Disappointed with late game

[KittenIsAGeek]

17 hours ago, Crimsontide said:

What that's basically saying is that a good chunk of end-game is just not available for 3 asteroids.

Which 3 asteroids are missing a good chunk of their end-game?  Because I've played multiple games without any wolframite at all and ... ... had zero problems with my end game.  Its almost as if woframite isn't critical.  Useful? Definitely.  But its not like I MUST have it.  I've managed to get by without Thermium or Niobium.  Gold amalgam? Nice, but again, not critical.  Super Coolant?  Again, its really nice to have, but it isn't absolutely necessary.  I can make LOX and LH without it -- it just takes a bit more ingenuity.

[Nebbie]

1 hour ago, nakomaru said:

If abyssalite was not meant to melt it would be trivially easy for them to make it not melt. See also neutronium, genetic ooze. Foreseen? Probably not.

Infinite storage, bypass pumps, mechanical filters, and liquid locks are probably all counter-reality emergent gameplay elements that came from more fundamental design decisions (tile physics), and they are also ones that have been maintained for years for whatever reasons. Alchemy, mass loss and huge thermal imbalances have also come from this, and yet they work hard to try to fix those. I don't think the differences here are a coincidence.

Taking away melting from abyssalite would create the problem of tiles in the middle of the map that you could dump an unlimited amount of heat into without any containment, unlike the other two. It has to melt into something.

Mechanical filters and liquid locks are clearly intended. Bypass pumps and infinite storage, not so much, and I suspect the reason they aren't messed with is that they don't massively break the game and trying to fix them could create horrific bugs (high risk, low reward); very different from alchemy, mass loss, and thermal imbalances, which could wreck a base over time, and thus fixing would be unlikely to make anything worse.

[nakomaru]

9 hours ago, Nebbie said:

Taking away melting from abyssalite would create the problem of tiles in the middle of the map that you could dump an unlimited amount of heat into without any containment, unlike the other two. It has to melt into something.

What? How? Even at the abysmally slow rate of supercoolant gas to abyssalite, it wouldn't be infinite. And with a high enough melting point, abyssalite wouldn't flake. We also already have simple and unlimited heat deletion built in to the game, so this trick would have to be simpler than turbines to break gameplay.

9 hours ago, Nebbie said:

Mechanical filters and liquid locks are clearly intended. Bypass pumps and infinite storage, not so much

Our disagreement on this is mostly our personal feelings. I think these allow for awesome designs (and have therefore been tacitly integrated), and you think they break the game (but can't be fixed).

Infinite storage could be made very difficult if they made high pressure mass gas/liquids break adjacent or overlapping tiles/doors.

[TheMule]

14 hours ago, Nebbie said:

Abyssalite's purpose on the map is to provide insulation between biomes and make it harder to explore around. It melting into tungsten is a kind of default, as everything in ONI has to melt into something. 

Now that looks like a point that is based entirely on your assumptions. Who told you that's the only purpose of abyssalite exactly? And why didn't they make it a perfect insulator then? And how do things melt into tungsten by default?

Someone had to explicitly set the properties of abyssalite, at what temperature it melts, into what it melts. Why not setting the liquifying temperature at 9000C and be done with it? Why setting it so low?

14 hours ago, Nebbie said:

The problem is that it is specifically designed to be nearly impossible to heat up, so that making it into tungsten should be out of reach,

Again, first, no, it's not designed to be impossible to heat up. And if you're referring to its TC, that's not how TC works in ONI and it's impossible that the devs forgot about that. Abyssalite has the same TC as insulation, and as we all know, things made of insulation do transfer heat. You need to give an entity (tile, pipe) the "insulated" property for it to act as a perfect insulator. When heat transfer occurs it's based of the mean of the TCs of the materials involved. So heat transfer between abyssalite and a thermium shiftplate is definitely non-zero. You can see it around magma pockets, they abyssalite does reach temperatures above 1000C.  What is almost a perfect insulator is 2 adjacent tiles of abyssalite, since the average TC is 0.00001.

