Make smooth hatches something to really want to breed for

[Nebbie]

Basically, smooth hatches seem pretty neglected right now, by both newbies and serious players alike. The metal refinery isn't that hard to get at least semi-working and provides way better conversion once you've got it, plus it provides better options. Yeah, smooth hatches don't output heat, and in fact can delete heat, but 75% conversion with no coal, plus a ton of ore fed to stone hatches just to get them? Rather a bad deal in my book.

I recommend the following:

1. Stone hatches also output half the mass of the eaten ore as refined metal
2. Smooth hatches also output a quarter the mass of the eaten ore as coal

This way, stone hatches are like a rock crusher and a regular hatch combined for ore conversion, and smooth hatches still yield some coal for power.

[Sasza22]

I still like breeding those. Just for how cool they look and the sound they make.

Maybe a 95% conversion is the way. Actually i never understood why people hate them so much. It`s like wasting a ton or two is something terrible when you got thousands of tons around. Maybe it`s the maintainance time or setup time. Or maybe people don`t like run on minimal power for extended periods of time.

The stone hatch producing some refined metal could work too.

[bobucles]

The main reason against smooth hatches isn't too much to do with the metal efficiency. 75% is kind of a downer, but the real killer is feeding stone hatches raw ore to get a chance at a smooth hatch. Feeding a hatch 5T of igneous rock isn't a big deal, but feeding a stone hatch 5T of ore is no trivial investment. It's a big dent in a resource that is always valuable and difficult to replace, 

I think a different evolution path would be more helpful than anything. If players didn't have to lose tons of metal ore up front and every time the lineage dies out, then the smooth hatch would seem more accessible. Maybe something with the new obsidian?

[DarkMaster13]

They are useful, now that metal refinery coolant is no longer trivial to deal with.  I decided to make a few since I was still using the crusher to make metals after getting the refinery for steel and thought I'd feed them my iron from the rust deoxidizers (turns out they go through a lot more).  They let you get a very large amount of refined metals with far less duplicant labor.  Having to feed a stone hatch metal ore isn't really a huge issue.  I suspect that is more of a feel bad thing rather than something that will actually impact a playthrough, similar to how many people absolutely loath using the rock crusher to make any more refined metals than they absolutely have to with it due to the 50% mass loss.  Or some players hating temporary solutions to problems that would last for hundreds of cycles, or more.

Smooth hatches are pretty darn useful in the current state of the game if you give them a chance.  One ranch is like having 4 rock crushers running constantly to refine metals.

[Nebbie]

9 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

I still like breeding those. Just for how cool they look and the sound they make.

Maybe a 95% conversion is the way. Actually i never understood why people hate them so much. It`s like wasting a ton or two is something terrible when you got thousands of tons around. Maybe it`s the maintainance time or setup time. Or maybe people don`t like run on minimal power for extended periods of time.

The stone hatch producing some refined metal could work too.

Wasting a ton of copper/iron/gold ore is quite fine, as they literally rain down from the sky and can come in volcano form pre-refined. The trouble is having to breed stone hatches first, and getting nothing out of it except a huge deletion of ores early in the game when you need them. If it's lategame and you can afford to waste your ores on stone hatches, you probably already have a metal refinery doing its thing.

Hence, reward actually breeding stone hatches by making them essentially replace the rock crusher when used on ores; smooth hatches become a thing that would be probably nice to get (unless you rush metal refinery).

4 hours ago, DarkMaster13 said:

They are useful, now that metal refinery coolant is no longer trivial to deal with.  I decided to make a few since I was still using the crusher to make metals after getting the refinery for steel and thought I'd feed them my iron from the rust deoxidizers (turns out they go through a lot more).  They let you get a very large amount of refined metals with far less duplicant labor.  Having to feed a stone hatch metal ore isn't really a huge issue.  I suspect that is more of a feel bad thing rather than something that will actually impact a playthrough, similar to how many people absolutely loath using the rock crusher to make any more refined metals than they absolutely have to with it due to the 50% mass loss.  Or some players hating temporary solutions to problems that would last for hundreds of cycles, or more.

