Refined vs metal ore machinery restrictions

[PicaMula]

I find it quite odd, that there is some stuff that you can only build out of metal ore and Steel, Niobium and Thermium.

Like, if I turn every bit of ore into refined metal (yeah it's quite improbable), I'd have to build stuff like airflow tiles, hydrogen generators, gas/ liquid pumps... out of Steel, Niobium or Thermium.

Besides, I'd like for instance to have a 125ºC hydrogen generator made out of refined metals instead of 75ºC made out of metal ore (except gold amalgam). Sometimes steel is just not necessary.

Thoughts? I tried but couldn't find any thread with this topic, but I'd assume people thought of that already.

[speckle21]

Just the way the game was built over time.

First it was just metal ore and nothing else. The basic game had to be built from that. But then they added refined metal and made higher tier machinery from that.

But some of this refined metal had very special and incredibly useful properties like higher temperature tolerance/conductivity. Properties that would be incredibly useful not just in high tier machines, but in base machines too. But some base machinery could only be made from metal ore. Rather than open them up to be made of any metal, the very useful refined metals, steel, niobium, thermium, were "hacked" back into the base machines.

So we got some base machines that are made with metal ore AND the super metals  of Steel, Niobium, thermium.

Should the whole thing be opened up to be made from any metal type at any time? I don't know.

But the odd distribution came from how the first alpha releases had just the base machines, but still needed to be playable.

 

 

 

 

 

[PicaMula]

Yeah the why it became that way you're right, it's a legacy thing...

But I really don't see the need for a restriction, unless it's just so the ingredient bar don't get too clogged up.

[Zarquan]

I don't really understand the point, and I never did.  If you have gold amalgam, which all the maps have (I believe), then you can get the +50 overheat temp.  That is the best benefit we can get by using refined metals until steel.  And you can build the basic buildings out of steel, so I personally don't see the point except to stop people from accidentally using their valuable refined metal on buildings that can be made out of ore.

[MilkyWay8]

Arboria and Badlands don't have Swamp biomes, only meteors contain Gold Amalgam.

[KittenIsAGeek]

One of the limits of the game is resource scarcity and management.  In the very early game, your resource scarcity is oxygen and food.  Depending on your particular map details, water may be your next resource to manage so that you don't run out of oxygen or food.  Anyway, as the game progresses, unrefined metals become a scarce resource that you need to manage.  Volcanoes only emit refined metals, so if you need more unrefined, you may have to go back and destroy some old buildings that your'e not using anymore and build them out of a different material.

That said, it would be nice to be able to build some of the other metal buildings out of some other refined metals to increase their temperature tolerance.  Perhaps add aluminum bronze (Cu 92/Al 8 alloy).  This would bridge the gap between metal ores and steel for worlds that don't have gold amalgam.

[FutureJohny]

On 29. 2. 2020 at 8:03 AM, Zarquan said:

I don't really understand the point, and I never did.  If you have gold amalgam, which all the maps have (I believe), then you can get the +50 overheat temp.  That is the best benefit we can get by using refined metals until steel.  And you can build the basic buildings out of steel, so I personally don't see the point except to stop people from accidentally using their valuable refined metal on buildings that can be made out of ore.

Once you tame metal volcano, ores become rarer then processed metals eventually. 

[Zarquan]

4 hours ago, FutureJohny said:

Once you tame metal volcano, ores become rarer then processed metals eventually. 

True, but that just makes it all seem so artificial.  "Oh no, we can't build a gas vent because our metals are too pure."

[KittenIsAGeek]

2 hours ago, Zarquan said:

True, but that just makes it all seem so artificial.  "Oh no, we can't build a gas vent because our metals are too pure."

More confusing to me is building stuff out of metal ores.   Last I checked, the pipes in my house were not made from malachite (a copper ore), but rather copper itself.  While malachite would be pretty, I don't think it has the structural integrity to deliver water to my sinks, shower, and toilet.

 

**EDIT: Ok, malachite does have the structural integrity to make pipes, as it has been used to make rather large vases.  However in today's society it would be problematically expensive to do so.