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[Discussion] Conservation of Mass in ONI


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ONI is currently handling conservation of mass very differently depending on where you look. Of course ONI is not a physics simulation, but i would like to have a quick look at most of the conversion buildings in ONI and what their current state in terms of mass conservation is. Maybe we can come up with neat ideas to get the best out of both worlds.

Also i am aware that in some aspects (e.g. dupes exhaling CO2), there might be a gameplay reason for why the mass is not completely conserved.That is why i only want to look at conversions that are unrelated to dupes, critters, plants and (for the moment) food/medicine. I also excluded rocketry for the moment.

Other than that i hope i didnt forget any buildings. If i did, feel free to remind me.

 

The buildings below are in some cases unique conversions that the game currently does not allow us to pull of by building contraptions like boilers or liquidifiers (e.g. Polymer Press).

Other buildings however are a mere shortcut to a process that we can also setup in a much more efficient way, once we combine some ONI mechanics (e.g. creating petroleum, refined carbon, glass). My understanding is that these player-made contraptions should always be more potent than the shortcuts.

At the moment this effect is mostly due to the physical conversion being mass-conserving, while the comparable conversion building is losing mass. Even with a fixed mass equation, the benefits of physical conversion should still be superior.

 

In the list below, i marked green where the mass conversion is either equal or good as equal (5g table salt do not ruin a 100kg equation), yellow where we are losing less than 25% of the original mass and red where we lose more than 25% of the original mass.

 

Notes:

  • The power generator section is mainly red, because the mass is converted into energy here, what are your thoughts on it?
  • Some buildings are balanced down to the milligram, while others are several kg off
  • the most complex conversions use up to 3 input elements or up to 3 output elements, while arbitrary, this seems to be a limit to the complexity

Let's hear if we have some good ideas on how to fix some of these equations.

 

Oxygen

  • Algae Terrarium: 30g algae, 300g h2o, 0,33g/s co2 -> 40g o2, 290,33g ph2o
  • Carbon Skimmer: 1000g h2o, 300g co2 -> 1000g ph2o
  • Deodorizer: 133,33g filter, 100g po2 -> 143,33g clay, 90g o2
  • Electrolyzer: 1000g h2o -> 888g o2, 112g h2
  • Oxygen Diffuser: 550g algae -> 500g o2
  • Rust Deoxidizer: 750g rust, 250g salt -> 570g o2, 30g chlorine, 400g iron ore
  • Sublimation Station: 1000g pDirt -> 660g pO2

 

Power

  • Coal Generator: 1000g coal -> 20g co2 + 400J
  • Hydrogen Generator: 100g h2 -> 800J
  • Natural Gas Generator: 90g NG -> 67,5g pH2O, 22,5g CO2 + 800J
  • Petroleum Generator: 2000g petr/eth -> 500g CO2, 750g  pH2O + 2000J
  • Wood Burner: 1200g Lumber -> 170g CO2 + 300J

 

