Would like so see it play as a more closed system.

[MarkusReese]

Okay, so play as a more closed system.  I should clarify what I mean.  A closed system means nothing is added or taken away.  Many games we call open are in fact closed.  Similar games, thing that spontaneously generate to replace loss feel removed leaving materials which is what makes the closed system play.  Nothing created or destroyed.

One of the most interesting parts for me in this alpha play is the atmosphere of being in a closed system.  All resources and management are vital.  But when you look at the critical drivers of the game experience, it is very open.  Stuff just leaks out on mass with no way to replace, and some stuff magically generates.

I think there would be a more enjoyable challenge to the play if they could plug the leaks to speak.  Most critical one that bothers me is water.  Dupes should ave hydration so they take in water and ditto for plants.  It is never removed from the system and just gets tied up in plants, dupes and air.  The air I would run as a third layer like oxygen and heat.  Humidity so to speak.  Low air pressure and higher temps result in greater evaporaton.

Carbon dioxide similar.  This and relative oxygen are tracked by stored calories.  Per unit of calorie requiring X CO2 to produce plus water.  That returns to the system via calorie used.

Hydrogen:  this is the tough one.  Break water cause need oxygen?  Well that by laws of thermodynamics should take more energy to break than the generator processing.  It makes it not a happy power.  If you have plentiful oxygen, then can run hydrogen.  If need oxygen, then more hydrogen management and exhaust instead of just going poof in a generator. Steam exhaust manditory. Ditto for combustion.  CO2 and water.

Filtration medium, treatable as well.  Get contaminated dirt or something.  Use crucible to treat.  CO2 waste.

So this means from start things are balanced.  Where is the challenge?  More finite materials for starts.  Makes accidental losses and venting more risky.  Contamination more intensive to treat.  Expansion take more planning.  Characters more fragile.  So instead of just brute force maintenance which I feel the play is, it becomes much more proactive and attentive.  Prevention of loss the key over just spamming the gain.

The other critical new resource?

Well that is energy.  Thermodynamics takes hold.  Generating energy burns calories and creates heat.  Pressurizing gas as well.  This heats the system.  In the "world" are natural sources of generation and losses.  Hit a vacuum, you lose energy just in the loss of pressure.  The manual energy to generate gas and get back to pressure still takes energy, and entropy means it will cause an effective loss.

The offset is the reason for expansion.  Finding stored energy such as coal or pockets of heat.  To complete the cycle, we are in an asteroid.  The one source of both add and loss from outside the cycle is light hitting the surface and radiance into space.  This heat management also means insulation becomes more relevant for both heat and cold control.

What do you guys think?  For a base builder I think will add tension reminicent of Dont Starve and a base survival without it just being how fast a person can tedious grind.  More player paced base build, but a very unique way of creating the difficulty curve.

[Vincie]

Well, this is all nice. And we all should remember about the second law of thermodynamics - so, if the place is finite (is it?), it would all eventually end up pretty isotropic.

Another thing is the outer space. Would not solar power collection and radiating surplus thermal energy be lovely? But well, it would be closed no more.

Nuclear energy would be a good thing - and storage/processing of nuclear vaste too!

And how should the thermal transport work? Lets think of the asteroid as a perfectly black thing, so it could loose energy via it's surface in quantities like sigma*T^4/tile edge facing space. And how the heck it would have any gravity? Is that accelerating? And it should absorb solar heat too - or is it just lost in space? Or, maybe, lost round some cold sun...

[MarkusReese]

The loss of energy was one part I mentioned as being finite with both stored reserves and energy being received from celestial bodies.  Example is like you said, a star.  So matching the solar cycle, asteroid would heat and cool.  So that prevents full turtle as your surrounding rocks would heat up meaning needing clever geothermal heat and cool perhaps plus advanced power gen.

As for gravity, perhaps is something hiding somewhere that explains that >.>

[Vincie]

Well, let's say, that the asteroid is a perfectly black sphere. It would mean, that it's surface temperatue should be equal to [(pi r^2)/(sigma)]^(1/4), if we do'n look at the thermal diffusion equation. If we think of it, as a izothropic thermally thing, facing the star one side all the time. The asteroid may rotate and the temperature of the star facing side would be higher. It may be also a lost in interstellar space piece of rock with geothermal heating, like a nuclear core or some alien's reactor, whatever. Than, if at the range of starting area the temperature would have to be relatively constant, either the whole thing would have to be freakin' big or it should be a bad thermal conductor and the core could not be too big. If I was told, how big exactly would it have to be, I could thing of some anisothermic qeation to describe it completly. Coud some dev tell me, how big has the whole thing to be, please?

We can also say, thet there it is a universe with no thermal radiation, all lighting is just atomic, electron-energy processes, they also are electrically neutral and electricity is an acoustic phenomena, also metals are superconductive for some vawes and that's how electrical power generation works here. Realism is a spook.