Smooth hatches are pretty darn useful in the current state of the game if you give them a chance.  One ranch is like having 4 rock crushers running constantly to refine metals.

I'm not so sure it's no longer trivial. I just put a pump in a pool of polluted water that I dumped used coolant back into in my current base, and sure, it went from like 30 C to 50 C, but by then I was able to get a steam turbine and steel aquatuner...and in fact even while getting to the point of launching steam rockets, I never saw a need to go beyond that little pool for steel production left on "forever" setting providing more than I ever needed, cause I could just run the cooling loop of the aquatuner through it a bit.

[DarkMaster13]

7 minutes ago, Nebbie said:

I'm not so sure it's no longer trivial. I just put a pump in a pool of polluted water that I dumped used coolant back into in my current base, and sure, it went from like 30 C to 50 C, but by then I was able to get a steam turbine and steel aquatuner...and in fact even while getting to the point of launching steam rockets, I never saw a need to go beyond that little pool for steel production left on "forever" setting providing more than I ever needed, cause I could just run the cooling loop of the aquatuner through it a bit.

Well it was trivial in the sense that you could pipe the water you were going to sieve/desalinate anyway through a metal refinery first, which completely nullified the need to deal with coolant.  Later on you could use oil instead then pump it into a refinery.  There was never a need to use a steam turbine or any kind of cooling for that matter on the refinery.  Now you at least have to either store the heated coolant, actually cool it, or use it in an application where it being hot is fine.

[Nebbie]

8 minutes ago, DarkMaster13 said:

Well it was trivial in the sense that you could pipe the water you were going to sieve/desalinate anyway through a metal refinery first, which completely nullified the need to deal with coolant.  Later on you could use oil instead then pump it into a refinery.  There was never a need to use a steam turbine or any kind of cooling for that matter on the refinery.  Now you at least have to either store the heated coolant, actually cool it, or use it in an application where it being hot is fine.

Oh, I wouldn't really count that, considering that everything was affected (heat flusher as the core of your base etc.) and now the backup option likely to be spammed in everyone's base is SPOM-based heat deletion, which is still kinda nutso (hot water in, power and cold oxygen out).

[bobucles]

10 hours ago, Nebbie said:

Wasting a ton of copper/iron/gold ore is quite fine, as they literally rain down from the sky and can come in volcano form pre-refined

But raw ore doesn't rain from the sky, refined metal does. Refined metal is the renewable resource, so why throw away heaps of non renewable ore?

The 5T estimate for ore consumption is VERY optimistic. It's assuming you are putting all the effort into power training a SINGLE hatch for a SINGLE egg, which is a task most players won't bother with. A reckless farm will easily burn through 10T ore and even more, or if a player forgets maybe they'll just lose all of their ore for no gain because stone hatches are simply that hungry. In order for the investment of 5T ore to be paid off over the stone crusher, the smooth hatches need to consume 20T of ore. That's 20T of ore for your first 10T of metal, giving a much less optimistic 50% efficiency. Keep in mind you start from 0% efficiency, because stone hatches give no metal back.

Even if smooth hatches are no problem for the experts, they can not be used as a short term or even medium term solution. They demand a long term effort, and carry a considerable risk. If smooth hatches had a higher % yield then the risk would give a better pay off. If they had a lower cost of investment then there would be far less risk involved. I'd prefer the latter because it means more players will try it.

[DarkMaster13]

1 hour ago, bobucles said:

But raw ore doesn't rain from the sky, refined metal does. Refined metal is the renewable resource, so why throw away heaps of non renewable ore?

The 5T estimate for ore consumption is VERY optimistic. It's assuming you are putting all the effort into power training a SINGLE hatch for a SINGLE egg, which is a task most players won't bother with. A reckless farm will easily burn through 10T ore and even more, or if a player forgets maybe they'll just lose all of their ore for no gain because stone hatches are simply that hungry. In order for the investment of 5T ore to be paid off over the stone crusher, the smooth hatches need to consume 20T of ore. That's 20T of ore for your first 10T of metal, giving a much less optimistic 50% efficiency. Keep in mind you start from 0% efficiency, because stone hatches give no metal back.

