Thoughts on the Radiation Simulation?

[ZombieDupe]

What are your thoughts on the current simulation of the radiation? To me it's nice, but a bit lackluster. Not expecting different wavelengths of radiation in the simulation or anything like that (though that would be cool) but right now radiation can just appear and disappear if its source is there or not. Radiation contamination would be much more interesting to work with and experience, so instead of tiles being set to specific radbolts and disappear instantly the moment the source is removed, it could dissepate/delete over time inside materials, liquids and gas, increasing over time to a certain point depending on the source of radiation, a bit more like heat is something that lingers around and spreads. This could make dealing with radiation more of a challenge. I guess that is sort of the case with the radioactive contaminant germs, but that's more of a germ system problem than actual radiation.

P.S. I find it strange that shine bugs still emit radiation even when not emitting light, that might be an overlook and potentially an exploit for some builds.

[Meltdown]

12 minutes ago, ZombieDupe said:

I guess that is sort of the case with the radioactive contaminant germs, but that's more of a germ system problem than actual radiation.

Radioactive contaminant germs are too weak. It would be nice if they could persist for longer and spread more agressively, so contamination sources could cause radiation buildup in large areas.

Personally, I would love to see more different radioactive materials and radiation-emitting machinery. This could compensate for lack of proper radiation persistence mechanics.

[NeoDeusMachina]

24 minutes ago, Meltdown said:

Radioactive contaminant germs are too weak. It would be nice if they could persist for longer and spread more agressively, so contamination sources could cause radiation buildup in large areas.

This. Radioactive contaminants need to last a LOT longer, to a point where you cant just wait it out. Right now, you can use the radbolt engine to create large amount of contaminants on take off and landing, but they die off so quickly its not even an issue. When I first saw the decontamination showers, I thought how nice, we will finally have to be careful with one of the germs, fear them even maybe, but I never needed to even think about using them, which is a bit of a disappointment tbh. Radiation should be dangerous, perhaps the most dangerous of all germs, quickly leading to death if not handled properly.

[Coolthulhu]

I wish it was present in more places and harder to isolate. Radon gas spreading contamination like polluted oxygen spreads slimelung or something like that, granite tiles bumping it a bit, plants that you want to handle in lead suits.

Klei is very "stingy" with radiation. Maybe they don't want another germ update situation, maybe they want to keep it low to boost the "value" of reactor/beetas/worts. Whatever the reason, the end result is that the biggest danger of the radiation itself is dupes wasting time on the "oh no it glows!" animation.

[Sasza22]

Dupes should remove less radaition passively. A dupe needs to spend an entire cycle in over 100rad/cycle areas to get sick. Stuff like uranium ore should have a larger range of radiation so it causes problems. Nuclear waste should "offgas" into nuclear contaminants that an spread through gas. Inhaling/eating nuclear contaminants should add way more rads to dupes than they passively produce.

Radbolts should act differently in different media. They could lose more radbolts (and cause more contaminants) in liquids and heat them in the process and less in vacuum.

[lunazone]

I think my main three issues with the radiation system right now are:

At the moment lead suits only really matter if you're constructing near an active reactor or using beetas, I understand the germ nerf that's happened over time due to the review bombing that happened in the outbreak update; but since you have to fly over to start doing radiation stuff it should be a super big threat but also a super valuable resource. I agree that radioactive fallout germs should be more potent.

I think radiation should maybe only be gently mitigated by toilets (to counteract shinebugs and light wheezewort exposure), but not be enough to handle surface radiation.

Since the surface is only 25 rads a cycle it really doesn't matter if it's radioactive or not, since dupes can never ever develop a sickness from the surface alone.

[QuantumPion]

20 hours ago, ZombieDupe said:

What are your thoughts on the current simulation of the radiation? To me it's nice, but a bit lackluster. Not expecting different wavelengths of radiation in the simulation or anything like that (though that would be cool) but right now radiation can just appear and disappear if its source is there or not. Radiation contamination would be much more interesting to work with and experience, so instead of tiles being set to specific radbolts and disappear instantly the moment the source is removed, it could dissepate/delete over time inside materials, liquids and gas, increasing over time to a certain point depending on the source of radiation, a bit more like heat is something that lingers around and spreads. This could make dealing with radiation more of a challenge. I guess that is sort of the case with the radioactive contaminant germs, but that's more of a germ system problem than actual radiation.

