Suggestion: Drastically Increase Access to Isoresin

[leomilos]

tl;dr: I think the game would be more fun with access to much more isoresin. In Spaced Out, getting enough isoresin for any interesting insulation-using builds is extremely tedious. Isoresin production also only works correctly in radiant pipes; resin-boiling mass conversion should be fixed.

Background: I think Experiment 52B + resin boiling is a really fun mechanic. However, isoresin is much, much harder to get in the current build than fullerene and niobium, despite being the rare resource that you need in the largest quantity to do anything interesting.

For a quick example, in a recent run, I wanted to pipe steam to a sauna in my base -- a nice late-game aesthetic project for my dupes. I did this around cycle 1000 in a base with 11 duplicants. Insulated pipes made of insulation would be perfect for this, as the steam will slowly cool in other pipes and damage the pipes. Piping the steam across about 30 tiles would take 400x30 = 12,000 kg of insulation -> 12,000*.15 = 1800 kg of isoresin -> 1800*4 = 7,200kg of resin -> 7,200*200 = 1,440,000 kcal food fed to the tree. So, in order to do a single minor fun lategame project using insulation, I would need to feed the tree more calories than my entire base had used for the entire run, 1,000 cycles. This isn't impossible, but it's so tedious -- so much effort for such a comparatively tiny resource reward -- that it doesn't feel worth it to me.

As a side note, the first time I used resin, I also encountered massive isoresin deletion while trying to boil the resin in a steam room. After asking Reddit, I discovered that isoresin conversion only works right when you do it in 1kg packets of resin in pipes. Given that the whole point of resin is to be boiled, I think this is a very important bug to fix for people to not feel frustrated. See https://forums.kleientertainment.com/klei-bug-tracker/oni/resin-disappeared-for-unknown-reasons-r34785/ (It's possible it's already patched, as I didn't try to do this in my most recent run, but I wanted to flag it here.)

Suggestion: I don't think the game is broken because of lack of access to isoresin, but I do think the late game would be more fun, more interesting, and more flexible if it was easier to get enough isoresin. I think there are a few ways to do this, and I think all three together would be good.

1. Multiply experiment 52B's output per kcal by 100. Seriously, 100. Getting food to the tree, getting the resin, then boiling the resin is already a very tricky project. Isoresin already has another costly limiting input -- reed fiber. I really don't think this would make things "too easy" -- I think it would make using the tree a lot more fun and beginner-friendly. Enormous insulation projects like a biome-spanning insulated pipe network would still require very heavy investment, even at this ratio.

2. Place pre-existing resin or isoresin on the Marshy Asteroid. The Superconducting Asteroid has a good setup with diggable niobium PLUS a renewable volcano source. The Marshy asteroid could have this as well, rewarding explorers with enough resources for a few tons of visco-gel/insulation before they have to start using Experiment 52B. (This might be harder to implement.)

3. Add a starmap destination that has isoresin. The Gilded Asteroid Field provides an alternate way to get fullerene; perhaps there could be a Resinous Mass Field with 20-30% isoresin to provide an alternate route.

[meekay]

Counterpoint: Isoresin is fine, actually, because industrializing it is supposed to be hard.

You might need to try a different approach. Boiling any substance within a pipe is will result in a burst pipe, that's why my cryofuel facilities only use mini pumps. I find it easier to keep the temperature of the steam chamber regulated between 130° and 190°, only activate the pump for the resin (or a cutoff) when the chamber is between those temperatures, drop the resin on the floor to let it boil immediately, and make sure the chamber has a sweeper to yank the isoresin away to safety as soon as it drops. Even then, sometimes I end up with a little bit of naphtha slick and I've found that if I plan for that it actually provides a nice temperature buffer. The reaction creates additional steam, so you can divert the excess water and use it for your base.

[DolphinWing]

On 9/5/2023 at 1:23 AM, leomilos said:

For a quick example, in a recent run, I wanted to pipe steam to a sauna in my base -- a nice late-game aesthetic project for my dupes. I did this around cycle 1000 in a base with 11 duplicants. Insulated pipes made of insulation would be perfect for this, as the steam will slowly cool in other pipes and damage the pipes.

Just dump excess steam back the steam room and stop pumping. Or you can make a constant running loop back to heat source and re-heat the steam in the pipe. If the destination sauna is far, you may reconsider the location of heat/steam source or heat the steam to higher temperature.

[leomilos]

Sorry, I think my example was misleading. I don't need help solving my steam piping problem, I was just showing an example of something that insulation could be fun to use for, but isn't realistically a reasonable solution for because it's so tedious to get it. Part of the fun of Oxygen Not Included is that you can solve problems many different ways, so when one solution is many hours of tedium more challenging than the others, it seems like perhaps something is off. In late game, you can bypass a lot of heat problems by building with thermium, and I was imagining that something similar could be true with insulation; maybe I could bypass the need to even worry about my steam pipe if I had access to insulation.

On 9/5/2023 at 11:14 AM, meekay said:

Counterpoint: Isoresin is fine, actually, because industrializing it is supposed to be hard.

 

I totally agree it's supposed to be hard! But I think hard things are supposed to have cool payoffs. Right now in the game it's very hard to get Niobium the first time, but once you have it it's pretty straightforward to produce tons of thermium, which you can use to do fun stuff. I think it might be more fun if isoresin was a little more accessible like that.

I think industrializing isoresin would actually still be pretty difficult under my proposed changes! Anyone who wanted a huge amount of it would still have to build a big food production apparatus, plus processing the resin, and all the interplanetary shipping! However, I do think it might be nice if insulation was useable without building that huge apparatus. Even a medium size project using insulation currently requires millions of calories and an enormous time investment, far far beyond what is required for a medium size project using thermium or a medium size project using super coolant.

Balancing a self-directed game is challenging, so I might be wrong. I just notice myself having a great time building huge projects in the late game with thermium and super coolant, and I notice myself getting bored and frustrated when I try to build something using insulation, because it takes so much investment for such comparatively small resource payoffs. But maybe it's just my own personal taste!

 

[NNOUS]

I'm agree on you. Just to make the vote look less one-sided. Isoresin is so hard to get more