As people by nature are more loss-averse than profit-seeking, more people come to the forum to express their sadness over something that feels lost than there are people who come with an idea of something to be added.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That pretty much is the ONI experience.  You either have fun by solving the problems the game throws at you, or you have fun by coming up with crazy projects or contraptions.  That's it.  The new challenges and starts are critical for the former and if you don't enjoy the crazy projects, then the game isn't interesting anymore once you've solved the problems.  There's no real combat system or crises in ONI, only supplying the basic needs and problems you make yourself.  Even the dupes don't have anything in the way of personalities or relationships.

If you want combat, crises, character personalities, trade, and relationships, Rimworld would be the game of this genre for that.  If you want living cities of people with extensive industries and moving parts, you're after Dwarf Fortress.  ONI focuses on different things and makes them far deeper,giving it its own unique flair.  Trivializing those problems or just being given the solutions is taking away the game itself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Things are definitely in a better place now.  In the past by cycle 60 I was always set on heat as it was a non issue for the next 100 cycles once you built some sort of cool oxygen solution.  Now I have actually had to stop and figure out useful ways to use some of the hot water on the map.  The game requires much more thought and improvisation now.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Please be aware that the content of this thread may be outdated and no longer applicable.

×
  • Create New...