P.S. I find it strange that shine bugs still emit radiation even when not emitting light, that might be an overlook and potentially an exploit for some builds.

This is realistic, think about how x-ray machines work.

I agree radioactive contamination should be more hazardous. I think it should not disappear over time and spread by anything that touches it or carries it.

Also I think it would add to challenge and realism if radiation dose did not just disappear over time. Radiation dose should gradually build up, causing stat losses, sickness, and eventually a health damage over time that leads to death. The only cure for radiation sickness would be stem cell therapy in the rejuvenation pod, requiring a max skill doctor and a significant time and power input. This would give incentive to shield dupes from radiation sources. And lead suit should not make you immune to radiation, just reduce it enough to protect against common levels but not extreme amounts like from a running reactor or rad rocket debris.

[blakemw]

I think there's a real conflict between realistic radiation and people's expectations of how deadly radiation should be.

At the moment the devs seem to be making it surprisingly realistic in that most sources of above background radiation just are not that dangerous. Except perhaps for the Nuclear Reactor which probably doesn't put out as much radiation as it should, especially when melted down. Realistically being next to a melted down nuclear reactor can cause terminal radiation sickness to a person in minutes.

Then there's also the factor that Duplicants are clearly not human, but are genetically or biotechnically modified to be much more durable than humans (for example they can endure exposure to hard vacuum and exposure to high and low temperatures), which might be why they can survive being near a melted down nuclear reactor: a high degree of radiation tolerance would be a natural thing to engineer duplicants with and to a large extent goes along with natural regeneration.

So from what I can tell the current radiation model is pretty realistic, especially considering the ridiculous durability and regeneration of duplicants.

[Gurgel]

At the moment the whole thing is maybe a bit too easy to handle. There is barely a point to radiation suits. Which is a bit of a pity, as Klei put quite a bit of effort into them. On the other hand, this could very well be addressed by a future update in the spirit to make sure things work first and only then making it a challenge to handle things.

[NeoDeusMachina]

3 hours ago, blakemw said:

I think there's a real conflict between realistic radiation and people's expectations of how deadly radiation should be.

At the moment the devs seem to be making it surprisingly realistic in that most sources of above background radiation just are not that dangerous. Except perhaps for the Nuclear Reactor which probably doesn't put out as much radiation as it should, especially when melted down. Realistically being next to a melted down nuclear reactor can cause terminal radiation sickness to a person in minutes.

I agree that it is realistic that not every source of radiation is deadly. There are so many sources of radiation around us, hell those of us who like bananas may ingest radioactive elements daily.

Currently, there is only 1 type of radiation contaminant (germ) for all sources, so anything producing contaminant has the same decay rate.

I think there are two things to differentiate here: 

1) the radiation itself (rads/cycle), and I think it is fine that most sources only emit minor amounts of radiation like asteroid surface, shine bugs, etc.

2) the radioactive germs, which from my understanding are produced from things like radbolt engines, nuclear  meltdown, perhaps radbolts themselves when they collide (unsure about that one).

The latter is what I think should decay slower, like a LOT slower. What is the half life of Uranium? Billions of years? Guess it depends on which isotope we are talking about. Right now, we can create a highly radioactive contaminated area from radbolt engines (thousands of rads/cycle) and that decays so quickly that it becomes harmless in a few cycles. So if we wait a few cycles, we can just walk IN it without any protection and that, I think, is wrong to me. The decay rate should be so slow that we have to deal with the radioactive germs somehow. Right now we can just ignore it completely. It would also make it more likely that our duplicants walk in highly contaminated areas, and if they do so unprotected, then they should be victim of radiation sickness, which could potentially be deadly.

edit: a few typos.