And if the goal was to make tungsten out of reach, why is the melting temp so low?

14 hours ago, Nebbie said:

but a separate mechanic (flaking) that's probably primarily meant to make ice biomes thaw and freeze in more gradual ways interacts with this to make it quite possible to melt abyssalite.

Again, assuptions on what's the purpose of flaking. If that was the the purpose why making it into a general mechnism instead of restricting it to water? Why does crude oil flake into petroleum, or sour gas, with the right conditions?

Also you seem to assume that flaking is the only way to smelt abyssalite, that's not true, it's just that people find it convenient doing it that way. So that you can "feed" debris into a solid tile to replenish is and you don't have to move around your abyssalite smelter.

14 hours ago, Nebbie said:

Note that they made it so you can't flake-melt artificial tiles anymore (no more insulation -> tungsten), so it's pretty clear they don't want us to turn abyssalite into tungsten.

Wow this is the king of selling your own opinion as a fact. First of all, I'm not sure now you can no longer smelt insulation piping. And even if they completely ruled out insulation smelting (but again, why not set the temp at 9000C?), if anything, to me is a very strong indication that they want us to smelt abyssalite instead to get our tungsten. Note that I wrote "to me".

9 hours ago, nakomaru said:

If abyssalite was not meant to melt it would be trivially easy for them to make it not melt. See also neutronium, genetic ooze. Foreseen? Probably not.

Exactly. But not foreseen does not mean not intended, in a game that's entirely based on the players' creativity. They literally give us building blocks and a world to play with. 

Abyssalite melting at 3425C is just another building block. Most rocks melt into igneous/magma. They made abyssalite specially useful by turning it into a source of tungsten instead. Compare it to obsidian, it melts at 2729C into magma. Nobody is talking about smelting it (well I do), because it's not probably worth the effort just for more magma.

[Crimsontide]

5 hours ago, nakomaru said:

Infinite storage could be made very difficult if they made high pressure gas/liquids break adjacent or overlapping tiles/doors.

No they couldn't.  They're using a typical cellular automata simulation with a 'pressure' system built on top.  Now the pressure is calculated for gasses/liquids, but its clear they are not simulating pressure for solids.  They would have to add a pressure system into solids which becomes more complicated (ie. more data + more processing time).

This is why there will never be a proper liquid/gas simulation.  They don't utilize velocity/momentum, so you can't get plumes, geyser, or waves.

[nakomaru]

2 hours ago, Crimsontide said:

No they couldn't.

I am not talking about real world pressure. I should have merely said tile mass. It would be very easy for them to check adjacent tile mass and destroy tiles (in fact, they already do, but have also decided to allow unlimited mass in many arrangements).

[Crimsontide]

The problem is this.  For gases mass and pressure are interchangeable to an extent, since mass will even out over time as dictated by pressure.  For liquids this can be fudged a bit so again mass and pressure are interchangeable; to do this we ignore the fact that liquids IRL are nearly incompressible, and save ourselves the memory/computational cost of 2 terms rather only using 1.  This cannot be done for solids, since mass != pressure, and can't be 'hacked in' as with liquids.  In order to have pressure within solids, you would need a separate term.  The pressure check for breaking of tiles is because the check is from the liquid to the solid tile.  The solid tile itself had no pressure term (explicit or implied), and so pressure on it cannot propagate through the cells.  Its a direct consequence of cellular automata simulations.

[Gurgel]

13 hours ago, nakomaru said:

If abyssalite was not meant to melt it would be trivially easy for them to make it not melt. See also neutronium, genetic ooze. Foreseen? Probably not.

Infinite storage, bypass pumps, mechanical filters, and liquid locks are probably all counter-reality emergent gameplay elements that came from more fundamental design decisions (tile physics), and they are also ones that have been maintained for years for whatever reasons. Alchemy, mass loss and huge thermal imbalances have also come from this, and yet they work hard to try to fix those. I don't think the differences here are a coincidence.