Refinement

  • Algae Distiller: 600g slime -> 200g algae, 400g pH2O
  • Compost: 100g compostable -> 100g dirt
  • Desalinator: 5000g sH2O -> 4650g H2O, 350g salt
  • Desalinator: 5000g Brine -> 3500g H2O, 1500g salt
  • Ethanol Distiller: 1000g Lumber -> 500g Eth, 333,33g pDirt, 166,66g CO2
  • Fertilizer Synthesizer: 65g Dirt, 26g Phosporite, 39g pH2O -> 120g fertilizer, 10g NG
  • Glass Forge: 100kg Sand -> 25kg Glass
  • Kiln: 125kg Coal -> 100kg rCarbon
  • Kiln: 100Clay, 25kg Coal -> 100kg Ceramic
  • Metal Refinery: 100kg Metal Ore -> 100kg Refined Metal
  • Metal Refinery: 70kg Iron, 20kg rCarbon, 10kg Lime -> 100kg Steel
  • Molecular Forge:
    • 5 kg Niobium, 95 kg Tungsten -> 100 kg Thermium
    • 35 kg Isoresin, 65 kg Petroleum -> 100 kg Visco-Gel
    • 1 kg Fullerene, 49.5 kg Gold, 49.5 kg Petroleum -> 100 kg Super Coolant
    • 15 kg Isoresin, 80 kg Abyssalite, 5 Reed Fiber -> 100 kg Insulation
  • Oil Refinery: 10.000kg cOil -> 5000kg Petroleum, 90g NG
  • Oxylite Refinery: 600g O2, 3g gold -> 600g Oxylite
  • Polymer Press: 833,33g Petroleum -> 500g Plastic, 8,33g H2O, 8,33g CO2
  • Rock Crusher:
    • 100kg Raw Metal -> 50kg Refined Metal, 50kg Sand
    • 100kg Raw Mineral -> 100kg Sand
    • 100kg Salt -> 100kg Sand + 5g Table Salt
    • 100kg Fossil -> 95kg Sedimentary, 5kg Lime
  • Water Sieve: 1000g Filter, 5000g pH2O -> 5000g H2O, 200g pDirt
  • Sublimation Station:
    • 150kg Mud-> 60kg Dirt + 90kg H2O
    • 150kg pMud -> 60kg pDirt + 90kg pH2O

 

Other

  • Digging: xg Solid Tile -> x/2g Solid rubble

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Making a note that digging out natural tiles halves the mass of the drop.

This appears to be done to balance the thermal mass of the physics equations - though I don't see why considering the mass could be what it is by simply tweaking the physics of natural tiles.

( unless this phenomenon has changed ).

Also,

We should consider the other consumption that exists in agricultural. The loss of mass is quite high in this particular area. High enough that it should warrant it's own discussion about the byproduct abundance - plants are truly awful on the mass conservation.

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I do not understand why mass conservation is important in a game where you have geysers produce constantly extra mass. Pip planted trees produce extra products. At the same time dups consume more oxygen than they exhaleof CO2 - much more. Also food and energy consumption.

The table is useful in a sense to see which buildings are more efficient - example of terrarium vs oxygen diffuser. I knew that former is better but to what extend. I would assume that 1kg of pH20 converts into 1kg of p o2 off gassing. 

Another check for new buildings - sublimation is one to one conversion? What if you compare if you dig the offgassing tile and sublimate it or let it offgas undigged.

 

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8 hours ago, KonfigSys said:

let it offgas undigged

My sanity requires halving the mass and storing the offending offgassing material. Losing half the mass is a cost I'm willing to pay. :) 

I'm happy that the devs have removed most of the mass creation mechanics that previously were in the game.  The build/unbuild issue where you get free steel and diamond is currently an issue.  If mass gets destroyed, I'm with you that the geysers/pips constantly adding mass to the world should more than compensate for this. 

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8 hours ago, KonfigSys said:

I do not understand why mass conservation is important

Well, as i wrote above, ONI is not a physics simulation. So it certainly is not the core aspect of the game to fulfill that law of physics. But it would still be a nice merit to be able to add that layer of realism to the game. 

Quote

in a game where you have geysers produce constantly extra mass. Pip planted trees produce extra products. At the same time dups consume more oxygen than they exhaleof CO2 - much more. Also food and energy consumption.

The table is useful in a sense to see which buildings are more efficient - example of terrarium vs oxygen diffuser. I knew that former is better but to what extend. I would assume that 1kg of pH20 converts into 1kg of p o2 off gassing. 

Good points. But as i tried to explain in my OP, i consider dupes, critters and plants as something unique to the world of ONI, while the other interactions seem to be borrowed from our real world. Note that i also counted food (for the moment) into that category.

For me it would be fine, if these aspects are allowed to modify the mass, because it would be the sinks/sources of our resources. Same for volcanos, vents and similar things. These are sources of elements, it is ok, if they are mass positive.

The other things i listed however are not sources or sinks, they are simply conversions. And conversions should have a balanced equation (mass for now, energy maybe in a different discussion).