[Meltdown]

After thinking for a while, I can sum up my ideas about improving current radiation as a hazard in multiple steps:

1. Radioactive Contaminants shouldn't directly add their radiation to cells they are in

Currently, Radioactive Contaminants act as radiation booster, plainly adding the value calculated from their count in the tile to tile's radiation. First step is to change tile rads/second calculation to maximum of radiation aura and radiation produced by germs.
If Radioactive Contaminants generate more radiation than radiation aura, they take over. If plain radiation aura is stronger, it takes over.
This would make sense with the next step

2. Radiation should automatically generate radioactive contaminants

Instead of exclusively being product of radbolts, Radioactive Contaminants should passively accumulate in tiles inside radiation auras. While tile is in aura, it accumulates germs until germs would have an estimated radiation production equal to certain percentage of aura's radiation.
For example, if tile is located in 25 rads/second radiation aura, and percentage is, for example, 80%, than tile would accumulate Radioactive Contaminants until they would generate 25 rads/second * 80% = 20 rads/second on their own.
If germs on that tile exceed that value, they would slowly die off until they reach that value.

If tile already has germs of other type, those germs should probably be killed by radiation. That would ensure that radiation contamination takes over, as well as open way for interesting (but risky) strategies for disinfection.

3. Breathing oxygen with radioactive contaminants should rapidly increase accumulated rads in dupes bodies

The third step is to amplify the danger of contamination by making radiation sickness far more likely if oxidized space is contaminated. Dupes should get multiple cycle doses by just spending one cycle breathing contaminated oxygen.

Those three steps ensure that:

• Radiation sources spread radiation beyond their auras. Gas transfer in radiation zones would cause Radioactive Contaminants to spread to connected areas.
• Disabling radiation source does not allow getting rid of radiation. A closed chamber with radiation source would retain a % of its radiation level for some time.
• Even small radiation requires some protective gear, since it's either brings risks of getting radiation sickness from breathing or reduces dupe efficiency through requiring them to hold their breath.

As an additional step, I think that threat from contaminated oxygen could be amplified by

4. Oxygen in protective gear should apply germ exposure/breathing effects to dupes

This change would additionally require players to keep their oxygen sources clean from Radioactive Contaminants (and maybe Slimelung) since protective gear is only protective if it is fueled with clean oxygen, while contaminated oxygen tanks easily become death traps.
But this is more optional than previous steps.

I probably should cross-post this in suggestions subforum...

[Hokaeru]

Great ideas in this topic ! 
I don't know if this is exactly on topic, but to me the problem is the difficulty to find a "legitimate" source of radiation : 
- The reactor room is full of steam, so you have to isolate it, which diminishes the amount of rads. (you can build an industrial room OK, but not for plants for instance).
- Nuclear waste you can compress to get infinite-time high number rads, but it feels somewhat abusive. Same goes for rocket exhaust in round-trip to orbit. 
- Wheezeworts, shine bugs and sun are kind of weak. 

I would love to be able to get more control over what is radiated and what is not, for instance with one new tile options to let radiation pass through, or maybe a way to stock or generate rad. Same goes with radbolts, I would love to mass create them in the room with the reactor and then make them travel to all of my buildings, but instead I have several "radbolts makers" with a few wheezeworts.

Spoiler

Probably coming with the nuclear lamp or something though.

 

[Gurgel]

I did some experiments with Uranium doors. I got up to 18 rads/sec with that, I think. (Experiments not complete.) Not a lot, but should be comfortable for research. 

[ZombieDupe]

On 6/21/2021 at 3:08 PM, Meltdown said:

As an additional step, I think that threat from contaminated oxygen could be amplified by

4. Oxygen in protective gear should apply germ exposure/breathing effects to dupes

This change would additionally require players to keep their oxygen sources clean from Radioactive Contaminants (and maybe Slimelung) since protective gear is only protective if it is fueled with clean oxygen, while contaminated oxygen tanks easily become death traps.
But this is more optional than previous steps.

I probably should cross-post this in suggestions subforum...

So the floral scented oxygen I was pumping into duplicant's suits has done nothing and they only got the "smelled flowers" morale boost from exterior oxygen? A little disappointed the germs in suit oxygen mechanic is not not in the game already, but it absolutely should be.