It is pretty clear that Klei has a good idea what they want to model on "real" Physics and were the are completely fine to be different. By now, they probably just ignore all the people that want ONI to be a "realistic" simulation. After all, these people always come with the same, tired old and invalid arguments. Seems to be some form of cognitive dissonance they cannot resolve and hence they want ONI to change, whatever the cost. Of course that dissonance only happens if you mistake ONI for a simulation of the real world, which it exceptionally obviously is not. And also exceptionally obvious is that Klei cannot make ONI realistic in the way these people want without causing massive effort and massive problems and probably removing most of the fun from the game. Hence that is never going to happen anyways.

2 hours ago, Crimsontide said:

No they couldn't.  They're using a typical cellular automata simulation with a 'pressure' system built on top.  Now the pressure is calculated for gasses/liquids, but its clear they are not simulating pressure for solids.  They would have to add a pressure system into solids which becomes more complicated (ie. more data + more processing time).

To make infinite storage impossible, they could just "block" tiles for moving in more after a certain mass accumulation. That would be easy, simple, fast. They have not done that, hence they (and I) have no problem with infinite storage. And, quite frankly, why should they have any problem with it? It is not something that trivially falls in your lap. Hence it is something advanced that can be discovered and that means it adds value to the game.

[Mastermindx]

1 hour ago, Gurgel said:

It is not something that trivially falls in your lap. Hence it is something advanced that can be discovered

You know what also satisfy this definition?  Exploits.

[Zarquan]

22 minutes ago, Mastermindx said:

You know what also satisfy this definition?  Exploits.

Literally everything we do in games is an exploit.  I will exploit drekkos to get reed fiber so I can exploit exosuits to go in to the oil biome and exploit the oil resources down there.  My plan after that is to exploit the steam turbine to generate power and delete heat from the iron volcano.  

Then I will proobably take a break and get food from the super exploity freezer that uses the heat pump mechanic to preserve food and then put that food in the box that exploits the 12.2 cm light mechanic to heat the food.  Then I will use the hollow cylinder of glass exploit to contain liquid water without getting it all over myself. 

I can't even comprehend the sheer number of instances of hard discovered quantum exploits that were required for me to make this post about exploits.

 

[Mastermindx]

Seems you don't understand the vocabulary... So here for you :

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

 

[TheMule]

11 minutes ago, Mastermindx said:

Seems you don't understand the vocabulary... So here for you :

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

 

Exactly... bugs or glitches. There are none involved. Infinite storage is based on game mechanics that work as intended. So it doesn't fit the definition of exploit that you gave.

Liquids create pressure damage because a programmer coded that, and choose not to code it for gasses. Pressure damage is not applied to airflow tiles because a programmer decided to code that difference in. They also coded that 3 tiles in a row block pressure damage. They also didn't code any limit on how much liquid fits in a single cell. It's not by accident that we have infinite storage. It's part of the current meta.

Will they change it in the future? Maybe. Maybe they'll change their mind about it. But for now, it's 100% WAI (https://www.abbreviations.com/term/1657921). As such, not an exploit.

 

And by the way, Zarquan is just using a diffent definition: according to https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/exploit there's a totally neutral definition too:

exploit

verb [ T ]

to use something in a way that helps you

 

[Mastermindx]

12 minutes ago, TheMule said:

because a programmer decided to code that difference in

I've been working as programmer for the last 20 years.  You'd be surprised  how many things behave the way they do not because the programmer DECIDED to code it, but because they FORGOT to manage that use case properly.

I bet lot of cases end up being handled by "fail safe" code.  Like the automatic dispenser being able to refill natural tile. I would be willing to bet that's just a side effect of current implementation and not by design. Then again, I might be wrong. But it's definitely not an authoritatively documented feature.

31 minutes ago, TheMule said:

And by the way, Zarquan is just using a diffent definition: according to https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/exploit there's a totally neutral definition too:

 

So?  I didn't use "Exploit" in that sense so...  what's your point? 

