My hopes for nuclear power.

[goboking]

I, like most of you, am excited about the upcoming DLC.  Both nuclear power and the space overhaul sound like a great ways to shake up the mid to late game.  It's the former - nuclear power - that I want to briefly comment on.  It is my hope that nuclear power will be flexible, offering both straightforward refineries and generators with all the charm ONI's artists can muster as well as custom-built refineries and generators for those who enjoy engineering complex builds.

I'll use petroleum refining as an example of what I'm talking about.

 

This is the in-game oil refinery.  At 4x4, it's compact enough to fit almost anywhere.  And aesthetically speaking, it looks precisely like the kind of refinery ONI's dupes would cobble together...functional, yet something that might fall apart any moment.  But it's manually operated and converts oil to petroleum at a 2:1 ratio, making it somewhat inefficient.

 

This cute little guy is a molten slickster.  He consumes carbon dioxide and excretes petroleum, providing an alternative, power-free means of obtaining petroleum.  But he's high maintenance, requiring a very warm place to live, a constant supply of food, and - assuming you want to optimize petroleum production - occasional grooming.

 

And then there's this.  This is a custom-built petroleum boiler.  It does what it says on the tin: it boils oil into petroleum.  Compared to the in-game oil refinery, it's large and it's complex.  Building something such as this requires a firm understanding of the game's mechanics, but the payoff is automated and highly efficient petroleum production.

And so I hope it is with nuclear power.  I hope to see simplistic reactors that, when fed refined uranium, generate power.  I also hope to see the tools with which people can custom build complex nuclear reactors that use refined uranium to generate obscene amounts of heat to drive steam turbines for far more power than in-game reactors could ever output.  This way everyone has something to play with, whether they're looking for something straightforward and accessible or complex and rewarding.

 

Credit: @Lifegrow for the petroleum boiler pic.  Design can be found here.

[Lifegrow]

My main hope is that we don't get access to nuclear at a point in the game where we already don't need power. Sour gas boilers/solar/petrol/ethanol - we already have a lot of big output power solutions.

I'm assuming it'll have some desirable bi-products that are used for building cool things, but honestly i'm concerned as to where it'll fit into the game arc. Nuclear rockets would be great in theory, providing we have some juicy uses for rockets that don't just feel like busy work for the sake of it.

[Nebbie]

8 hours ago, Lifegrow said:

My main hope is that we don't get access to nuclear at a point in the game where we already don't need power. Sour gas boilers/solar/petrol/ethanol - we already have a lot of big output power solutions.

I'm assuming it'll have some desirable bi-products that are used for building cool things, but honestly i'm concerned as to where it'll fit into the game arc. Nuclear rockets would be great in theory, providing we have some juicy uses for rockets that don't just feel like busy work for the sake of it.

I'd second this. Nuclear power has to come around when you're just starting to make rockets, otherwise you'll just end up with power solved one way or another and nuclear is an unwanted complication.

The big elephants in the room are petroleum boilers and steam turbines, two ridiculous ways to turn a bit of heat into a lot of power with little complication. The former could be made harder to work with if it produced a bit of natural gas just like it does in the refinement building, which would also add a bit to the difficulty of making sour gas boilers. The latter would probably need a reduction in how much power you get for heat killed, but an increase in the temperatures it can handle (400 C steam, anyone?), so that you face more difficulty getting high power outputs before space materials.

[Neotuck]

I'm worried Nuclear power will end up disappointing like steam power was 

[meepmoop]

10 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

I'm worried Nuclear power will end up disappointing like steam power was 

steam power disappointing?
As power generators yes. But their role as heat deleters in the game makes them the most interesting thing in the game.

[Neotuck]

2 minutes ago, meepmoop said:

steam power disappointing?
As power generators yes. But their role as heat deleters in the game makes them the most interesting thing in the game.

eventually yes, but they were part of the game for months before it was tweaked and balanced enough to be used that way

[Mastermindx]

The thing is, if past is any indication, Klei tends put some cool, but overally pointless.