 

Quote

Another check for new buildings - sublimation is one to one conversion? What if you compare if you dig the offgassing tile and sublimate it or let it offgas undigged.

True, i will add that building* to the list.

 

*sublimation station, sludge press, digging

 

 

--------

 

Let me give you an example of what i had in mind:

Take

  • Oil Refinery: 10.000kg cOil -> 5000kg Petroleum, 90g NG

Here we have a very high loss of mass. It makes sense for balancing issues to keep this ratio. But losing almost 50% of mass is a bit unwarranted.

If you compare it with a petroleum boiler, you will have a 100% mass conversion, which makes the process far superior.

Another user has suggested that we could use sulfur to equate the mass of the oil refinery. That would mean that you could have 50% mass of sulfur as a side product from the refinery.

It would have several benefits:

  • mass equation fixed
  • using an existing element that makes sense (if you have NG, you should also have sulfur)
  • created a player-controlled source for sulfur in mid-game
  • easier (?) to manage the thermal energy of the elements that are converted

It would also create a few downsides or changed mechanics:

  • the oil refinery would essentially become a sulfur factory, because the petroleum boiler is still far superior to the oil refinery
  • oil refinery is superior to NG cooker for naturally creating sulfur
  • this kind of purpose-transition is not unheard of though. e.g. The electrolizer is sometimes used as a hydrogen producer in lategame with oxygen as a byproduct.

 

 

A different idea would be to create a new "waste" element like: Soot, Grime or Slag.

This waste product could be used in almost every of the uneven equations and balance them out. The waste element could then simply be crushed in the rock crusher to either sand or some mineral, providing maybe another source to "produce" certain minerals in lategame.

 

Benefits:

  • could fix virtually every negative equation
  • could later be replaced with "real" elements as they are added to the game
  • could be recycled into an existing element
  • would not change the existing balance of input-output
  • makes physical sense (if you burn something, you get soot, if you melt something, you get slag)

Downsides:

  • new element
  • lore-wise it would also need to be part of metal refinery and volcanos

 

 

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1 hour ago, blash365 said:

But it would still be a nice merit to be able to add that layer of realism to the game. 

Would it?

What engagement does it add?

What gameplay is created by it's inclusion?

 

If anything it'd add to the difficulty for no extra fun.

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you do realize that refining oil into petrol and Sulphur is far away from reality, don't you? There are some oil deposits contaminated by Sulphur components but mainly Sulphur is produced from GAS. Natural gas may be contaminated by H2S and here you get a lot of Sulphur. 

The one step to bring it closer to reality (if it is needed I am not sure players want to see reality) is to make oil wells produce oil + sour gas + natural gas.

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39 minutes ago, KonfigSys said:

you do realize that refining oil into petrol and Sulphur is far away from reality, don't you? There are some oil deposits contaminated by Sulphur components but mainly Sulphur is produced from GAS. Natural gas may be contaminated by H2S and here you get a lot of Sulphur. 

The one step to bring it closer to reality (if it is needed I am not sure players want to see reality) is to make oil wells produce oil + sour gas + natural gas.

No, i do not realize it. That is why i was asking for your perspectives and your answer is exactly what i was probing for. Excellent insight.

So sulphur is not a bypropduct of oil refinement. So what else is then?

Note that oil wells already do produce oil and natural gas (and with enough heat also sour gas).

44 minutes ago, Yunru said:

Would it?

What engagement does it add?

What gameplay is created by it's inclusion?

 

If anything it'd add to the difficulty for no extra fun.

Good points.

The engagement would be to play in a closed system, where equations actually even out. As at least somewhere close to the realm of mathematics, it seems engaging to me. But you obviously seem to differ.

Also it seems a bit odd that in some machines elements disappear into thin air. But maybe there are real-life examples where this actually makes sense.