[Zarquan]

23 minutes ago, Mastermindx said:

I've been working as programmer for the last 20 years.  You'd be surprised  how many things behave the way they do not because the programmer DECIDED to code it, but because they FORGOT to manage that use case properly.

I bet lot of cases end up being handled by "fail safe" code.  Like the automatic dispenser being able to refill natural tile. I would be willing to bet that's just a side effect of current implementation and not by design. Then again, I might be wrong. But it's definitely not an authoritatively documented feature.

Someone mentioned that flaking abyssalite is an "exploit."  That mechanic was specifically programmed in to the game by the devs.

Another person mentioned bypass pumps.  But the mechanic behind bypass pumps is a specific mechanic programmed in to ensure gases end up on top of liquids. 

The point is that the things being complained about aren't fueled by bugs.  They are natural consequences of the mechanics in the game.  If they didn't want debris to be combined in to tiles, then it wouldn't be so.  That was programmed in about 6 months ago (if I recall correctly).  If they didn't want the dispenser to dump material in to tiles, they could disable the building if the nozzle is in a tile.  Just because something is in the game that feels weird does not mean that there is a glitch or an "exploit" that should be avoided.

Not to say there aren't glitches in the game.  As a community, we have actually helped patch out two major heat bugs from the game (the bad flaking math and a vacuum heat bug).  Additionally, tricking a building so that it works when it says it shouldn't is also a glitch.

But the natural consequences of the physics in the game are not glitches, they are how the world works. Just like in the real world.

[Steve8]

1 minute ago, Zarquan said:

Someone mentioned that flaking abyssalite is an "exploit."  That mechanic was specifically programmed in to the game by the devs.

And it has unintended consequences. Other stuff has unintended consequences too. They put stuff in to fix some issue and that has effects that aren't always forseen. Yet people here are acting like all the results of these mechanics are fully intended, are good for the game and can't be criticized. That's such total BS

[Zarquan]

11 minutes ago, Steve8 said:

And it has unintended consequences. Other stuff has unintended consequences too. They put stuff in to fix some issue and that has effects that aren't always forseen. Yet people here are acting like all the results of these mechanics are fully intended, are good for the game and can't be criticized. That's such total BS

If they didn't want abyssalite to melt in to tungsten, it wouldn't melt in to tungsten.  The default melting target for rocks tends to be magma.  If it melted in to magma, no one would bat an eye.  If they didn't want partial melting to work on abyssalite, they would make an exception like they did for doors and tiles.

Also, there was an idea that tungsten was a default melting target for things, but there are only 4 things that melt in to tungsten:  Tungsten, Wolframite, Abyssalite, and Insulation.   But if it were the default, why don't we see more materials melting in to abyssalite?

[TheMule]

 

29 minutes ago, Mastermindx said:

I've been working as programmer for the last 20 years.  You'd be surprised  how many things behave the way they do not because the programmer DECIDED to code it, but because they FORGOT to manage that use case properly.

I started programming on a ZX Spectrum in '83, BASIC and also a bit of assembly, and it has been my job (among other things) for 30y+,  so no big surprise for me here.

That's why I can totally tell when something "smells" like a bug or not. It's hard to imagine that someone coded different resistance to pressure for tiles of various materials, both natural and artificial, but forgot about airflow tiles, and it's even more unlikely they kept forgetting about it for years. 

The same goes for the three tiles rule. Pressure damage is very specific, and the code has to look for three solid tiles both horizonally and vertically. Three tiles in a row has no other special effect that I'm aware of so it can't be just something that is being applied to pressure damage by mistake, it has to be coded in for that purpose. Why code something that grants resistance to infinite pressure if they don't want us to play with infinite pressure?

While I did see all kinds of weird side-effects in my life as a programmer, the dispencer one it very hard to imagine. Debris are usually displaced by solid tiles, or entombed when solid natural tiles are created. It's a hell of side effect to have the mass be added to the tile, expecially when there's no other mechanism in the game that does that, but still on that I agree it's not documented behaviour.