All dupe are 50+ morale -> Klei meep's mandatory recreation pack that allows to get more of something you don't need anyway.

Want better automation to create better and more efficient machine -> Klei gives you the Pixel Pack!

(To be fait, the Automation Pack, had a few nice addition, but failed to included some widely requested yet simple one. Like a true way to automate gas and liquid tank instead of some exploit with mechanical doors...)

And so, nuclear will come and I'll be like

Overproduce 3000 kj per cycle without burning a single gram of petroleum, natural gas or coal -> Klei introduce Nuclear Power!

So, until they introduce something interesting , optional (as in, not needed in the main survival loop), to do with extra power, I'm not sure what's the point of adding nuclear.

8 minutes ago, meepmoop said:

steam power disappointing?
As power generators yes.

Steam is disappointing?  O.o  of my 10 000 daily kj production :

- 7000 kj is steam
- 2200 kj is solar
- 800 kj is hydrogen (my electrolyzer are backing off otherwise...)

Some of it is from volcano tamer, so it can vary quite a bit...  but still. I wouldn't rate it disappointing.

[Steve8]

8 minutes ago, Mastermindx said:

To be fait, the Automation Pack, had a few nice addition, but failed to included some widely requested yet simple one. Like a true way to automate gas and liquid tank instead of some exploit with mechanical doors...

Or having the smart logic for fridges and "smart" storage bins

[Nebbie]

31 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

eventually yes, but they were part of the game for months before it was tweaked and balanced enough to be used that way

I'm not too concerned with how things start out, more how they end up. Steam power is pretty nice right now, but honestly it feels like power generation is wonky, because it goes from being a concern early-game to just...not once a few things are built.

27 minutes ago, Mastermindx said:

The thing is, if past is any indication, Klei tends put some cool, but overally pointless.

All dupe are 50+ morale -> Klei meep's mandatory recreation pack that allows to get more of something you don't need anyway.

Want better automation to create better and more efficient machine -> Klei gives you the Pixel Pack!

(To be fait, the Automation Pack, had a few nice addition, but failed to included some widely requested yet simple one. Like a true way to automate gas and liquid tank instead of some exploit with mechanical doors...)

And so, nuclear will come and I'll be like

Overproduce 3000 kj per cycle without burning a single gram of petroleum, natural gas or coal -> Klei introduce Nuclear Power!

...

The thing with extra morale is one of the weirdest things about ONI game design. It seems like it's just a way to show off once you've got everything handled in your base; even on the highest morale difficulty, you will never need dupes to be riding surfboards. The disease system at least becomes an actual issue on higher difficulties (but that's just an annoyance rather than anything interesting).

I really don't like that liquid reservoirs, which can be turned off manually, only have an automation output; excuse me, but why can't automation flick the switch instead of my dupes, especially when I can bypass with a door and still not need the stupid power draw of a shutoff?

Don't forget Sweepy, the cute little robot to help make sweeping materials a breeze...and gets massively outperformed by autosweepers if you really ever bother. If Sweepy can still act as a crazy way to move magma, that's at least useful, but it's so, so niche.

I really do suspect that when the DLC hits, we'll all be abusing some new bug and material (meant for reactors) for amazing petroleum boilers on cycle 100, and just walling off any uranium that gets too close for comfort.

14 minutes ago, Steve8 said:

Or having the smart logic for fridges and "smart" storage bins

Ah, fridges, the building for if you want to waste power deleting tiny amounts of heat but get screwed when a single bit of polluted air wafts by, when you could instead just find a way to convey stuff into a single tile of chlorine by the mess hall.

[Steve8]

7 minutes ago, Nebbie said:

Ah, fridges, the building for if you want to waste power deleting tiny amounts of heat but get screwed when a single bit of polluted air wafts by, when you could instead just find a way to convey stuff into a single tile of chlorine by the mess hall.