 

The extra gameplay created would be that the game provides inherent balancing by slightly changing the ratio in which elements are split up or by changing how much thermal energy is placed into the produced output. Just take the NG cooker as an example. Before it was 100% conversion into NG, which was obviously overpowered. Now it is only 66% conversion, while 33% are dropped as sulphur (which is at least remotely in that area of chemical processes). They could have also just deleted 33% mass, but opted to use a -then unused- element instead. To me that added more immersion and i would love to see it applied whereever it makes sense.

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Products of oil refineries:

all sort of liquid petroleum products (gasoline/benzine, kerosene/jet fuel, diesel)  60-99% - refined oil in the game we use to power oil generators and fly rockets 

heavy residuals (wax, mazut, bitumen, asphalt) - a la ligroin in the game (I also saw bitumen in the game database if I am not mistaken)

hard material - Petroleum coke (coal like material) less than 5%

off gases (LPG, LNG, H2S and related) but in very small quantities for oil (but a lot in gas wells) are generally separated at the well site before the unrefined oil goes to refineries.

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8 minutes ago, KonfigSys said:

off gases (LPG, LNG, H2S and related) but in very small quantities for oil (but a lot in gas wells) are generally separated at the well site before the unrefined oil goes to refineries.

If i am not mistaken those are:

  • Propane (if i am not mistaken, also already in the game data)
  • Natural Gas (already biproduct of refinery & oil well)
  • Hydrogen + Sulfur (the sulfur i was suggesting)

So by that logic the suggestion makes a bit sense again.;)

But you also said that the off gases are only a very small fraction. So maybe not.

11 minutes ago, KonfigSys said:

heavy residuals (wax, mazut, bitumen, asphalt) - a la ligroin in the game (I also saw bitumen in the game database if I am not mistaken)

This would be the "waste" material i suggested earlier. For the lack of a better word. So Bitumen it is. :D

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11 hours ago, KonfigSys said:

I do not understand why mass conservation is important in a game where you have geysers produce constantly extra mass.

We have multiple world to contend with - it helps to have predictable results. If this weren't part of the game pardigm already, then these geysers wouldn't be the object of a job to figure out.

--- 8< ---

@blash365, I made a bug report regard the accuracy of emissions reporting from off-gasers. I think this mechanic has gone unchaged, they did fix some of the issues in reporting.

Included is some scripts debug tiles and, I think, the math of emissions as well.

I had to ilspy for the info, but no harm done, non spoilery work.

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1 minute ago, blash365 said:

If i am not mistaken those are:

  • Propane (if i am not mistaken, also already in the game data)
  • Natural Gas (already biproduct of refinery & oil well)
  • Hydrogen + Sulfur (the sulfur i was suggesting)

So by that logic the suggestion makes a bit sense again.;)

But you also said that the off gases are only a very small fraction. So maybe not.

Hydrogen and Sulphur (and Helium) traces are place dependable but in any case less than 2% (negligible for the game, why some may pay attention in real life as Sulphur damages catalysts at refineries even in tiny quantities). Traces in most cases (some fields do not have it at all). While for gas, H2S and related may go all way above 20%. H2S boiling point is -60C so it does not stay in oil in any sizable quantities.

propane + butane = LPG. LNG = methane + ethane. NG is natural gas.

LPG and LNG classes were made because of temperature it may be stored at and consequently different usage. You can store LPG at room temperature at any pressurized vessel. You need vacuum isolated vessel for LNG (-150C).

Natural gas is a mixture of all petrol related gases (ethane, methane, propane, butane). 

The game is already close to the reality apart one major mistake -

when you heat oil it does not transform into sour gas (sour gas is H2S containing)! Or to be exact you get some traces of sour gas which was dissolved in tiny quantities.

it is like heating diesel and trying to get Sulphur or Gold out of that process.

 

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9 minutes ago, The Plum Gate said:

 

@blash365, I made a bug report regard the accuracy of emissions reporting from off-gasers. I think this mechanic has gone unchaged, they did fix some of the issues in reporting.

If i read it correctly, you reported a (possibly ui-only) bug that shows that off-gasing behaves differently than the expected/displayed numbers.

