Gas filter description is misleading

[Tssha]

Gas filter description would lead one to think that it would siphon off the gas you've selected to filter for, so it would, say, separate off your hydrogen from your general air flow so you can pump that into a generator.

Nope. It filters off everything BUT what you've selected to filter for. Useful for sure, but that's not what the description says it does.

I strongly recommend you rewrite the gas (and liquid) filter descriptions so that it's clear that it's taking everything BUT the gas you've selected out of the pipe it's intaking from. Right now, it reads as though the opposite were true.

[Lothalin]

40 minutes ago, Tssha said:

Gas filter description would lead one to think that it would siphon off the gas you've selected to filter for, so it would, say, separate off your hydrogen from your general air flow so you can pump that into a generator.

Nope. It filters off everything BUT what you've selected to filter for. Useful for sure, but that's not what the description says it does.

I strongly recommend you rewrite the gas (and liquid) filter descriptions so that it's clear that it's taking everything BUT the gas you've selected out of the pipe it's intaking from. Right now, it reads as though the opposite were true.

I am not sure what they could change, right now the description is spot on.

That is EXACTLY what the filter does, it takes the input which could be anything, and if it is the gas you selected to have filtered it sends it down one pipe, if it is not it sends it down the other pipe.  Thus, it is working exactly as you would expect it to.  Select a gas, that gas will go to 1 pipe, all other gases will go to a different one.

Tested just to make sure it is still working post patch, screenshots below showing it working exactly as described.

I selected "contaminated oxygen" as the filtered gas.  Feed in gas from a room that had hydrogen and contaminated oxygen, and the "filtered" gas goes to one pipe, any "other" gases goes to the other pipe.

[AlexRou]

@Lothalin lol you beat me to it, was loading the main build to see if they changed anything and nope, just the filtered output color.

[Tssha]

...so it's the middle vent that it'll pass the gas out through.

...I didn't even think that was a vent.

Okay. Not sure how to fix this so people know how it ACTUALLY works. Maybe refer to a middle vent in the description. Or two exit vents. Right now it's not obvious that's how it works from the description.

[AlexRou]

2 minutes ago, Tssha said:

...so it's the middle vent that it'll pass the gas out through.

...I didn't even think that was a vent.

Okay. Not sure how to fix this so people know how it ACTUALLY works. Maybe refer to a middle vent in the description. Or two exit vents. Right now it's not obvious that's how it works from the description.

When selecting the filter, it shows you a colored output saying "Filtered Output" and the description says "into a separate pipe".

If you look at the squares with boxes and arrows, the arrow shows the direction the gas/liquid will flow in. Arrow going in means input, out means output.

[Lothalin]

I mean, all you have to do is look at it.  Like you said, I am not sure how they can make it much more apparent aside from maybe making a video for you to watch that explains how to use it.

It shows at the top, a white box with an arrow going out of it "Gas Output: All." And then where you actually pick what you want to filter, a yellow box with an arrow coming out of it (this is the symbol for an output) "Filtered Gas Output: <selected element>."  Look at the actual filter, green box with an arrow going in (this is the symbol for an input), yellow box with an arrow going out, white box with an arrow going out.  They clearly label all the inputs and outputs, and then even tell you when you are selecting where each thing will go.  They literally cannot make it any more clear what is going on.

I mean, there are plenty of actual issues with the game that need fixed, it is an alpha.  We don't really need to muddy the waters with issues that are not even issues.  Learning how these things work is part of the fun right now, it is possible they will have tutorials or something to teach you how to use each machine when the game is in a more polished state.  If playing around with things and trying out new stuff is not really what you find fun, you may benefit from coming back and checking this out once it is more refined.

[AlexRou]

I guess maybe it would help if instead of "All" it says "All but filtered"?? Like the only more obvious thing to do is change the description to literally say "Sieves the selected Gas out of gaseous mixtures, sending it into a separate orange pipe while the rest of the gases goes out the white pipe"

[JoeW]

11 hours ago, Lothalin said:

I mean, there are plenty of actual issues with the game that need fixed, it is an alpha.  We don't really need to muddy the waters with issues that are not even issues.  Learning how these things work is part of the fun right now, it is possible they will have tutorials or something to teach you how to use each machine when the game is in a more polished state.  If playing around with things and trying out new stuff is not really what you find fun, you may benefit from coming back and checking this out once it is more refined.

It's important to be clear here that all feedback is important to us. Please feel free to discuss and elaborate or explore different approaches to how that feedback can be processed. But, also please don't shut down that feedback for us.

I appreciate where you are coming from, but I would prefer that people feel they are free to provide their individual feedback and not be so concerned about how others process that same information. This particular sort of feedback regarding input/output and filtering is actually quite important because we have gone through a lot of revisions and understanding how different people are processing that information is valuable to us right now. 

Thanks.