Ah, yes I forgot where I am. Where anything that is slightly less than the min/max optimum always gets dismissed out of hand 

Yes, usually I use vacuum or chlorine storage too. But there are some use cases for smarter fridges like stopping to cook when you have a certain amount of something. Also, later on power doesn't matter at all. There comes a point when you have excess power and don't know what to do with it.

In any case it would be useful for storage bins. And at that point they can also go all the way and add it to fridges to. There is plenty of other little used stuff in the game too.

[Nebbie]

29 minutes ago, Steve8 said:

Ah, yes I forgot where I am. Where anything that is slightly less than the min/max optimum always gets dismissed out of hand 

Yes, usually I use vacuum or chlorine storage too. But there are some use cases for smarter fridges like stopping to cook when you have a certain amount of something. Also, later on power doesn't matter at all. There comes a point when you have excess power and don't know what to do with it.

In any case it would be useful for storage bins. And at that point they can also go all the way and add it to fridges to. There is plenty of other little used stuff in the game too.

I really do like fridges in concept, especially for automation, it's just that ONI makes the alternative too easy (in real life, food will still spoil in carbon dioxide, and food will soak up chlorine and become a bit poisonous) and the thing you should be doing too messy. A few little changes and I'd happily use fridges in every base.
This sort of weirdness is why I'm a bit distrustful of nuclear power; it could easily turn out that stuffing a thousand shine bugs into a single tile is superior in every way with what gets actually released, despite all common sense.

[0xFADE]

I'm hoping nuclear is fairly accurate.  Like the reactor just generates constant heat.  Heat that you have to run through turbines to get power out of.  That would be accurate.  You would need more infrastructure in refining the material and making rods than using them.

[Rhogar]

Well they are revamping space.  Nuclear energy has incredible power density, so if you are limited by fuel:mass i can see it having a role in starting up colonies.  Planets are no longer required to provide the resources to survive so balacing food, o2, and power can be a concern.

29 minutes ago, 0xFADE said:

I'm hoping nuclear is fairly accurate.  Like the reactor just generates constant heat.  Heat that you have to run through turbines to get power out of.  That would be accurate.  You would need more infrastructure in refining the material and making rods than using them.

I too hope that these reactors are only a source of heat.  Also are these reactors going to have a positive or negative thermal coefficient?  Will decay heat be modelled in game?  Control rod depletion?  Will we be able to hyper pressurize water to raise it's boiling point to maintain real life thermal output or will a different moderator be used?  The more realistic they are the more excited I'm going to be for the required automation to tame them.

 

Also I want meltdowns to be in game 

[Nebbie]

51 minutes ago, Rhogar said:

...

I too hope that these reactors are only a source of heat.  Also are these reactors going to have a positive or negative thermal coefficient?  Will decay heat be modelled in game?  Control rod depletion?  Will we be able to hyper pressurize water to raise it's boiling point to maintain real life thermal output or will a different moderator be used?  The more realistic they are the more excited I'm going to be for the required automation to tame them.

...

I doubt we'll be seeing boiling points change with pressure, as that'd be a massive shift from current ONI physics. More likely we'll get something that's got unrealistically-low cooling requirements so normal temperature water will be used.

[Rhogar]

8 minutes ago, Nebbie said:

I doubt we'll be seeing boiling points change with pressure, as that'd be a massive shift from current ONI physics. More likely we'll get something that's got unrealistically-low cooling requirements so normal temperature water will be used.

Yeah I figured the same, but one can hope :).  High temperature steam as the output seems the most likely course allowing for the simpler reactor -> turbine loop.

[0xFADE]

Yeah that last part is unlikely.  If they revamped pressure it might not be as complicated as it sounds.  Using pressure to do stuff like that would let us do refrigeration like it is done in real life.

[cpy]

Nuclear reactors for making nuclear rocket fuel maybe? Because I don't need power. Power is a thing you worry at start of a game. Unless we get some orbital mechanics where asteroids get further from star and starts cooling down so you need to heat up stuff or maybe cool it which would make even more power.

We need either more VERY power hungry buildings or nuclear industry will not be for power but something else.

