Vertical Movement Liquid Lock - drop solids and liquids through a liquid airlock

[mathmanican]

With viscogel (or liquid stacking) we have an airlock that allows solids to move through it horizontally. Have you ever wished you could build an airlock that traps gasses from moving vertically, and allows solids to move vertically (and as a bonus, liquids too)? I have longed for a way to drop solids (and liquids) from the top of a large height, and have them pass through liquid locks along a large fall.  This is easily doable with short waterfalls (set your liquid valve to 200g). 

The example on the left is minimal, but may require you have a vacuum room before you start it.  The example on the right starts working without a vacuum. The tile diagonally down to the left of the liquid lock break the waterfall and forces the liquid to stop beading. Demolish that tile, and you'll get a waterfall (recreating it once you have a waterfall will not break the waterfall). 

In addition to dropping solids through this airlock, you can drop liquids through this too, provided you make sure the liquids do not form beads (easy to achieve if you have liquids fall of the right side, and have them pass through a 1 tile tall gap before falling). Any type of liquid can pass through the lock (same as the lock or different). 

I do not believe liquids, when in this form, exchange heat with their environment (so you could drop boiling 500C petroleum through the lock and not break a water seal, or drop magma if you so desire). You will have to do something with the two different types of liquid at the bottom of the fall (the liquids reform when they hit the ground). For example, if you drop super hot petro through your water locks, then you could capture the water as steam, and pass it through a turbine, at the bottom of your lock, and then let the petroleum flow to wherever you want it (you'll only loose the heat from 200g of water, or set your valve to 2000g and run a turbine full time with flash boiling, or have the hot petro fall through 10 vertical locks, all set at 200g, and keep a single turbine running full time, etc.). 

You can use this to drop regolith from space down to the oil biome for melting, or any place else where you want to allow solids or liquids to fall vertically, and still separate two rooms. Beware, as solids DO transfer heat while falling (iirc).

You can build ladders straight up through this airlock, though your dupes will get the soggy feet debuff (left design) or sopping wet (right design). In addition, if you stack two of these on top of each other, you get a perfect thermal seal. 

Have fun playing with this.

[flapee]

Just amazing combination of concepts! Can't wait to see what kind of builds we will get in a years time using this types of discoveries as a building blocks !!!

[Junksteel]

I don't know what I will use this for but pretty impressive discovery. I'll name my researcher Mathmanican in your honor, sir.

[mathmanican]

2 minutes ago, Junksteel said:

I don't know what I will use this for

Have you ever built a ladder down to a new biome and wanted a lock to separate gasses? So you build a liquid lock sideways and then continue down. Now you can keep going straight down. You can also pour polluted water through an entire biome without offgassing. 

[Junksteel]

2 minutes ago, mathmanican said:

Have you ever built a ladder down to a new biome and wanted a lock to separate gasses? So you build a liquid lock sideways and then continue down. Now you can keep going straight down. You can also pour polluted water through an entire biome without offgassing. 

Oh yeah pretty useful indeed. My actual game is exactly what you described!

[mathmanican]

I will be adding one of these to the bottom of my printing press, so I can drop 1000C+ metal directly into a steam turbine chamber (I'll use petro for the lock). No sweepers needed. 

[flapee]

50 minutes ago, mathmanican said:

Have you ever built a ladder down to a new biome and wanted a lock to separate gasses? So you build a liquid lock sideways and then continue down. Now you can keep going straight down. You can also pour polluted water through an entire biome without offgassing. 

I wonder if this will survive(keeping vacuum on one side)  a dupe carrying couple hundred kg of super hot ( 400-600*C) element. Mine 30g locks kept evaporating XD

[mathmanican]

3 minutes ago, flapee said:

I wonder if this will survive

Will have to try it. The lock replaces itself a few times every second.

[MauPow]

Could be useful to drop hot rock from a magma build into a steam turbine chamber. I'll try this out, thanks.

[flapee]

another interesting vertical water mechanic:

happens after reload with supercooled gas 100g/tile