Even if smooth hatches are no problem for the experts, they can not be used as a short term or even medium term solution. They demand a long term effort, and carry a considerable risk. If smooth hatches had a higher % yield then the risk would give a better pay off. If they had a lower cost of investment then there would be far less risk involved. I'd prefer the latter because it means more players will try it.

Just to note, at the moment refined iron rains from the sky, but for copper and gold it's the raw ore.  This might have been an oversight though.

[Nebbie]

2 hours ago, DarkMaster13 said:

Just to note, at the moment refined iron rains from the sky, but for copper and gold it's the raw ore.  This might have been an oversight though.

It's likely intended, given that gold amalgam is the only ore with an overheat modifier, and so is more useful to come unrefined.

[zophan]

Deoxidize rust, get iron ore, feed for the breed.

[VECCTOR]

Raw gold ore and copper ore do indeed rain down from the sky. I suspect they added this because some maps don't have a plains or swamp biome, and those metals are only found in those biomes. Gold, in particular, is the only metal you can use in making oxylite and super coolant - so it would be very difficult to make those on certain maps.

[IS_Kyro_]

Well I use stone hatches just to consume "igneous rock" from magma volcano. For metals i prefer refinery. And I don't see any disbalance with hatches)

[bobucles]

31 minutes ago, IS_Kyro_ said:

Well I use stone hatches just to consume "igneous rock" from magma volcano. For metals i prefer refinery. And I don't see any disbalance with hatches)

3 trips through google translate gives us:

Hatches are fine (I don't use smooth hatches)

No one has any problem with stone hatches. They're worth the expense and the added utility is both useful and unique. The discussion is about making sure smooth hatches are useful. "Does not use them" is not a good promotion.

[alexkuzmov]

Breeding smooth hatches takes a bit of practice but its pretty easy once you get the hang of it. To limit the ore cost just make sure that the stone hatches you are breeding are limited to 1 per ranch with auto-wrangle enabled.

The 75% efficiency of metal conversion is where the problem is I think. If it functions like the rock crusher it would be nice.

100% metal ore -> 75% refined metal + 25% sand.

PS. Compared to the Metal refinery its just not worth it if metal ore is lost. The metal refinery not only gives you 100% metal but you also get heat to be used for steam turbines.

[Coolthulhu]

How about this:

100% metal ore -> 100% refined metal

There doesn't need to be any loss of metal mass, really. Breeding a sizeable ranch of smooth hatches is enough of an investment. And you still need a refinery for steel.

4 hours ago, alexkuzmov said:

The 75% efficiency of metal conversion is where the problem is I think. If it functions like the rock crusher it would be nice.

100% metal ore -> 75% refined metal + 25% sand.

That extra 25% sand is nearly completely worthless and would not change that 25% loss mass of metal. It would still be better to run a refinery.

[Nebbie]

On 8/16/2019 at 8:37 AM, alexkuzmov said:

,,,

100% metal ore -> 75% refined metal + 25% sand.

,,,

Coal over sand would be more useful, which is why I suggested such in this thread's opener.

21 hours ago, Coolthulhu said:

How about this:

100% metal ore -> 100% refined metal

There doesn't need to be any loss of metal mass, really. Breeding a sizeable ranch of smooth hatches is enough of an investment. And you still need a refinery for steel.

That extra 25% sand is nearly completely worthless and would not change that 25% loss mass of metal. It would still be better to run a refinery.

I guess in the end this is the real issue. The "benefit" smooth hatches provide is to not use power or create heat...but heat is power if you've got a bit of lead, plastic, and crude. The metal refinery's got more recipes, it won't chew through all your ore you need to build with later on, it can be automated, and it doesn't cost a bunch of ores to set up.

Also, aluminum refining is in power-positive territory with a turbine, which tilts things even further in forest starts, which are the starts where you'd think "well I've got less water so heat's more of an issue".