Where should i put it in this discussion? Or are you simply saying that we shouldnt trust the numbers?

2 minutes ago, KonfigSys said:

LNG = methane + ethane. NG is natural gas.

I think in ONI methane and NG are the same thing.

2 minutes ago, KonfigSys said:

Natural gas is a mixture of all petrol related gases (ethane, methane, propane, butane). 

Or even this.

 

2 minutes ago, KonfigSys said:

The game is already close to the reality apart one major mistake -

when you heat oil it does not transform into sour gas (sour gas is H2S containing)! Or to be exact you get some traces of sour gas which was dissolved in tiny quantities.

 

True. I think the sour gas was added for balancing reasons as well. If i am not mistaken, before you could simply cook petroleum to NG.

It's a fair point that the process is quite artificial.

2 minutes ago, KonfigSys said:

it is like heating diesel and trying to get Sulphur or Gold out of that process.

Hm. So you are suggesting that we should cook petroleum to gold. Interesting.;P

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How to make it more realistic in the game?

Oil heating should not lead to sour gas generation but only oil vapor similar to ethanol.

Oil refining should be left as it is (refined oil plus natural gas) or add some ligroin sub product  if it is to be used in the game. May be - mix ligroin with iso-resin to get visco-gel. And here we are people start using refineries rather than boil oil in late stage game to get visco-gel or even super-coolant. Also wax/ligroin can be used in radioactive industry together with lead to provide some radiation defense. 

Wells should produce sour gas and oil. Cooling sour gas below just -60C should lead to natural gas and sulphur production (also a bit of water due to hydrogen reaction with oxygen but we can forget about it for simplicity).

Would Klei go for it? I doubt. It makes oil refining a very simple process - just heat it up above 400C and then cool down. No worries about sour gas anymore.

30 minutes ago, blash365 said:

Hm. So you are suggesting that we should cook petroleum to gold. Interesting.;P

it is a comparison that out of C and H that oil is composed of you cannot get S or Au

you can add O2 and get water and CO2  but no way you can get S 

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I'll offer a different perspective; ONI IS a physics simulation; but uses it's own wonky physics rather than our real world physics. Even the game lore hints that people have caused damage to space-time; making everything wonky like gasses not mixing etc. As long as you embrace this fact; then you can be OK with it. This game is not supposed to be realistic; it's a simulation game. You try to make it work in the simulation; you are not trying to make this realistic. We are not trying to model our world in a 2D slice.

As a part of the wonky physics; the mass and energy in our view of the game is not conserved. (There is almost nothing that is conserved in the game actually.) You can justify that by this; the way I see it is that the extra mass/energy comes/goes from/to the third dimension; to which we don't access (you can imagine volcanoes are when some molten metal veins running perpendicular to the screen actually coincides with out 2D slice, etc.) Even again you don't need that. Just take it as it is.

I don't mind that there are mass/energy deleters/multipliers; as the fun in ONI is managing these in self sustaining production loops rather than make things realistic. It used to be that the fixed output machines were so powerful that they were meta-defining so I was fine with them being rebalanced; but nothing other than arbor trees multiplying heat really comes to mind as overpowered mechanics right now. I like the things as they stand now. I don't want them to be fixed; managing them is the fun of the game.

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Fire, combustion and explosions could add so much more fun to the game.

Fire could burn cell mass away per second and explosions could delete mass. Not only would it visually look good, loosing mass would be an additional incentive to perform firefighting, to conserve mass. Imagine foam extinguishing a burning Stinky :grief: It would also feel socially good, especially in multiplayer :rolleyes: "I foam you and you foam me, together we`ll build a big burning tree !"

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59 minutes ago, blash365 said:

If i read it correctly, you reported a (possibly ui-only) bug that shows that off-gasing behaves differently than the expected/displayed numbers.

Where should i put it in this discussion? Or are you simply saying that we shouldnt trust the numbers?

I think they fixed the reporting, but I haven't revisited the math. As to where it should go in the discussion, sublimation masses did in fact equate to a 1:1 ratio at "final draw".

