Fix natural tiles - balance friendly

[Nickerooni]

This is a repeat comment. I said this in a longer thread in Discussion.

Problem: Natural tiles keep heat at bay due to their high mass. And then, they give an opportunity for heat deletion when they are dug up - losing 50% mass. This impacts balance of the game in subtle ways, making it a rule that’s hard to remove. But, this 50% also causes all sorts of subtle bugs and unexpected behaviors for new players. Fortunately, none of the legitimate ways to create solid tiles would not be balance-impacted if this 50% rule went away. Cooking fertilizer would become dirt positive, but I think that’s safe considering it’s complexity and other dirt sources. Therefore, it’s possible to fix this in a balance friendly way by only addressing the early game heat impact.

Solution: Fixing heat spread is “easy”. Just double the insulation value of heat exchange of all relevant natural tiles. It’s a hidden parameter and heat exchange logic is safe to keep somewhat mysterious from new players. Then, you can “simply” (TM) half every natural tiles mass on world generation and “easily” (TM) remove all relevant *2 and /2 references in the code. The net impact would be a balance neutral change that fixes a major quirk of ONI! Cool stuff!

Risk: Except, what about the heat deletion associated with digging up a biome? That’s a bit tricky. I haven’t seen it abused, so I strongly suspect that it has only a minor impact on early game heat management. To fix it, you’d have to double the specific heat capacity, instead of the insulation parameter, of natural tiles. The fact that this is equivalent to the current state is probably the most telling for why this should be fixed. At worst, players would have to be a bit more careful about bringing all materials back into their base.

[Ambaire]

Why not instead just make mined tiles give 100% mass and not change existing tile mass?

[D.L.S.]

I had idea to add some generic trash substance, so when you dugout tile you get: 50% by mass useful resource and rest 50% of trash. Add this to all process in game where we losing mass and it will conserve mass(will prevent major deletion of mass). And, to some extent, conserve heat.

[metallichydra]

15 hours ago, Ambaire said:

Why not instead just make mined tiles give 100% mass and not change existing tile mass?

because it would make the game easier, since you would gte more metal, more dirt, more algae, more … everything

[Ambaire]

3 minutes ago, metallichydra said:

because it would make the game easier, since you would gte more metal, more dirt, more algae, more … everything

Not seeing a problem.

[metallichydra]

Just now, Ambaire said:

Not seeing a problem.

it might not be a problem for you or me, but for some it is.

[bobucles]

5 minutes ago, metallichydra said:

because it would make the game easier, since you would gte more metal, more dirt, more algae, more … everything

Easily solved by spawning less stuff in tiles, more spacious caverns or simply reducing map size (which also helps performance on weaker PCs). Or just letting easy asteroids enjoy having more stuff because players will still find a way to out dupe their dupes.

I'm still not seeing the benefit to 50% digging but the problems it does cause are pretty notable.

[Gwido]

10 hours ago, bobucles said:

I'm still not seeing the benefit to 50% digging but the problems it does cause are pretty notable.

It may have been set this way for balance sake :

Big mass of material, so that the heat exchange are not too quick

But not too much material retrieve from mining, so that the game is not too easy

 

It's sure complicated too balance.

The real problem is that players should be warned from the beginning that mining doest not provide 100% of the mass.  

But if players get 100% of mass, all buildings will need twice the amount to be build. so ...

[metallichydra]

3 hours ago, Gwido said:

It may have been set this way for balance sake :

Big mass of material, so that the heat exchange are not too quick

But not too much material retrieve from mining, so that the game is not too easy

 

It's sure complicated too balance.

The real problem is that players should be warned from the beginning that mining doest not provide 100% of the mass.  

But if players get 100% of mass, all buildings will need twice the amount to be build. so ...

and deoxidisers would need double the algae, which would make some critters worse, so they also need to be doubled