[alexkuzmov]

So on one hand, no loss of metal ore, more recipes, can be easily automated, can be used to generate power, we have the Metal Refinery.

On the other we have the smooth hatch, guarenteed loss of ore, takes longer to create, no way to use for power.

Sounds like the smooth hatch needs a serious buff

[DarkMaster13]

20 hours ago, alexkuzmov said:

So on one hand, no loss of metal ore, more recipes, can be easily automated, can be used to generate power, we have the Metal Refinery.

On the other we have the smooth hatch, guarenteed loss of ore, takes longer to create, no way to use for power.

Sounds like the smooth hatch needs a serious buff

The difference is very little dupe labor and no power costs.  Smooth hatches will produce far more refined metals than a metal refinery will in terms of labor spent.  Plus heat can be a downside.  They have their niche, but most players seem to be extremely averse to material deletion when any reasonable estimation of the ores you have on an asteroid put you at such a huge oversupply that it simply will never matter.  If something is of limited supply, then you can just put that one thing through the metal refinery.  There's no reason you can't use smooth hatches for refining iron (which you might have 4000 tons of) and the refinery for tungsten (which you might have 20 tons of).

[Nebbie]

1 hour ago, DarkMaster13 said:

The difference is very little dupe labor and no power costs.  Smooth hatches will produce far more refined metals than a metal refinery will in terms of labor spent.  Plus heat can be a downside.  They have their niche, but most players seem to be extremely averse to material deletion when any reasonable estimation of the ores you have on an asteroid put you at such a huge oversupply that it simply will never matter.  If something is of limited supply, then you can just put that one thing through the metal refinery.  There's no reason you can't use smooth hatches for refining iron (which you might have 4000 tons of) and the refinery for tungsten (which you might have 20 tons of).

To my knowledge, a normal rancher can groom around 14 critters in a single cycle (which is nearly 2 full ranches). 14 smooth hatches will produce 1050kg of metal a cycle. A single metal refinery operation produces 100kg of refined metal in at most 40 seconds (ran by a dupe with absolutely no skill whatsoever), so if you can get one dupe at any given time on it, you'll be limited by coolant outflow, which might put it only on par with the smooth hatches. Actually-skilled dupes will make the throughput significantly higher, and use less power (leading to more power gains from the same heat but less power used to make it). Oh, and ranching doesn't level up from grooming at all, meanwhile metal refinery dupes will level up reasonably.
The amount of labor is about the same for starting dupes, and over time, the metal refinery will be less.

Iron you will always have (literal) tons of, it's true, but it's also the best one for making power with a turbine. Other metals have highly-asteroid-dependent issues, like gold isn't present as an ore on Arboria except from meteors, and aluminum is a much more precious starting metal than copper due to its thermal properties (plus it's power-positive to refine, unlike copper).

 

[DarkMaster13]

1 hour ago, Nebbie said:

To my knowledge, a normal rancher can groom around 14 critters in a single cycle (which is nearly 2 full ranches). 14 smooth hatches will produce 1050kg of metal a cycle. A single metal refinery operation produces 100kg of refined metal in at most 40 seconds (ran by a dupe with absolutely no skill whatsoever), so if you can get one dupe at any given time on it, you'll be limited by coolant outflow, which might put it only on par with the smooth hatches. Actually-skilled dupes will make the throughput significantly higher, and use less power (leading to more power gains from the same heat but less power used to make it). Oh, and ranching doesn't level up from grooming at all, meanwhile metal refinery dupes will level up reasonably.
The amount of labor is about the same for starting dupes, and over time, the metal refinery will be less.

Iron you will always have (literal) tons of, it's true, but it's also the best one for making power with a turbine. Other metals have highly-asteroid-dependent issues, like gold isn't present as an ore on Arboria except from meteors, and aluminum is a much more precious starting metal than copper due to its thermal properties (plus it's power-positive to refine, unlike copper).

