Exploit karma

[psusi]

31 minutes ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

You can pump it outside of the asteroid where it 'vanishes' into the environment of space, OR you can use that heat energy to do work. 

You can't vent the heat to space directly, but only by heating liquid or gas, and then venting that.  I've always thought that radiant pipes in space should be cooled at night by radiating heat into space.

[calibayzone]

So it seems that restricting certain mechanics isn't a common way that experienced people make the game harder.

It seems that making the settings harder would essentially be more of the same, while restricting some "one size fits all" mechanics adds more variety by forcing novel solutions. Perhaps I am mistaken?

What are some other ways veterans make it harder? Seeds? Mods? Self-imposed build challenges like your own version of the great monument?

If there was a good mod that added new challenges rather than making the base-game challenges harder, I would like to know!

[Steve8]

The things I refuse to use are unintuitive mechanics that only exist because of the weird way ONI physics are implemented. Mostly that's infinite liquid and gas storage and bypass pumps. They're also unnecessary. Liquid and gas locks are somewhat related to that in that they also depend on there only being one element per tile, but they aren't such a huge deal. Unlike with other stuff such as element storage the game also doesn't offer any practical alternative.

I also won't use things that entirely bypass intended game mechanics. Like that BS with running kWs of power over a small wire. There is nothing fun about that

Unfortunately in this forum using exploits is often the only accepted solution to many problems. To the point where other solutions are dismissed. That also makes it unfun and causes me skip certain threads and sometimes take a break from the forum for a while.

Quote

Remotely setting switches with no duplicate input: 1 point.

People simply used hydro sensors or other automation to do that. So they just made it official and easier to use.

[calibayzone]

2 hours ago, Steve8 said:

Unfortunately in this forum using exploits is often the only accepted solution to many problems.

This. In real engineering problems, you don't intentionally limit yourself just for challenges' sake. But in a game you often need to lest it get too formulaic and all about tried and true methods (which is also a problem in most of real life work but thats why it's work).

[KittenIsAGeek]

6 hours ago, psusi said:

You can't vent the heat to space directly, but only by heating liquid or gas, and then venting that.  I've always thought that radiant pipes in space should be cooled at night by radiating heat into space.

Well, true. My intent was to pump hot stuff into space, not pump heat into space.  Sorry for the confusion.

3 hours ago, Steve8 said:

Unfortunately in this forum using exploits is often the only accepted solution to many problems.

Accepted by whom?  A lot of times exploits are brought up on the forums as a way to alert the devs that there's a problem that isn't a bug.  I see many different solutions to many different problems.  Often I'll see what someone did and try and refine it.  Or I'll use it as an idea for doing something else a different way.  The forum board is for sharing ideas -- but you can use it as a cheat sheet if you like.  That's up to you.

1 hour ago, calibayzone said:

In real engineering problems, you don't intentionally limit yourself just for challenges' sake. But in a game you often need to lest it get too formulaic and all about tried and true methods

I always try to do things my own way, especially in ONI.  Its a great sandbox to let your imagination go wild.  Some parts of my base are very similar every time, but sometimes that's just how things go.

[psusi]

6 hours ago, Steve8 said:

I also won't use things that entirely bypass intended game mechanics. Like that BS with running kWs of power over a small wire. There is nothing fun about that

It's just SOOO convenient though!  Heavy watt wire is just so annoying to use.. I don't see how being annoyed adds any fun to the game.

6 hours ago, Steve8 said:

Mostly that's infinite liquid and gas storage and bypass pumps.

I feel a little bad about using infinite gas storage, but it isn't anything you can't do with a high pressure gas vent and a big room.  And the gas reservoirs just suck so much compared to the liquid ones.  I mean even if you set aside a 12x3 room for the high pressure vent, gas pump, and two gas reservoirs, it only holds 1020 kg, which is only enough to run a NG generator for 18.9 cycles, which won't get you through the dormancy period of the vent.  I suppose if you doubled that to a 12x7 room that might be enough, but again, it's just a bit annoying to have to dedicate that much space.  Compared to a water vent, where you can use a basin that is 10x4 to collect the water, have a pump, and 4 reservoirs and hold 60,000 kg of water, or the output of the vent for 40 cycles or so.  I just wish gas reservoirs either held more or weren't so dang big.

[Zarquan]

9 hours ago, Steve8 said:

The things I refuse to use are unintuitive mechanics that only exist because of the weird way ONI physics are implemented. Mostly that's infinite liquid and gas storage and bypass pumps. They're also unnecessary. Liquid and gas locks are somewhat related to that in that they also depend on there only being one element per tile, but they aren't such a huge deal. Unlike with other stuff such as element storage the game also doesn't offer any practical alternative.

