[POLL] Should all solid's mass be cut in half, and make digging give 100% of the resources back?

[lunazone]

I personally am indifferent on the issue, but I'd like to see everybody's opinion on this.

[bobucles]

Dupes are two tiles large, and 30kg. Two tiles of water is 2000kg. The entire mass/heat scale could be cut by 10x and not really change much.

Well that's not true. It would mean that the tiny scale of duplicants and food become are a closer match to world scales, and thus have some interaction potential.

[situpc]

I don't really get why a tile shows 1000g only to give 500g when you dig it up. Just another thing you as a player have to learn when starting ONI and for seemingly no reason at all.

[Xuhybrid]

Allowing mass to cut in half when digging, but not when changing state only allows mass duplication. Stuff like this shouldn't be willingly supported in the game. I feel bad for saying this after finally getting the water sieve fixes, so i don't really care as much if it gets changed. But if you want my opinion, that's what i believe.

[tzionut]

I am against. Is a cascade change. If klei programmers modify the mass of the solids must modify also the ratio of conversion or destroy like algae diffuser... A game balance nightmare who will prevent finishing the game at this point. 

[BaloneyOs]

Mass loss from digging in theory does reward some decision making. Earliest example is digging (polluted) ice vs melting it without digging both have significant pros and cons. There's also stuff like superheating a mass and then digging it up to delete half the heat which is a trait unique to natural tiles.

Logic-wise it makes just as much sense as how compacted materials never occupy any space... until they are stored in containers. Objectively that's a really strong advantage of this game's digging mechanics for even 50% mass loss.

Overall I'm indifferent to it as well but importantly it feels like the perks are often better than the drawbacks here.

[bobucles]

10 minutes ago, BaloneyOs said:

 digging (polluted) ice vs melting it without digging

That's probably the only place where an ordinary player will care. There's also the annoying aspect where if a big body of water freezes, attempting to dig it out will cost you half the water. Most players won't even know what's going on because the 50% digging "feature" isn't listed anywhere in the game.

Most other materials are notoriously difficult to melt, even with access to the magma biome, and are stuck as space tier projects. So smelting world tiles to get the most out of them is an academic exercise at best.

I can understand the 50% digging is a nice simple way to cut down player resources. Earlier builds probably had too much stuff so it's a great quick fix to see if colonies can survive with less stuff. But at the same time if 50% is the normal amount of resources, why not spawn half the resources to begin with?

[Nebbie]

41 minutes ago, bobucles said:

Dupes are two tiles large, and 30kg. Two tiles of water is 2000kg. The entire mass/heat scale could be cut by 10x and not really change much.

Well that's not true. It would mean that the tiny scale of duplicants and food become are a closer match to world scales, and thus have some interaction potential.

Interestingly, the water mass is actually correct assuming a tile is a cubic meter; it's the dupe mass that is too low (about half what it should be). The scale is also realistic for at least oxygen's density.

21 minutes ago, BaloneyOs said:

Mass loss from digging in theory does reward some decision making. Earliest example is digging (polluted) ice vs melting it without digging both have significant pros and cons. There's also stuff like superheating a mass and then digging it up to delete half the heat which is a trait unique to natural tiles.

Logic-wise it makes just as much sense as how compacted materials never occupy any space... until they are stored in containers. Objectively that's a really strong advantage of this game's digging mechanics for even 50% mass loss.

Overall I'm indifferent to it as well but importantly it feels like the perks are often better than the drawbacks here.

I think both those examples are far too niche.

36 minutes ago, situpc said:

I don't really get why a tile shows 1000g only to give 500g when you dig it up. Just another thing you as a player have to learn when starting ONI and for seemingly no reason at all.

This would be the main reason I think it should be changed. It's one of those things where if you stop to pay attention early into playing, you just end up confused, and it doesn't really bring any benefits. Just sloppy design, really.