 

You don't need to groom the smooth hatches at all, they'll still produce at a lower metabolism.  All that's needed then is to have dupes deliver ore to the feeder, which is far less labor intensive than each order for the metal refinery.  Automating this with sweepers leads to similar situations between the refinery and ranch.

If you are taming them, the duration of the groomed status goes up the higher the skill of the rancher (+10% per point, same benefit as tinkering).  I consider the lack of experience from grooming to be a bug that should hopefully be fixed at some point in the near future.  Though you can get two more tinkering from skills.  So the skill point is only semi-moot.

It's also worth noting that the smooth hatches are not only giving the metal either.  They also produce eggs and meat.

I maintain that there's a niche for smooth hatches to be used in tandem with metal refineries.  All the math you've got there suggests that they're certainly no worse than metal refineries.  Especially if you've got spare ranchers available.  Perhaps this is a case where all the evidence and math suggests that they should be fine, but players still refuse to use them for other reasons.

[Nebbie]

2 minutes ago, DarkMaster13 said:

You don't need to groom the smooth hatches at all, they'll still produce at a lower metabolism.  All that's needed then is to have dupes deliver ore to the feeder, which is far less labor intensive than each order for the metal refinery.  Automating this with sweepers leads to similar situations between the refinery and ranch.

If you are taming them, the duration of the groomed status goes up the higher the skill of the rancher (+10% per point, same benefit as tinkering).  I consider the lack of experience from grooming to be a bug that should hopefully be fixed at some point in the near future.  Though you can get two more tinkering from skills.  So the skill point is only semi-moot.

It's also worth noting that the smooth hatches are not only giving the metal either.  They also produce eggs and meat.

I maintain that there's a niche for smooth hatches to be used in tandem with metal refineries.  All the math you've got there suggests that they're certainly no worse than metal refineries.  Especially if you've got spare ranchers available.  Perhaps this is a case where all the evidence and math suggests that they should be fine, but players still refuse to use them for other reasons.

The math does not say they are fine, the math says that an absolutely ridiculous use case (two nearly full ranches, groomed) comes out at about the same dupe labor to refined metal if none of your dupes have ANYTHING put into tinkering for extra metal ore in exchange for some lime and kcal (former is valuable, latter absolutely not). If you want to approach a metal refinery's output with glum ones, you're going to need far more ranches.
Players do not need "other reasons" when it is clear that you are giving up metal ores and potential power for a bit of lime. If I really want to give myself a headache for lime, I'll go with pokeshells, cause they're a lot faster to set up.

[DemainaNyx]

I just made a post about this but I think smooth hatches should have a small chance of producing tungsten/wolframite upon eating common ore (copper, iron, gold). 

Right now the only renewable source of wolframite is from the Glimmering Planet, is if you don't get one in your map, then you are limited in how much Thermium you can produce.  If you are really unlucky like me, you are completely locked out of creating Thermium entirely if you don't have any Wolframite on your starting asteroid and no Glimmering Planet.

So, having it come from a critter seems like a nice alternative.  The Smooth hatch is one I've never ranched because it wasn't worth when new ore only came from rocket missions.  Now that it rains from space it isn't such a big deal any more.  I can set up a metal refinery on cycle 50 and have 100% of my metal converted with little consequence so why spend time breeding when I actually lose out on more ore.  Now, if there's a chance for me to get an otherwise finite ore from them, I'm willing to dedicate the time for that.

My other suggestion was a Pokeshell morph who's shell could be crushed into part lime and part wolframite, but whatever works really.

[kerosene]

It is much easier to set up a decent metal refinery than it is to get smooth hatches. The metal refinery can even add heat to a steam chamber that drives a turbine. Metal refinery heat is only a problem in the earlier pats of the game, well before one could even get smooth hatches.

Even if smooth hatches had a 100% conversion I wouldn't use them. They are a solution to a problem that ceases to exist by the time you can get smooth hatches. And you still need a metal refinery to make steel.

If smooth hatches could produce otherwise difficul to obtain metals or liquids with particular properties that could make them worthwhile.

 

[lunazone]

Copper ore now falls from the sky so I'd just use that.