...

Unfortunately in this forum using exploits is often the only accepted solution to many problems. To the point where other solutions are dismissed. That also makes it unfun and causes me skip certain threads and sometimes take a break from the forum for a while.

This confuses me.  If the fundamental rules of the physics require that certain things happen, how is utilizing that unfair?  And where does "decent use of physics" end and exploits begin?  As long as what we do follows the laws of ONI physics as they are stated, then I would consider it fine.  Just because it doesn't make sense in the real world doesn't mean it doesn't make sense in ONI.

For example, when a tile of liquid is above a tile of gas, that means that the liquid should fall.  In the real world, the gas would be pushed down and around via aerodynamics.  Since gases mix IRL, this isn't a problem.  But in ONI, the liquid can't really do that, as there could be a different gas two tiles down from the water and they can't mix.  So, the laws of ONI physics state that the gas and liquid swap places.  That way, there can be no conflict and gas deletion does not take place.  This means that when liquid tiles are falling, the gas pressure at the top of the room increases, whereas the gas pressure at the bottom of the room decreases. 

All of this is simple ONI physics, designed to simulate gravity on liquids.  But if you take this phenomena and confine it to a 1 tile wide tube, and you set it up so that every other tile is liquid, then you force the gas up the tube in what we call a Bead Pump.  This leads to the ability to move gas for very little power.  This isn't an unexpected result if you understand the physics.  Better still in ONI, as long as you can keep the liquid coming, it will keep storing gas because gases don't effect liquids.  Bypass pumps use a similar mechanic.

And if you think the bead pump is unfair, wait till you hear about how people in the real world made vacuums before we had vacuum pumps.  They used beads of liquid to push air around using a mechanism called a Sprengel Pump.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprengel_pump.  And what better way is there to say that something isn't an unfair exploit:  providing a real world example of something that does pretty much the same thing.

The only reason why we can't infinitely compress gas IRL is because we have atoms, molecules, pressure (resulting in actual force), phase changes, etc.  ONI has none of that, as it is a different universe with different rules and different exploits.

I am happy to exploit all the unintuitive mechanics of ONI, just like I am happy to exploit the unintuitive mechanics of the real world. 

Spoiler

This doesn't mean that physics bugs aren't real.  For example, the boiling mechanic violates stated thermal conductivity rules: 

 

(XKCD)

[0xFADE]

To be fair the power orb has a limited lifespan and is very dangerous to deal with.  The RTG's on the Voyager spacecrafts are about used up.

I try and avoid unlimited liquid storage for the same reason @Steve8.  I don't want to look up that power thing.

 

[SpreadsheetGamr]

This is a thread fundamentally about game balance in a game that has a lot of emergent gameplay.  Simulation games often attract this kind of critique.  But there is a gulf between real world and a game.  The real world can be an inspiration for game mechanics, but the rules of the real world are subordinate to gameplay.  That is, if you want to have a mushroom give you a free life because that makes the game better, by all means make your game do that.  Trying to justify gameplay mechanics as either balanced or imbalanced based on real world physics is missing the point.

13 hours ago, calibayzone said:

So it seems that restricting certain mechanics isn't a common way that experienced people make the game harder.

...

What are some other ways veterans make it harder? Seeds? Mods? Self-imposed build challenges like your own version of the great monument?

Well, I avoid stuff that's not on your list such as indefinite food storage in CO2.  I use a single, powered refrigerator for food storage.  I wouldn't use liquid reservoirs in chlorine gas to remove germs from the water smh.  A lot of things on your original list I don't have a problem with though.  Beyond that, I try to get duplicants with a variety of negative penalties (flatulent, snore, etc).  I use the natural boundaries of the starting biome as my oxygenated base meaning I don't do exactly the same thing with my base every time (different size & shape).

[TheMule]

16 hours ago, Steve8 said:

Like that BS with running kWs of power over a small wire. There is nothing fun about that

You call that BS I call it clever use of intended mechanics. Batteries, transformers, power switches, generators... all is working as intended.

Only consumers overloading a wire is - at this point - pretty much intended behaviour. At worse, tier-1 in my classification. In real life, transferring large DC on a wire for long distances would melt it. Then one day someone invented AC. Which allows moving enormous quantities of energy on incredibly thin wires. Actually, there were people who opposed to it.

Feel free to keep using DC and heavy wires in your gameplay. I've moved to AC. Oh, and I'm having total fun, BTW.

