On the topic of Input/Output mass conservation of machines

[Ixiah]

I think this "trend" started since the change/neft to natural gas gen: the fert synth + nat gas gen loop was beyond broken, people got frustrated, complained that the generator outputs more mass than its input; and when the dust settled, the game developers began taking input/output mass conservation way more "seriously", that many machines added later on + those got rebalancing must strictly obey mass conservation. While this seems to make the game more realistic at first, I think it is highly unnecessary and even unrealistic when looking at the full picture. I'll get to the points with some examples

Firstly, there is inconsistency right now between some machines (even in the same category) that are mass conservative and the rest that are not. This inconsistency exists because there are cases where achieving this are practically impossible without a massive rework on many resources's scale (the amount of this resource naturally spawned) and production (the amount of this resource produced by different methods) or adding useless elements into the game (because if that element has a use, this cycle of adding more will most likely repeat itself).
Example: the nat gas gen vs. the rest of its family: wood, coal, and petrol. Why is it that the nat gas gen is mass conservative but these are not? Should the wood generator takes in 1.2 kg/s of wood and output 1.2 kg/s of CO2? Should the same thing be applied to the coal generator and make it outputs 1 kg/s of CO2? If this is the case, we will have more CO2 on the map then water/pwater produced by all geysers combined. While with the case of the petrol gen, its total output mass right now is 1250 g/s with 750 g of pwater and 500 g of CO2, with oil refinery + molten slickster this translates into 1.75 kg/s of petroleum; increases either one of these to match the input mass will results in that same loop we used to have with fert synth and nat gas gen: petrol gen becomes self-sustained with easy setup and little effort.

Secondly, it makes balancing a complete headache and will get worse as the game expands
Example: Even after the neft, ethanol distiller in my opinion is still the most broken machine in the game. The complete tree -> lumber -> ethanol -> petrol gen loop is able to produce 728 kg of dirt, 700 kg of CO2, an extra 1KW of power and can be run entirely using dups *ahem* "waste" (you would probably want those extra slaves for flipping composts anyway). If the machine must obey mass conservation, meaning we cannot reduce dirt production without increasing CO2 or ethanol production, the only balancing option left is changing the tree (yield, resource consumption). This will potentially impact pip and wood burner in the process, meaning more balancing required.

Finally, not having to obey mass conservation directly creates "efficiency" in machines and systems. And from that "efficiency" comes actual "choices". Why is it that players enjoy both ranching smooth hatch and using metal refinery, even when some have never even tried the other way before? Another outdated example is the comparison between algea diffuser and pre-changed terrarium: both are early stage's oxygen production, each is unique in its own way; diffuser is simple, set-and-forget, run on power, lower efficiency; terrarium is more complex, run on labor, requires setup to achieve maximum effectiveness (light, CO2 pit), higher conversion ratio. In a time when there was no renewable geyser water and sand falling from the sky, this really made a huge differences. I think most veteran players here coming to ONI for the first time was because of the freedom to make these kind of choices.

This is only my point of view, sorry for the long post rambling on and on, but seeing how the struggle with ethanol distiller may continue in the next couple of patches I have to get this out. Mass conservation is really unnecessary and the game developers should not pay much attention to when balancing the game. The output of a machine/system needs only to be reasonable, being a trade-off in some ways compare to other choices for the same main purpose.