The problem was in the rate of emission and the frequency thereof. These things were, at one point, mass to mass evolved dependent. So there's a tapering off of emissions as the mass decreases below the ratio of max emission to weight ( a certain mass will have a continuous emission while one that would otherwise be less emissive due to its weight has a variable emission ). These values were calculated without regard for pressure limits.

The finer point here being that the mass emitted was equal to the mass emission from - there was no loss of mass in emission substances.

I minced words here a bit regarding the mechanics as they run. Each substance has a criticality regarding emissions or sublimation. Subcritical masses will sublimate less and less mass as time goes on. Supercritical or critical masses have a constant rate of emission. The mass will eventually reach it's last reasonable tick and dissolve into the byproduct.

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Silverbluep, I actually do not promote the idea to get the game close to reality. I, in fact, consider it can be far away from reality as long as it is enjoyable for players. 

However, I do understand that Klei wants to tie up all together. Their attempts are plausible and I believe they are succeeding in that. 

Now we have usage and even desperate need for Sulphur. We will have need for lead in radioactive industry. 

The only child left is ligroin. And I guess I found the way to use it - described above. Just to sum up:

Oil is to be processed in refineries into refined oil (kerosene), natural gas AND LIGROIN. Ligroin is to be used to make visco-gel and may be super coolant instead of oil. 

I also think to use Ligroin with lead for radioactive defense  suits. And now we come to the closed loop for all materials we have in the game. 

And by the way Ligroin (wax) is used in real life to protect from neutron radiation. 

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Oh, a pity i haven't seen this thread earlier. @KonfigSys you could have mentioned in my thread that there is already a somewhat lively discussion on the topic already as apparently i am not the only one annoyed by this. 

@blash365 I agree on the general issue. However i don't think it is so important to focus on the mass preservation itself but rather try to keep certain critical elements masses preserved. I also don't think that realism is the main argument here (taking into account that mass isn't even preserved it real high energy processes anyway). Instead i argue that this actually has a pretty big negative impact on gameplay simply because it renders a lot of processing chains/loops not sustainable which eliminates them as viable options. It becomes additionally irritating when ONI allows to recreate some resource cycles but makes them totally unsustainable to limit out possibilities. A consequence of that is that there is often only a very few ways left how to do things efficiently rather than a big variety of builds that are all sustainable and optimized for different aspects... and the optimal way to do things usually feel more like a stupid exploit then well engineered build which often feels just disappointing. 

Here is my take on this: 

 

 

  

On 12/23/2020 at 8:51 PM, KonfigSys said:

it is a comparison that out of C and H that oil is composed of you cannot get S or Au

Unless you go all nuclear. Then you will be able to make everything out of only hydrogen :D 

 

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8 hours ago, TheKilltech said:

Unless you go all nuclear. Then you will be able to make everything out of only hydrogen :D 

Well, you are right but it is not mass production under normal conditions (and definitely cannot be achieved in refineries). We are not talking about star reactions.

I also created a topic suggesting Klei to rebalance oil/sour gas/natural gas/ Sulphur/ligroin mechanics - all that based on the discussion we have here.

I was initially very surprised when I saw that dup's breathing "deletes" oxygen (of course, they breath oxygen but then you have 50 time reduction in the bounded oxygen). But if it is realistic the colonies will be plugged with CO2 very quickly. 

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4 hours ago, KonfigSys said:

Well, you are right but it is not mass production under normal conditions (and definitely cannot be achieved in refineries). We are not talking about star reactions.

Looking on most of ONI reactions... and its lore... it seems cold fusion must be a very common thing in this new world :D

4 hours ago, KonfigSys said:

I was initially very surprised when I saw that dup's breathing "deletes" oxygen (of course, they breath oxygen but then you have 50 time reduction in the bounded oxygen). But if it is realistic the colonies will be plugged with CO2 very quickly. 

