So what are all the mechanics of flaking?

[Mathgeekburch]

So I saw two post talking about flaking mechanics.

https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/110104-abyssolators-milk-and-flakes/

https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/103877-insulation-flaking/?tab=comments

But I couldn't find any more on the subject using a google search of the site.  There are a few more post on metal cannons and item duplication; but I am not interested in either.

I am just interested in the mechanics of flaking (only tiles, not about doors or buildings.).  Like whether conductivity of a material has anything to do with it; or does it override conductivity.  Are they ways to avoid it? Are there ways to enhance it (without doors)?  Does it use the same equations from normal heat transfer, or does it use something different?

[nakomaru]

The first link appears to demonstrate that conductivity doesn't matter. Mostly it's just heat capacity and absolute temperature. The gas needs to be hotter than the melting point of the tile and there needs to be enough energy in the gas to remain a gas after heating 5kg of the tile to melting point. Avoid these conditions to avoid it, or have only one tile of gas.

[Mathgeekburch]

46 minutes ago, nakomaru said:

The gas needs to be hotter than the melting point of the tile and there needs to be enough energy in the gas to remain a gas after heating 5kg of the tile to melting point. Avoid these conditions to avoid it, or have only one tile of gas.

So does that mean flaking occurs at a constant rate regardless of conductivity, specific heat of gas or tile, temp difference, etc?  Just as long as the gas is hotter than the melting point.  Or does a higher temperature over melting point results in faster flaking?  Does the number of adjacent super hot gases effect the rate?  Does it only occur with gases, and not at all with liquids, solids, debris, and buildings?

Also in the first link, it appears that even a single tile of gas causes the effect.  Is there no way to reduce the rate outside of that, like not even cooling tiles, or would I need a liquid layer on tiles to protect them?

 

[Coolthulhu]

3 hours ago, Mathgeekburch said:

So does that mean flaking occurs at a constant rate regardless of conductivity, specific heat of gas or tile, temp difference, etc?  Just as long as the gas is hotter than the melting point.

The term "flaking" is a bit misleading. "Sweating" is a better name also used for the same thing. It's better because it implies phase change, which is an essential part of this behavior.

The requirements are roughly like this:

• Two tiles of some different elements are adjacent
• The tile that is supposed to "sweat" (let's call it "sweater") is at least 5kg
• At least one of the two tiles is non-solid and there is enough space for a new material
• The tile providing the energy (let's call it "heater") is above sweater's phase change temperature
• Heater has enough energy to actually heat 5kg of sweater to phase change temperature, without causing the heater to drop below this temperature

When all of those are met, every "physics tick", the sweating mechanic will trigger and do this:

• Subtract 5kg from sweater tile, possibly destroying it if it's exactly 5kg
• Create 5kg of the material sweater would phase change to due to being heated
• Subtract required heat energy from heater

tl;dr Conductivity doesn't matter at all, specific heat matters, temp difference "kinda matters"

 

Examples of this are pretty common in normal games:

• Warm gas reaching cold biome will cause ice to drip 5kg drops
• Oil that drops on very hot abyssalite will turn to petroleum and maybe to sour gas
• Liquid oxygen/hydrogen chamber "not working" until bottom layer of tiles cools down enough
• Tiles under launching rockets spewing tiny bits of magma that immediately solidifies

[Mathgeekburch]

1 hour ago, Coolthulhu said:

• Oil that drops on very hot abyssalite will turn to petroleum and maybe to sour gas
• Liquid oxygen/hydrogen chamber "not working" until bottom layer of tiles cools down enough

Huh, so it is the same effect that causes abyssalite rapid boiling water and petroleum.

1 hour ago, Coolthulhu said:

When all of those are met, every "physics tick", the sweating mechanic will trigger and do this:

• Subtract 5kg from sweater tile, possibly destroying it if it's exactly 5kg
• Create 5kg of the material sweater would phase change to due to being heated
• Subtract required heat energy from heater

So is it always 5kg sweating off a tile per tick if there is at least 1 gas/liquid hotter than its melting point next to it.  Or if it is surround by 4 gas/liquids hotter than its melting point, will it sweat 4 sets of 5kg per tick?
 

1 hour ago, Coolthulhu said:

At least one of the two tiles is non-solid and there is enough space for a new material

Is there some method to prevent there being space for new materials, or will this always occur on a gas/liquid to a solid tile boundary?

[BLACKBERREST3]

9 hours ago, Mathgeekburch said:

Is there some method to prevent there being space for new materials, or will this always occur on a gas/liquid to a solid tile boundary?

I know I would like to see a comprehensive guide about where debris/liquids/gasses end up when inside of tiles. Sometimes debri falls diagonally, sometimes on top. I need to do some testing with this because a lot volcano tamers rely on these sort of mechanics.

[Coolthulhu]

14 hours ago, Mathgeekburch said:

Is there some method to prevent there being space for new materials, or will this always occur on a gas/liquid to a solid tile boundary?

If the sweater tile is surrounded by solid tiles or gas or liquid tiles that can't be compressed or pushed out of the way, there is no space for new material. Pretty sure it only checks orthogonally adjacent tiles for spots. Compression will also check only adjacent tiles and is not recursive - either a tile can be compressed into its neighbor or it can't.

There is one exception: an exactly 5kg tile can sweat without any extra space, even surrounded by solid tiles. Last time it happened to me, it created a bugged "liquid vacuum" that cleared on save, though it was because the 5kg tile was salt water and thus had two products, one of which is a solid.

[0xFADE]

I’d have gone with a cooler term like ablating or something if I had the opportunity.  The initial observation was just chunks of the material falling off.  There is a considerable loss in heat of the gas while it is doing its thing since it was taking the resting temperature of the insulated sedimentary tile to over the sedimentary melting in little bits.  It does happen very fast.