[psusi]

2 hours ago, TheMule said:

Only consumers overloading a wire is - at this point - pretty much intended behaviour.

I think it's less intended behavior and more "that was how we implemented it because we didn't think it mattered".  It seems pretty clear that they intended for you to use heavy watt wire, but thanks to cleverly exploiting the game mechanics, you don't have to.

[TheMule]

10 hours ago, psusi said:

I think it's less intended behavior and more "that was how we implemented it because we didn't think it mattered".  It seems pretty clear that they intended for you to use heavy watt wire, but thanks to cleverly exploiting the game mechanics, you don't have to.

It wouldn't be the first thing for which there's a easy and straightforward way and a more clever involuted one. If your logic is 'heavy watt wires exists hence we should use only them for high power applications' by the same logic oil refineries exist and we shouldn't build boilers. I hope you see the parallel here... heavy watt wires/oil refineries are the easy obvious way, alternating batteries and petroleum boilers the clever involuted one. It doesn't mean there're not the intended way to play the game. They only difference is that oil boiling is more wild used by the community, hence more accepted as a fact of life.

Actually, boiling instead of refining oil is extremely convenient, saves you tons of oil and turns a water-negative process into water positive. It's a game changer.

Using small wires just saves you some minor inconvenience in crossing walls/floors. Given the number of smart batteries you have to use instead, the saving in refined metal isn't the big deal about it. It becomes irrelevant when you gain access to lead in the oil biome anyway.

[psusi]

51 minutes ago, TheMule said:

It wouldn't be the first thing for which there's a easy and straightforward way and a more clever involuted one. If your logic is 'heavy watt wires exists hence we should use only them for high power applications' by the same logic oil refineries exist and we shouldn't build boilers. I hope you see the parallel here... heavy watt wires/oil refineries are the easy obvious way, alternating batteries and petroleum boilers the clever involuted one. It doesn't mean there're not the intended way to play the game. They only difference is that oil boiling is more wild used by the community, hence more accepted as a fact of life.

Not quite.  They clearly intended for a petrol cooker to be possible or they wouldn't have made oil turn into petrol at 400 C.  It isn't quite so clear that it was intentional that they made power flowing into batteries not count so that you could charge batteries with unlimited power over a 1k wire.  That just seems more likely to be an implementation detail that a programmer didn't think mattered.

55 minutes ago, TheMule said:

Using small wires just saves you some minor inconvenience in crossing walls/floors. Given the number of smart batteries you have to use instead, the saving in refined metal isn't the big deal about it. It becomes irrelevant when you gain access to lead in the oil biome anyway.

The refined metal you have to spend at flipper sub stations is usually far less than you would have to spend on conductive heavy watt wire.  At greater distances, the 100kg of heavy watt vs 25kg for regular wire really adds up.  And you still have to at least have a pair of transformers to branch it off into a conductive wire load circuit, which is about half the metal cost of a battery flipper.  And that's not counting the decor penalty.  All of that lead they added to the oil biome does change things significantly though.  There really is tons of the stuff and you don't even have to bother refining it!

[TheMule]

16 minutes ago, psusi said:

That just seems more likely to be an implementation detail that a programmer didn't think mattered.

Even so, such configurations existed for more than two years now. It's at least reasonable to assume they don't mind. I doubt they'll fix it by turning batteries into consumers/producers.

[SpreadsheetGamr]

Assuming it wasn't intentional, this is exactly the type of emergent gameplay a designer would hope for.  It requires creativity on the player's part and looking at what the player stands to gain from it is up to a maximum of 75% metal cost reduction on power transmission costs.  That's why for me, this one is a non-issue.

Anybody care to compute the minimum distance for break even?

[psusi]

51 minutes ago, TheMule said:

Even so, such configurations existed for more than two years now. It's at least reasonable to assume they don't mind. I doubt they'll fix it by turning batteries into consumers/producers.

Well yea, but also the ability to use automation pulses to toggle a liquid tepidizer on/off to force it to boil water when it otherwise refuses to do so has been in game about that long too, but at least to me, that is clearly exploiting a bug because it I can not fathom that it is intended that you can spend less power driving a liquid tepidizer to boil water than you can get out of a steam turbine consuming that steam.  I mean, that's literally a perpetual motion machine right there.

[calibayzone]

Everyone has different sets of phenomena what they allow themselves to use. Like the wire debate above, players are divided. But why not use a different set, to add variety?

[TheMule]

5 hours ago, psusi said:

Well yea, but also the ability to use automation pulses to toggle a liquid tepidizer on/off to force it to boil water when it otherwise refuses to do so has been in game about that long too, but at least to me, that is clearly exploiting a bug because it I can not fathom that it is intended that you can spend less power driving a liquid tepidizer to boil water than you can get out of a steam turbine consuming that steam.  I mean, that's literally a perpetual motion machine right there.

