Can we have more ways to produce Hydrogen?

[Steve Raptor]

With the introduction of rocket hydrogen engines and with the upcoming DLC, its clear that hydrogen is becoming a very important resource.

The problem with this is that currently there is only one reliable way to produce it, and this is with electrolyzers.

However the amount of hydrogen produced by electrolyzers is minuscule compared to the amount needed to fuel hydrogen rocket engines, more so when running more than one rocket.

The other way is hydrogen vent, which is purely RNG based.

Perhaps its time to extend the ways of acquiring hydrogen?

[Lifegrow]

You could always just build more electrolyzers though?

[Steve Raptor]

10 minutes ago, Lifegrow said:

You could always just build more electrolyzers though?

Its ineffective, you consume vast amount of water for oxygen which you don't need and only small amount of it goes to hydrogen.

You also need a lot of them that way and for 2 or more rockets you will start having water problems as well.

 

[Lifegrow]

31 minutes ago, Steve Raptor said:

Its ineffective, you consume vast amount of water for oxygen which you don't need and only small amount of it goes to hydrogen.

You also need a lot of them that way and for 2 or more rockets you will start having water problems as well.

 

But the oxygen is only useless if you're only looking for hydrogen - in which case you're at the rocket stage and should have a surplus of water. If you have a surplus of water, it doesn't matter if you just vent the oxygen into space. 

I get it, it can take a while to build up surplus hydrogen - on the same token, you're talking about making end game fuels easier when you already have a solution.

Slap down 5 electrolyzers in space, then void the oxygen. Done.

[0xFADE]

I was getting in to a position where I was venting oxygen in to space.

Using the oxygen as a space stuff coolant.

[TheMule]

17 minutes ago, 0xFADE said:

I was getting in to a position where I was venting oxygen in to space.

Using the oxygen as a space stuff coolant.

For a while I had 4 stone hatches stables in "space" (it's a pocket of the space biome inside the asteroid). To cool down the sweepers, I used oxygen. 

[Mastermindx]

One way to save on hydrogen is to use petroleum engines for everything closer than 60k (60k being the engine's limit for 2t cargo). And in my latest game, beside a gas giant at 150k that has nothing (solid) beside niobium and fullerene, there isn't that many planet worth visiting. Thus making hydrogen not that essential. I get so much hydrogen that I need to occasionally run some hydrogen generator because my storage is full.

[M4ndatory]

Steam reforming of natural gas would be cool

[Neotuck]

maybe add a new critter that excretes hydrogen?

[yoakenashi]

I agree, regardless of your play style or asteroid type/available geysers, there should be more than one way to create hydrogen. There are multiple ways to produce natural gas, and multiple ways to produce refined metal, and plastic. Hydrogen should also have multiple means of being created.  

[TripleM999]

36 minutes ago, yoakenashi said:

I agree, regardless of your play style or asteroid type/available geysers, there should be more than one way to create hydrogen. There are multiple ways to produce natural gas, and multiple ways to produce refined metal, and plastic. Hydrogen should also have multiple means of being created.  

I do not think so... there is some really confined usage for hydrogen fuel. If you are not able to produce hydrogen at the desired levels, you are not ready for it. It should be a waste product by then, as is oxygen. I think, the vents, and the electrolyzers should be enough for everyday usage... just mix petroleum into it, and you will be fine, as LOX is more than enough, even to the point that many players will just vent it to space as waste.

[Sasza22]

With the space rework we might get more gas planets in reasonable distance. Maybe they`ll make harvesting hydrogen worthwhile. Hydrogen is is the most common element in the universe so getting it from space would make sense.

[yoakenashi]

2 hours ago, TripleM999 said:

It should be a waste product by then, as is oxygen. I think, the vents, and the electrolyzers should be enough for everyday usage

This is all dependent on the asteroid type you are playing. Currently I am playing a type that has only one cool steam vent, so water is very scarce, I have not been able to sustain my duplicate population’s with SPOM alone.

As I said this should be independent on asteroid type and available geysers. There should be at least two different ways to obtain any given basic element. Hydrogen definitely qualifies and should be generated another way. Having different ways to generate hydrogen, or other elements for that matter, would allow for more complex systems.

[angrybovine]

4 hours ago, Neotuck said:

maybe add a new critter that excretes hydrogen?

Or just go with longhair slicksters for the bling and to consume the excess O2.

[TheMule]

22 hours ago, Steve Raptor said:

With the introduction of rocket hydrogen engines and with the upcoming DLC, its clear that hydrogen is becoming a very important resource.

The problem with this is that currently there is only one reliable way to produce it, and this is with electrolyzers.

However the amount of hydrogen produced by electrolyzers is minuscule compared to the amount needed to fuel hydrogen rocket engines, more so when running more than one rocket.

The other way is hydrogen vent, which is purely RNG based.

Perhaps its time to extend the ways of acquiring hydrogen?

Let's ignore vents, their production is rather minuscule compared to 4 electrolyzer from a full Rodrigues, which a geyser can feed with water. Meaning one average water geyser, 3kg/s (for the three major geysers, water, polluted water, salt water) is 340g/s of hydrogen vs 100g/s of a vent. In a average map you usually have multiple sources, plus all the minor ones (e.g. CSVs, 1/2 average production or CSG).