[nakomaru]

I don't have such a creative vision, so I keep thinking simple and close to ordinary physics.

We have heat and power already, but I do hope can get an alternative to the metal refinery and rockets and to some extent tricked tepidizers for ultra high temperatures. I really like the idea of needing to control density (or more likely temperature) to prevent or cause meltdowns. I would guess there will be some kind of radiation sickness prevention needed too (thick enough walls or pools).

It's a shame we don't have a way to represent lead or uranium's high densities. I could imagine multipliers for building masses to represent higher densities, so e.g. a uranium tile would take 2000kg to build instead of 200kg. Probably too much to ask for pipe contents to be reworked like this, though (e.g. a section pipe could contain 100kg of molten lead instead of the ordinary 10kg, making molten metals much better coolants). A simple way they might implement density in game is to make high density materials more opaque to radiation, similar to how light works.

I guess the radiation conduits are going to be another simple resource like gas inputs or electricity. If we didn't already have automation, they could have made a variable frequency signal system that would let us do analog logic (something like, a temp sensor at 200K could output 200MHz signal for non binary processing).

 

[Kiros]

Personally I hope they bring the danger back into this game. Ever since they nerfed Slime Lung, I'm not afraid of anything. I hope improperly developed nuclear systems can go critical and either melt down or blow up.

Though what I really wonder is what we need Nuclear power for anyway, when other sources of power are simple and plentiful. Maybe an endgame teleporter that instantly warps dupes/materials to different asteroids, and requires like 50kw to operate?

[TripleM999]

Nuclear fun as early high power supply. I would implement some dirty early nuclear power production like was done in the fifties... and some high end, high tech, cleaner options for late game.

[Lifegrow]

2 hours ago, TripleM999 said:

Nuclear fun as early high power supply. I would implement some dirty early nuclear power production like was done in the fifties... and some clean high end, high tech, cleaner options for late game.

^^^ this I want green glowing dupes and radiation sickness...

 

[TripleM999]

40 minutes ago, Lifegrow said:

I want green glowing dupes and radiation sickness

Exactly. Loosing hair... vomiting... double bath room shifts... burns.

[Yoma_Nosme]

Nuclear power just for electricity sake wouldn't cut it for me.... either, I guess

We have a lot of power generators...manual, coal, steam, petrol, h2...dang that's 5...all of them renewable...so superior to something that's bound to run out sooner or later like uranium (except theres a hatch or shinebug workaround) and that you would have to get from some asteroid(omg, the cringe of pointless labour)...so I'm a bit careful with my nuclear wishes at this point because there's not an obvious need for it...

[Gurgel]

1 hour ago, TripleM999 said:

Exactly. Loosing hair... vomiting... double bath room shifts... burns.

You are thinking too small. Growing 3rd arms (buff), waking up at night from their own glow (debuff), morphing into a slime (debuff), etc.

[SamLogan]

You have to keep in mind one important thing : it's an extension (DLC), not a content patch. It's like Don't Starve and Don't Starve Shipwrecked, the gameplay loop is totally different.

As well, it should offer an unique gaming experience disconnected from the one we know. Take the rocket system, it's completly new from the sneak peak we saw. Now, we have to play on multiple asteroids simultaneously to have all the ressources.

So, it is possible that we will only have nuclear energy available on the starting asteroid, with of course the wheels and eventually the coal generator.

Starting from there we can imagine a progressive system which consists of learning to manage radioactivity, with the new decorative plant for example :

Then channeling this radioactivity with the new system shown :

Use this "ressource" to unlock the nuclear technology :

To unlock the nuclear reactor and technology which will then give us access to the space and rocket to grab other resources and asteroids.

Finally you will have to manage the nuclear waste and the multiple asteroid system. With this new system, I think Klei want to reduce the mining boring time by give us a new gameplay loop more speed.

 

Beside, we can also imagine, the new nuclear bee could be a new energy system as the "abandonned electrical bee" from the alpha :