No, not really. It doesn't happen on the Internation Space Station either. It just reprioritize oxygen production buildings more to things like the carbon skimmer - and would strongly motivate to add more carbon consuming processes to the early game to give players more options... like making plants take out the carbon out of the air, you know. The funny thing here is that while that may be realistic the gameplay reason would actually be the main motivation behind such a change. 

On the other hand one could just say that oxygen is somehow "compacted" when it is bound into carbon dioxide... like it's going on a diet (in fact even in reality oxygen mass changes ever so slightly by the different binding energy but the effect is all in all negligible as its much lower then the electron mass). That would retain the flexibility of having to handle carbon dioxide quite some time later. But it would require any recycling of oxygen from carbon dioxide to produce a lot of oxygen i.e. atomic oxygen would be preserved while its mass would not. The third option would be to tune down breathing rate of dupes to their CO2 output but that also makes oxygen production far less important. Lastly of course there is the idea to use any combination of those 3 base approaches. 

But honestly for me oxygen production and removal of CO2 is kind of very closely related (well, because that's so in reality) so i wouldn't mind if we had several alternatives which do both at the same time  just as the carbon does. electrolyzers would then become secondary oxygen production and a way to fill the newly dug out spaces with oxygen - because carbon skimmers preserve the stuff and don't make new one so they aren't the choice for expansionists. you see cycles and element conservation comes with its own set of gameplay variety.

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33 minutes ago, TheKilltech said:

like making plants take out the carbon out of the air, you know. The funny thing here is that while that may be realistic the gameplay reason would actually be the main motivation behind such a change. 

Plants convert CO2 to oxygen only if they are under light (Photosynthesis). If there is no light, plants generally generate CO2. So the only plant in ONI which requires light is blossom bristle. It is even strange to see oxyfern having this green (due to chlorophyll) nice leaf  produces oxygen without light.  Also water is being consumed in the process and not going into fruits (so it is not like you get a close loop here either).

"CO2carbon dioxide + 2H2Owater + photonslight energy  [CH2O]carbohydrate + O2oxygen + H2Owater"

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1 hour ago, KonfigSys said:

Plants convert CO2 to oxygen only if they are under light (Photosynthesis). If there is no light, plants generally generate CO2. So the only plant in ONI which requires light is blossom bristle. It is even strange to see oxyfern having this green (due to chlorophyll) nice leaf  produces oxygen without light.  Also water is being consumed in the process and not going into fruits (so it is not like you get a close loop here either).

"CO2carbon dioxide + 2H2Owater + photonslight energy  [CH2O]carbohydrate + O2oxygen + H2Owater"

Well, I remember a realization i had as a child looking at a plant that has grown to a sizable height out of a tiny pot and i remembered how small it started. Like it was so obvious it couldn't have grown by using the earth in the pot. That was when i understood that plants are almost exclusively build out of thin air aka CO2 plus of course the water they are provided with. And of course it costs energy (light) since plants are doing inverse burning (redox). 

So for plants the phrase 'From ashes to ashes, dust to dust' is actually wrong and should be 'from air to air'.

As for ONI, yeah light is a marginal mechanic. Technically we have an extra overlay for it but it's too unimportant to really bother. Giving it more prominence would probably be a bad idea because especially in the early game it would add to the long list of things that can drive a colony into ruin. Its better off as a secondary optional mechanic giving some buffs but nothing a colony cannot live with. That said, i wouldn't mind if actual plants (i.e. not mushrooms and alike) gained some buffs from light but unlike the bristle blossom didn't require it.

EDIT: As for the closed loop for water in photosynthesis, it's actually closed but requires to take into account breathing and eating. when we burn calories (carbohydrates of various form) the oxidized carbon yields CO2 while the oxidized hydrogen gives new water (oversimplifying a bit its undoing the photosynthesis). the prior is leaving while breathing while the latter goes through the bladder. not need to model that realistically in ONI though. it wouldn't add anything interesting to the gameplay but merely complicate things for balancing: It would just mean that a mouth breather dupe must also have a bottomless stomach. 

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