We totally agree on that.

There's a difference tho, rapidly pulsing power causes the game to loose track of things. Tepidizers are just one example. You could (probably still can) run a aquatuner w/o energy.

That's not what happens with flipping batteries. Wires do not  overload when charging batteries in general. It's game mechanics. You may think it's a design mistake but that's your opinion. If falls into the same category as the only one element per tile rule. It's not a behaviour that is triggered in strange conditions. Wires in ONI just work like that, always.

Meaning: you can sit down, look at how things work in the game, and design a clever way of using game mechanics to your advantage. It's creative thinking.

No one came out with the tepidizer idea from scratch, because nowhere that's how they work. It was discovered by pure chance. It might be hard to fix with the current game engine, but it's clearly a bug. It's tier-4 in my classification.

Battery charging is tier-1. And anyway, think of how power works irl. And it's not only DC vs AC (which is all about wire not overheating, btw. Actually you have to use massive wires to carry the same amount of current with DC). It's also the PSU in your computer. Do you know that it's a switching one?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched-mode_power_supply While technically that's not to prevent wires from overheating but the PSU itself, it's litterally pulsed power to reduce heat. We do use pulsing power to achieve heat efficiency in real life.

I just love that some game mechanics (however not a perfect simulation) allow you to reproduce real life contraptions. I have zero problems with bead pumps, since something very similar exists in real life. Likewise, I love the flipping power network as it allows me to simulate in game AC distribution vs DC.

To me there's a huge difference in a bug that allows me to break the game and produce infinite energy, from something that it's part of the design (no matter if ill-advised) of the game, which allows me to achieve better efficiency (w/o breaking anything, it's not producing power from nothing) and does that by closely simulating something that actually happens in real life. It doesn't break the game, it enriches it if anything.

[psusi]

4 hours ago, TheMule said:

Wires do not  overload when charging batteries in general. It's game mechanics.

Yes, but that isn't something that is explicitly stated anywhere; it's just kind of something that someone noticed one day that that's how it works.  Not unlike how someone figured out that boiling and condensing ethanol deletes heat.

4 hours ago, TheMule said:

And it's not only DC vs AC (which is all about wire not overheating, btw.

It's not about AC vs. DC; it is about using higher voltage to get the same power over a line with lower current.  It just happens to be much simpler to build an AC transformer ( just takes a hunk of iron with some wire wrapped around it ) to trade voltage for current than it is to build a DC voltage regulator ( which requires modern integrated circuits ).

4 hours ago, TheMule said:

Do you know that it's a switching one?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched-mode_power_supply While technically that's not to prevent wires from overheating but the PSU itself, it's litterally pulsed power to reduce heat. We do use pulsing power to achieve heat efficiency in real life.

Using a transistor to efficiently turn the flow of power on and off as needed to maintain the target output DC voltage isn't remotely similar to transferring unlimited amounts of power over a wire just because it is going into charging a battery instead of operating a load.

4 hours ago, TheMule said:

I have zero problems with bead pumps, since something very similar exists in real life.

Eh?  Last time I checked, IRL if you drip 1 g of water down a 1 m^2 shaft it doesn't suck all the air out.

 

[Gurgel]

1 hour ago, psusi said:

It's not about AC vs. DC; it is about using higher voltage to get the same power over a line with lower current.  It just happens to be much simpler to build an AC transformer ( just takes a hunk of iron with some wire wrapped around it ) to trade voltage for current than it is to build a DC voltage regulator ( which requires modern integrated circuits ).

That has actually gotten pretty murky in recent years. With mass-produced very fast switching regulators (small inductors, ceramic filter capacitors, low-loss FETs), stepping DC up or down is actually cheaper, simpler and more efficient than using AC. In a sense, you get "AC in a box" with much better border conditions. Of course, you also get some surprising failure modes, as what is in the box is actually orders or magnitude more complex. 

The other thing that has happened is that HVDC is now feasible for transmission lines and has much lower losses than AC on long lines.

But I agree, wire-thickness wise there is really no difference between AC and DC at the same voltage unless you get into higher frequencies. The "skin-effect" on cables comes from voltage, not the low frequencies used in AC.

[TheMule]

1 hour ago, psusi said:

Eh?  Last time I checked, IRL if you drip 1 g of water down a 1 m^2 shaft it doesn't suck all the air out.

I think we're not going anywhere with this argument.