Abyssalite melting is totally documented, tho, and it's no accident.

1 hour ago, Mastermindx said:

Seems you don't understand the vocabulary... So here for you :

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

 

41 minutes ago, Mastermindx said:

So?  I didn't use "Exploit" in that sense so...  what's your point? 

My point is that you tried to force your definition to Zarquan?

17 minutes ago, Steve8 said:

And it has unintended consequences. Other stuff has unintended consequences too

It has consequences you think are unintended. Other stuff has what you think are unintended consequences.

Nobody is forcing you to use infinite storage, or flaking, or bead/bypass pumps, or waterfalls.

But by calling those exploits you're forcing your way of playing to me, based on your opinion.
This thread started with @Crimsontideclaiming that everything is broken in this game, as if it was a fact.

They only bugs and uninteded behaviours are those confirmed by the devs. On everything else you have the right to have an opinion and to express it, as long as it's expressed as such, and not as a fact.

[Gurgel]

2 hours ago, Mastermindx said:

You know what also satisfy this definition?  Exploits.

Nope. ONI is a single-player simulation. Single-player simulations cannot have exploits. And then the developers know about this. Please stop claiming this nonsense, it just makes you seem dishonest and moralistic with some really screwed up morals that you try to push on others.

But I think I will now just set anybody that exhibits this mind-set to ignore. These people seem to be incapable of learning.

[Mastermindx]

26 minutes ago, TheMule said:

1 hour ago, Mastermindx said:

Seems you don't understand the vocabulary... So here for you :

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

 

1 hour ago, Mastermindx said:

So?  I didn't use "Exploit" in that sense so...  what's your point? 

My point is that you tried to force your definition to Zarquan?

Actually, Zarquan tried to discredit my argument by forcing his definition on me, not the other way around. I just noted he totally missed the point I was making.

9 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

Single-player simulations cannot have exploits.

And why would single-player game be immune to exploits? Granted, in a single player game, abusing exploits doesn't really have any moral/fair play implications as its your own sandbox and it doesn't impact others. It's like cheating playing solitaire, who cares. That doesn't mean it's any less of an exploit.

11 minutes ago, Gurgel said:

Please stop claiming this nonsense, it just makes you seem dishonest and moralistic with some really screwed up morals that you try to push on others.

Personal attacks? Really?

[Zarquan]

50 minutes ago, Mastermindx said:

Actually, Zarquan tried to discredit my argument by forcing his definition on me, not the other way around. I just noted he totally missed the point I was making.

Quote

(from the Wikipedia article) exploit is the use...game system...by a player to their advantage in a manner not intended by the game's designers.

I have a problem with this definition. 

Since the devs are not one person, the idea that mechanics are not intended by the devs only applies if there is agreement.  We can't say what was intended or not unless they say whether it is intended.  Since most of the things that have been complained about have been around for a long time and the devs haven't "fixed" them, I would take that as not unintended.

Since the intent of the game designers has not been determined in ANY of these cases, the only part that remains is that an exploit is the use of the game system.  Note there are other things ORed on to this definition, including bugs and glitches, but they aren't required by the definition.

Therefore, it is either unknown whether these aspects of the gameplay are exploits, or everything is an exploit because everything is within the game system.

As a simulation game with physics, there are interactions the devs may not have intended to happen.  That does not mean they are bad interactions or that the devs aren't happy they are in the game.  If they didn't want us to explore the nature of the world, they wouldn't have made a physics simulation. 

If the devs wanted us to ONLY use what they intended, then the only mechanism to create things should have been recipes in buildings without a fundamentally alterable environment. 

But they made a full fledged physics system for their game with physical interactions.

I would remind you that the fact that the ships in Space Invaders got faster as you killed them was not an intended feature.