Hydrogen can't be easy to produce in quantity because it's a very clean form of energy: no by products, easily heat negative (all you have to do is to heat up hydrogen, which is already the best heat conducting gas we have), one pipe can feed 10 generators for 8kW.

Give us another way to produce it, an we'll be powering out bases with it. Unless, like for natural gas, you make the process somehow complicated and aimed at endgame. Still, sour gas boilers are possibly one of the most OP builds.

[Neotuck]

15 hours ago, angrybovine said:

Or just go with longhair slicksters for the bling and to consume the excess O2.

I added this to the suggestion and feedback section, please give it a like to get the devs attention if you want to see it happen

 

[0xFADE]

I bred longhairs once.  Complete waste of time now that the decor has a cap.  A cap that is very easily reached by just having gold flooring and ceiling.

Not including all the gold statues and nice paintings you can also place.

[Trego]

In reality, rocket engines consume hydrogen and oxygen in the same ratio as produced by electrolyzing in the first place.  One would hope that the upcoming space rework will fix this issue by simply making rocket fuel ratios more realistic.  It seems to me that this would be better for game balance as well as more realistic.  However, I also agree that another method of producing hydrogen should be added, for the same reasons of realism aligning with game balance.  The cheapest way to produce hydrogen in the real world is steam-methane reforming.  This consists of combining steam with natural gas/methane at around 900 Celsius, with a nickel catalyst, to produce hydrogen and CO.  You can then combine the CO with steam with a rust catalyst to obtain further H2 and CO2.  So, that could be a fun machine to add at the end of the tech tree, inputs of steam and methane, outputs H2 and CO2, call it something like 'methane cracker'.

 

*edit: just to be clear, I'm not saying more realism is always the superior choice.  ONI is fundamentally not a realistic game.  However, since a hydrogen rocket engine is basically just a reverse electrolyzer except instead of generating electricity you're generating thrust, and Klei went to the effort of making the electrolyzer output ratio realistic, I'm surprised they didn't do the same for the hydrogen rocket engine.  Of course a hydrogen generator is literally a reverse electrolyzer and it doesn't use any oxygen at all (or output the steam it chemically should, it's pretty much just magical), so *shrug*, I take it back that wasn't surprising after all, I'm just a little rusty on ONI physics.   Maybe the hydrogen rocket engine is fine as it is and the methane cracker is the perfect solution, for those who find this to be a problem in the first place.

[KittenIsAGeek]

I really haven't had an issue with an inability to get enough hydrogen. Generally by time I reach space, my dupe's oxygen supply comes primarily from electrolyzers.

That said.. I do like @Trego's "Methane Cracker" idea for a late-game building.

[beowulf2010]

1 hour ago, Trego said:

*edit: just to be clear, I'm not saying more realism is always the superior choice.  

Very true. But, at the same time, bringing in ONI versions of real technology is very cool. Your methane cracker sounds fun and I must admit, I've always kinda wanted a small 1 to 4 tile hydroelectric generator that could generate maybe 100 watts per 10kg of flow that we could use early game when gravity draining pools, mid game to capture incidental flow from geysers, and end game when we already have a ton of liquids in pipes we're just dumping in storage tanks. 

[KittenIsAGeek]

53 minutes ago, beowulf2010 said:

Very true. But, at the same time, bringing in ONI versions of real technology is very cool. Your methane cracker sounds fun and I must admit, I've always kinda wanted a small 1 to 4 tile hydroelectric generator that could generate maybe 100 watts per 10kg of flow 

Or infinite free energy via escher waterfalls pumping 400kg/s of water... *whistles innocently*

 

[0xFADE]

Natural gas generators allow methane cracking just not very efficiently or directly.

You turn 90g/s of natural gas in to 7.56g/s of hydrogen

We could use some natural gas rockets.  Like SpaceX is using.

[SkunkMaster]

You guys really think we'll stick to hydrogen rockets as top tier, with the new DLC?

i doubt it, i also doubt it'll even matter. Something tells me petrol rockets will be more then fine in the dlc for most stuff, and that we'll also get yet another tier or 2 of rocket engines...

[TripleM999]

3 hours ago, Trego said:

This consists of combining steam with natural gas/methane at around 900 Celsius, with a nickel catalyst, to produce hydrogen and CO.  You can then combine the CO with steam with a rust catalyst to obtain further H2 and CO2.  So, that could be a fun machine to add at the end of the tech tree, inputs of steam and methane, outputs H2 and CO2, call it something like 'methane cracker'.

This could also be fun, if there would be a machine, which does this at lower efficiency... and be buildable as a contraption, though we would need some nickel sources. 

20 minutes ago, SkunkMaster said:

yet another tier or 2 of rocket engines

Nuclear engines probably, but similar to real satellite engines, for low gravity, low trust applications, And as was proposed multiple times already, liquid methane, as this is also a thing in modern space faring. Maybe even some petroleumderivate as RP-1 already is. But LOX/LH is and surely will be the most potent engine even with the DLC.

I think, the engine in the DLC promo could be a nuclear device.

[0xFADE]

2 hours ago, SkunkMaster said:

You guys really think we'll stick to hydrogen rockets as top tier, with the new DLC?

i doubt it, i also doubt it'll even matter. Something tells me petrol rockets will be more then fine in the dlc for most stuff, and that we'll also get yet another tier or 2 of rocket engines...

I've got a feeling they are going to over-simplify rockets.  The whole long range flight looks like it is out and you will be hopping from one asteroid to another.