If it's that sort of things that bothers you I wonder why you didn't uninstalled ONI the very first time you created your first colony. Last time I've checked, IRL you can't print people with a printing pod.

ONI is an universe with its own rules. There are things that happens in the game that are against those rules. Those I call "bugs". There are things that happen that are within those rules. Those are not bugs to me.

That the rules in the ONI universe conform those of reality is your expectation. It was never stated anywhere by the developers.

I don't have such expectations. I'm content when the game allows me to do clever things that resamble or remind me of similar clever things people do in reality.

The fact all it takes in the ONI universe to create a bead pump is a few grams of liquid is just a consequence of the 1 element per tile rule, a rule I've accepted as part of the game. Within the game ruleset, a bead pump works in a very similar way of its real counterpart, and that's enough for me. Complaining about that is like complaining that real life knights' movements aren't L-shaped. During a game of chess.
The same for liquid locks, or flipping batteries. They remind me of their real life counterparts, but of course they can't be exaclty the same, because the rules of the universe are different.

On the contrary, the game engine loosing track of events under certain conditions is a bug/malfunction, a technical issue. A very different thing in my book.

[psusi]

6 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

That has actually gotten pretty murky in recent years. With mass-produced very fast switching regulators (small inductors, ceramic filter capacitors, low-loss FETs), stepping DC up or down is actually cheaper, simpler and more efficient than using AC. In a sense, you get "AC in a box" with much better border conditions. Of course, you also get some surprising failure modes, as what is in the box is actually orders or magnitude more complex. 

Note that simple is the opposite of complex.  These days DC regulators may be smaller, cheaper, and more efficient, but a transformer is still stone cold simple.

1 minute ago, TheMule said:

If it's that sort of things that bothers you I wonder why you didn't uninstalled ONI the very first time you created your first colony. Last time I've checked, IRL you can't print people with a printing pod.

I'm not saying that it shouldn't happen in game because it doesn't IRL.  I'm saying I'm confused as to why you said that it does work IRL.

8 minutes ago, TheMule said:

Within the game ruleset, a bead pump works in a very similar way of its real counterpart, and that's enough for me

What real life counterpart?

 

[TheMule]

29 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

But I agree, wire-thickness wise there is really no difference between AC and DC at the same voltage unless you get into higher frequencies. The "skin-effect" on cables comes from voltage, not the low frequencies used in AC.

I've never said at the same voltage. When it was introduced, the point of AC was to make more practical to work with high voltages, hence lower currents hence smaller cables, for power distribution. And again, in the ONI universe there's no voltage, no current, no Ohm's law. Flipping batteries remind me of real life AC, in that they allow for using smaller cables to distribute power. Clearly I've never said they work exactly the same as AC in the ONI universe. In a universe with no voltage/current, there isn't AC or DC.

Anyway I think I've made my point clear enough.

17 minutes ago, psusi said:

Note that simple is the opposite of complex.  These days DC regulators may be smaller, cheaper, and more efficient, but a transformer is still stone cold simple.

I'm not saying that it shouldn't happen in game because it doesn't IRL.  I'm saying I'm confused as to why you said that it does work IRL.

What real life counterpart?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprengel_pump

It uses (heavy) liquid and gravity to displace gasses, trapping bubbles of it. In reality trapped bubbles are actually sucked (or rather pushed) down. In the ONI universe, trapped bubbles of gas are pushed up by the swapping mechanism. Both use gravity and trapping of bubbles of gasses in a small environment (you could argue that one tile wide is the smaller we can get in the ONI universe) with a liquid. Both move gasses and can achieve vacuum (IRL not perfect vacuum of course). They are similar enough to me.

[Gurgel]

24 minutes ago, psusi said:

Note that simple is the opposite of complex.  These days DC regulators may be smaller, cheaper, and more efficient, but a transformer is still stone cold simple.

Not actually that simple either. Transformers are older tech, but if you ever got into actually building one you notice that they are not that simple. (I did and eventually gave up. The real-world math is just too complex. Magnetization-curves of different metal cuts? Insane!) The complexity comes from other factors though as for modern DC switching regulators. Also note that the basic concept of switching regulator is pretty much not more complex if the end-result needs to be regulated DC. 

[psusi]

3 hours ago, TheMule said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprengel_pump

Neat!

2 hours ago, Gurgel said:

Transformers are older tech, but if you ever got into actually building one you notice that they are not that simple. (I did and eventually gave up. The real-world math is just too complex. Magnetization-curves of different metal cuts? Insane!)

You don't need any of that.  You just keep wrapping more wire around the core until you get the voltage you want