[Mastermindx]

7 minutes ago, Zarquan said:

Since the intent of the game designers has not been determined

But we can make educated guess...  If I play a first person shooter and I find a trick to clip through a wall, unless there is an actually in-game justification, (phasing, teleportation, etc), I won't really need confirmation from the designer to call it an exploit.

But yeah, since the designers seldom make definitive statement about every single interaction in a game, like the wiki says : 

Quote

the precise determination of what is or is not considered an exploit can be controversial

Also, we need to consider the difference between what devs intended and what they expected/planned for.  For some reason, I doubt they expected we'd melt insulation to tungsten by using the refinery. But did it break any "game rules"?  I'm not sure the refinery was meant to work like a reverse aquatuner, but other than that, it don't believe it did. 

[Artorias36]

Saying that the base game is a mess is quite unfair imho. I almost spent 800 hours in the game and never found a game breaking bug that made me say "ok this is unplayable". Yes there are some bugs and yes I am not into complex builds so i encounter less bugs compared to those who push the game at its limits and are way more skilled but I still enjoyed and achieved every content the game offered me, so I wouldn't consider the game broken at all and the DLC is more than welcome.

As for the DLC, the sole fact that it revamp the space rocket is a good addition to the end game content, hopefully it will make more sense than the current system. Another good thing is to be able to colonize more planets in 1 playtrough, something i even posted on a wish list thread some weeks ago.

 

I agree that some ingame mechanics are controversial and is hard to call them legit or exploits, but some others aren't and they are easy to detect.

Melting abyssalite with the refinery is not an exploit. It was probably unexpected from the DEVs but certnaly is not an exploit. Maybe with nuclear power we would reach those high temperature and melting abyssalite would be easier and less sofisticated.

Using a timer on a liquid tepidizer to heat the liquids above 80 degrees, is an exploit.

[mathmanican]

3 hours ago, Mastermindx said:

authoritatively documented feature

I miss the days of large manuals that shipped with games, where all the mechanics that were designed were explained. It was easy to classify exploits. And yet, I love the discovery process that comes from a game with no manual. We get to write the manual. The devs get to alter the game if the manual we write is not what they want (I believe this is Klei's model).

As for abysallite flaking, it would not surprise me if the original discovery was no where near expected. As for melting the stuff with a refinery, the devs clearly saw what people did with the liquid tepidizer and refinery shortly after the release. They knew we would melt the stuff to get tungsten.  They nerfed the tepidizer completely (though as long as you don't save/load, it's still a beast). The metal refinery has been modified and left intact to melt all kinds of things.  They know we use it for that, and have not made changes. They decided @Zarquan's ice maker shenanigans were too much, so bye-bye to that mechanic, but melting aquatuners is pretty simple (maybe this too will pass). 

As for flaking, they recently did a complete revisit of the mechanic. They specifically chose to use the SHC of the child for solid flaking (making abysallite flaking work at 3.4% of the required heat). They new this, and it was one of the first posted replies to the change. This was very intentional, as the first fix was to update liquid flaking to use the SHC of the parent liquid. Everything involved in flaking has very recently been completely rehashed, with input from the community, and comments back from the devs.

If Klei doesn't like the manual we are writing at this time, they'll change the game soon and let us write a new manual.  

I prefer to look for information on the forums, rather than the wiki, because the forums allow for all opinions to persist and remain intact.  I love the fact that some people are advocating for a removal of bead pumps, bypass pumps, waterfalls, infinite storage, etc.  It think it's perfectly reasonable to express that opinion, and be respected. Doing so would remove many other things that are maybe wanted, but that's another discussion.  If we want to get rid of infinite storage, let's start a thread on that, collect all related posts, and debate it. I think it's great to have a disagreement, and excellent back and forth (which I see plenty above). Personal attacks, let's avoid that.   

Time to go work on more heat doubling from phase change abuses.   Maybe we can power 15 rockets with a single flatulent dupe, converting their farts to steam, and then repeatedly doubling the water mass till we have enough to create LH and LOX with almost no power so what we can shoot off an army of rockets.  Oh wait, those mechanics have been removed from the game because Klei didn't want that to be left in the manual. 

