The liquid scrubber

[Fradow]

While exploring another germ-based design (coming soon, it will be an actually useful one), Hotep found out by chance a germ deletion bug. See here for more informations and numbers.

In a nutshell, passing germy liquid through vents that are just above a mesh tile, to create beads, leads to a massive germ deletion. I consider that a bug, and thus this design as an exploit.

The more vents there are (using valves to split the flow equally), the more germs are deleted. As an example, a 16 vents Liquid Scrubber:

 

That's it! Just loop the germy water through the vents and germs are deleted way faster than they can reproduce even in polluted water. This also works, albeit at a slower rate, with just one vent.

With enough vents, this can be faster than storing germy water in a reservoir in a Chlorine atmosphere. Obviously, that's at the cost of space and the power for the pump.

 

Overall, not a terribly useful design since germs aren't very harmful in the first place.

 

[cokess]

I disagree that this is a bug or even an exploit. This is how our world works too. Germs generally die when in contact with metal, especially copper, which vents and mesh tiles can be made out of. It makes sense that water beads can result in more suppression of bacteria growth because of the larger surface area that will come in contact with metallic surface of mesh tiles. 

Game ethicists out there who want to feel better playing single-player video games ethically can opt for copper or iron. But please don't treat this absolutely brilliant discovery and obviously intended consequence as a bug. I'm tired of getting updates that destroy fun for everybody else.

[Fradow]

The game works by transferring parts of the germs to things they are in contact with.

In practice, germs from liquids are transferred to Vents when passing through them (also works with Auto-Sweeper, Conveyor Loader and Chute), where the transferred part will die quickly on Vents because it's a solid. That's what you describe, and not a bug indeed.

On the other hand, when forming a Bead, germs are not transferred anywhere (not on the Mesh tile, not in the environment) and straight up deleted.

I'd be happy if the germs where transferred to the Mesh tile, which would mimic the real-world behavior you explain. That's just not what happens.

In the end, it's up to Klei to determine if it's really a bug or not, and if they want to correct that behavior. I'm not holding my breath since exploits potential is really low.

[sakura_sk]

I'm just wondering... Could this fix "Don't spawn more germs than are present for falling water, fixes germ duplication (detail)" of update 460672 be responsible for killing more germs than needed in certain occasions? (I think the "duplication" was referring to this build that probably could work for any germ before the fix)

[Fradow]

1 hour ago, sakura_sk said:

I'm just wondering... Could this fix "Don't spawn more germs than are present for falling water, fixes germ duplication (detail)" of update 460672 be responsible for killing more germs than needed in certain occasions? (I think the "duplication" was referring to this build that probably could work for any germ before the fix)

Very probably. Someone mentioned that fix when we were investigating the current bug as a likely source.

Thanks for finding a link to the update.