As to the specific change, I'd have to really look at what the actual numbers are. I suspect based on just how much time my dupes spend cleaning up debris, that actually, even the mined mass is too much. What is a dirt or sand tile, usually, in ONI? It should be under 2t. At any rate, it's very odd that pulling out sand or such causes mass loss, materal loss in real life normally happens in processing...and ONI already has that with the rock granulator.

[BaloneyOs]

12 minutes ago, bobucles said:

I can understand the 50% digging is a nice simple way to cut down player resources. Earlier builds probably had too much stuff so it's a great quick fix to see if colonies can survive with less stuff. But at the same time if 50% is the normal amount of resources, why not spawn half the resources to begin with?

It halves the potential of using natural tiles as heatsinks. It matters for both early game heat generation from machinery and natural reasons. For example imagine how much deadlier the exposed steam geyser would be if tiles had half the mass. Not sure how much this really affects balance or fun but for sure it would mean that you'll have to scale up your heat management or move stuff around more quickly than before.

Quote

There's also the annoying aspect where if a big body of water freezes, attempting to dig it out will cost you half the water. Most players won't even know what's going on because the 50% digging "feature" isn't listed anywhere in the game.

Strongly agree. The game should at least make this feature clear.

12 minutes ago, Nebbie said:

I think both those examples are far too niche.

You believe that dug up materials still having mass while taking up no physical space is a niche advantage? Or are you talking about the points before that?

[Eternal Firesea]

Digging giving only half the mass is needlessly confusing.  I keep forgetting that it's even a thing.

[Nebbie]

Just now, BaloneyOs said:

It halves the potential of using natural tiles as heatsinks. It matters for both early game heat generation from machinery and natural reasons. For example imagine how much deadlier the exposed steam geyser would be if tiles had half the mass. Not sure how much this really affects balance or fun but for sure it would mean that you'll have to scale up your heat management or move stuff around more quickly than before.

You believe that dug up materials still having mass while taking up no physical space is a niche advantage? Or are you talking about the points before that?

Honestly, I think heat moves a little too slowly right now, although part of that is this "abyssalite" nonsense deliberately put there so cold biomes and caustic biomes can be next to each other without immediate issues.

Ice melting and dumping heat to natural tiles were the "niche" things. As for infinite storage, I actually am not really a fan of it; I think storage would be a bit saner if more of the asteroid was hollow and you pretty much had to dump dirt, sand, and loose mined stone in pits. Would also help with temperature diffusal as there'd be less solid rock in the way normally.

[avc15]

The masses are doubled to make your asteroid more thermally stable.

 

Lots of unintended consequences if you cut it in half willy-nilly.

[bobucles]

2 minutes ago, avc15 said:

The masses are doubled to make your asteroid more thermally stable.

Some of the biggest sources of thermal instability -such as water sieves- are getting changed. With a monumental 400kDTU of heat source gone, thermal stability is much less of an issue than before.

[BaloneyOs]

4 minutes ago, Nebbie said:

Honestly, I think heat moves a little too slowly right now, although part of that is this "abyssalite" nonsense deliberately put there so cold biomes and caustic biomes can be next to each other without immediate issues.

Asteroid traits that halves all mass or removes all abyssalite would be really interesting tbh. Swift death by early game steam vent 

4 minutes ago, Nebbie said:

Ice melting and dumping heat to natural tiles were the "niche" things. As for infinite storage, I actually am not really a fan of it; I think storage would be a bit saner if more of the asteroid was hollow and you pretty much had to dump dirt, sand, and loose mined stone in pits. Would also help with temperature diffusal as there'd be less solid rock in the way normally.

Would you say compacted materials should still occupy tiles but with a high density cap per tile?

[avc15]

Just now, bobucles said:

Some of the biggest sources of thermal instability -such as water sieves- are getting changed. With a monumental 400kDTU of heat source gone, thermal stability is much less of an issue than before.

That's not my meaning. I'm talking about how two undisturbed biomes adjacent to each other with no abyssalite wall between them interact.

 

How the asteroid behaves on its own before you open up an area.