Klei reads the forums.  They see what we make, and modify the game when they see a need for change. I think they know that the endgame with rockets has issues, and I am excited to see what the DLC brings (as well as any fixes it provides to current stuff). The current game is finished (and yes, has flaws).  The DLC adds a new game (revenue stream) that lets this entire process continue.  I love it.

Keep it coming Klei, and we'll keep on writing the manual for you.  

Spoiler

This is still one my favorite replys from the devs about communication, bugs, etc. It's from @JoeW.

Ok - so we met for about an hour and a half today. 

First I wanted to clarify some things. As some of you have pointed out, we tend to communicate by doing more than by saying. This is for multiple reasons but at the heart of it, it's a resource issue. Responding to something means a lot more than I think a lot of you may realize. When an issue is reported it takes time to read and investigate. If the issue can be reproduced it may have multiple components responsible for the issue being fixed and even then there are knock on effects of cascading issues that result from those changes. 

All these things come into play when thinking about whether a bug should be fixed or prioritized for a different time. While often times a person who reports an issue may think the bug is going to get fixed asap, we generally approach it by prioritizing bugs based on the nature of the issue, how it impacts the community and what resources we have to address it. That's all a normal part of our every day, but communicating this stuff takes a lot of extra time. We agree that we can do better, so we are going to adjust, but we have to find a good balance there. 

In addition to this as was mentioned earlier in the thread, we do not like to participate directly in conversations because it changes the direction of the conversation. We don't generally take feedback as exactly what is written, but we take the conversation and try to dissect it and figure out where it lines up with what we are trying to achieve. You may have an absolutely wonderful idea, but we disagree with it's execution. Or a horrible idea with a nugget of brilliance. We need those conversations to decipher these things, but when we're involved it very often becomes definitive and creative conversation does not take place.

I want to be clear here. And I am not mincing words because I think it's important. This has been our approach for the last 7 years and it has worked very well for us. BUT - there have certainly been times in the past where the community has needed to remind us that we need to be a bit more visible and I definitely think there is room for us to be more communicative here. 

The team is going to pop in more often and let you know more that we're around. They read these forums every single day and I can tell you personally that we very much care and appreciate your feedback. We do not have the resources to respond to everything, or even a lot of posts, but the ONI team is going to be working toward making sure you all know that we're here and we are taking all your suggestion, feedback and bug reports into consideration. 

Thanks everybody. 

 

[KittenIsAGeek]

1 hour ago, mathmanican said:

They knew we would melt the stuff to get tungsten.  They nerfed the tepidizer completely (though as long as you don't save/load, it's still a beast). The metal refinery has been modified and left intact to melt all kinds of things.

In my opinion, the difference between the two is energy conservation.  With the tepedizer, you can create huge amounts of energy very very easily.  It is THE most efficient machine in the game, creating far more energy than you put into it.

On the other hand, the refinery takes a lot more power to operate, requires a dupe to operate, and requires material to smelt.  In my opinion the only "problem" with the smelter is that the heat is applied directly to the coolant, meaning you can end up with coolant hotter than your smelted materials.  If a "fix" is ever implemented for the smelter, I would imagine it would be making the smelted material come out at the same temperature as the coolant.  It would change things completely if your steel came out in liquid form and promptly melted your smelter.

 

[mathmanican]

2 minutes ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

It would change things completely if your steel came out in liquid form and promptly melted your smelter.

This would be fun.    I'd take it.  Though with the smelter made out of ceramic, I'm sure I could keep it from melting. First thing I would do is build mesh tiles under the refinery to collect liquid steel for abysalite flaking. The process would be much simpler if I didn't have to dump liquid steel onto a tile to get the process started. I'm guessing we would start treating the refinery as a volcano at your preferred temperature, and have "Metal Refinery Tamer" threads pop up. It would bring a whole new slew of "cheater/exploiter/bug abuser" comments.  I would embrace the new mechanic, and have fun with it.