[bobucles]

2 minutes ago, avc15 said:

That's not my meaning. I'm talking about how two undisturbed biomes adjacent to each other with no abyssalite wall between them interact.

Doesn't the thermal transfer equation take mass into account? If everything has half the mass, then then half the energy gets transferred and nothing changes, at least on that account.

Industry will still cook things much faster, but some of the biggest industrial sources of heat are going away.

[avc15]

4 minutes ago, bobucles said:

Doesn't the thermal transfer equation take mass into account? If everything has half the mass, then then half the energy gets transferred and nothing changes, at least on that account.

Industry will still cook things much faster, but some of the biggest industrial sources of heat are going away.

Not everything in the game is solid tiles.

[watermelen671]

Personally all I think they need to do is make it a surface level cosmetic change.

Have it presented as half in text, but it's actual mass is the same. No code is changed, just how the code is presented to the player.

Spoiler

Think WoW's Rested XP.

It was originally presented as a negative incentive to take breaks, in which your XP is halved after playing for a certain amount of time. Needless to say players hated it.

So what they did instead was present it to the players that for a certain amount of time you would have double XP, or Rested XP, and after a certain amount of time it would return to "normal".

Funny thing is, they literally changed nothing. All that changed was how the players perceived it. 

Or just add a Dig Mass, which would be displayed underneath the actual mass. Tooltips would expose the player to that fact early on and allow them to easily adapt without too much problem.

[MustardWarrior]

11 minutes ago, bobucles said:

Doesn't the thermal transfer equation take mass into account? If everything has half the mass, then then half the energy gets transferred and nothing changes, at least on that account.

Industry will still cook things much faster, but some of the biggest industrial sources of heat are going away.

Heat transfer is pretty complicated.  I managed to write a calculator that accurately predicted transfer between two tiles.  Under some conditions it will clamp and do things like limit the temperature change to the difference/4 *because there are 4 surrounding tiles.  But under conditions where these alternative equations are not used, doubling the mass does not double the thermal transfer.  It's basically (minimum thermal conductivity of the two tiles)*(temperature difference)..  However that amount of energy being transferred will change the temperature of a more massive object more slowly.  And if it changes the temperature more slowly the temperature difference stays larger for longer and in that sense it increases the amount of thermal energy that is transferred.

 

 

[nakomaru]

Halve both. More intuitive, doesn't punish freezing liquids, which will let you make more things such as 100% coal → refined carbon devices, 100% fertilizer → dirt devices.

More things = more good.

(Pretense: matter duplication is fixed)

[EnderCN]

I think it is important for the cold biome to work this way.  You are better off cooling things by running them through the biome rather than cutting up the biome.  I think it makes sense somewhat too, if you are taking a resource out of the ground it is unlikely you are getting 100% of it so losing part of it is logical.  50% is probably extreme but that number works for gameplay.

[Nightinggale]

I have one big issue with the 50% and that is if you freeze something by accident. If you have say 1000 kg of water, which freeze, then a robo miner digs it out and you have 500 kg. Then it's heated to melt and it freezes again, same thing happen and now it's down to 250 kg. Depending on what you do, this could be a major loss of mass.

While I'm very much against the loss of mass from "user created tiles", I don't have a huge issue with the starting tiles. Also I'm concerned with the game balance of changing it now. It's something, which should have been changed ages ago and have a lot of gameplay balance experience prior to launch.

[Lurve]

10 hours ago, Nebbie said:

Interestingly, the water mass is actually correct assuming a tile is a cubic meter; it's the dupe mass that is too low (about half what it should be). The scale is also realistic for at least oxygen's density.

That's not correct.  Judging from furniture comparisons and journal entries, Dupes are about three feet tall. 

A tile is a cubic cubit.

[Gurgel]

I really don't care. It is a minor detail.

[mathmanican]

If this would end matter duplication in one fell swoop, then count me in.  It is definitely a cascade change and not a good idea at this stage without extensive testing.