Why nerf pipes and thermo-regulators!?

[firelight]

Converting gases to liquid and such was the most awesome thing in the game. Actually got a friend to buy ONI for that feature alone. I always though it was intended and would be expanded in late game. Now you remove it? That is sad.

[Duvinn]

Don't forget that it's still Pre-Alpha and a Preview Patch so there's still a lot of stuff they haven't added in. It probably wasn't intended for anyone to be able to do the steam trick anyway. They added in Geysers that spew out unlimited steam and some water so you can utilize that. Just be careful you don't let the steam get in the base or melt an ice biome that can flood your base.

[Saturnus]

It's still possible to do. Just not in pipes. Search for "hydrogen bubbler".

[Kasuha]

I think the game could pretend the matter in pipes is at increased pressure and its state change happens at ~15 degrees lower temperatures. That way the pipes could still break when the change inside the pipe occurs, but we could keep our simple distilleries without pipes breaking.

[Ecu]

Honestly, I feel like many of the decision Klei makes like this (or the wires changes), actually serves to drive the puzzle solving aspects of the game.  It isn't like we don't still have the tools to turn water to steam, or liquefy oxygen, it is just reasonably more challenging to do so.  Given that the physics system in the game is one of the major features they continually discuss, I feel like we'll only get more tools to manipulate it as time goes on.

[firelight]

I guess. I just thought it was the best thing ever. You know that "aha" moment playing a game and you finally get it. Maybe we'll get more expensive pipes that can handle it?

I imagined a late game where you can spawn small colonies far off, send them frozen oxygen through some cool transporting mean. Maybe build some special refrigerated containers to store oxygen in iced form. Use liquid chlorine to clean water. Mix liquid gases to create fuel or what-not. Anyways, I imaged an awesome late game using gas state transformation.

I also agree on the electrical wires :/

[Ecu]

4 minutes ago, firelight said:

I guess. I just thought it was the best thing ever. You know that "aha" moment playing a game and you finally get it. Maybe we'll get more expensive pipes that can handle it?

I imagined a late game where you can spawn small colonies far off, send them frozen oxygen through some cool transporting mean. Maybe build some special refrigerated containers to store oxygen in iced form. Use liquid chlorine to clean water. Mix liquid gases to create fuel or what-not. Anyways, I imaged an awesome late game using gas state transformation.

I also agree on the electrical wires :/

The thing is liquefying gases was not removed from the game.  It is just a big more challenging to accomplish and maintain.  There are insulated pipes already to preserve the heat in the pipe.  As such, you could say super cool hydrogen (since it has a very low liquefying point), then pump that into a contaminated oxygen room, which can then liquify the contaminated oxygen giving clean liquid oxygen.  Said clean liquid oxygen could be piped through insulated pipes to another area to evaporate back into oxygen.

The only real difference from before the thermal update and after is that you have to think a bit more creatively to achieve your goals.

[Kasuha]

2 hours ago, Ecu said:

The thing is liquefying gases was not removed from the game.

It was made significantly harder for no apparent reason. I don't think it was hurting the game, it was fun while it was already almost prohibitely expensive. Boilers, coolers, furnaces and condensers are common industrial devices so if devs didn't want us to do that using pipes (which is actually exactly where it is happening in these machines) they could have given us appropriate tools instead of leaving us up to building rooms to supply a relatively simple machine.

If something freezes in a pipe, yes, it should clog and eventually break (if it is water - most other substances don't actually gain volume when solidifying). But if contents of a pipe changes from liquid to vapor or vice versa, I don't really see the reason why the pipe should break. 

[Ecu]

Just now, Kasuha said:

It was made significantly harder for no apparent reason.

Perhaps you feel like there was no reason to this change, however, Klei likely has reasons for doing so.  After all, there were many things changed that inhibit the boiling of contaminated water or cooling of contaminated oxygen.  Perhaps they feld that the existing systems were too easy to achieve before and wanted them to be a greater puzzle.

4 minutes ago, Kasuha said:

Boilers, coolers, furnaces and condensers are common industrial devices so if devs didn't want us to do that using pipes (which is actually exactly where it is happening in these machines) they could have given us appropriate tools instead of leaving us up to building rooms to supply a relatively simple machine.

I agree that boilers, coolers, furnaces, and condensers would be way more appealing than our current system.  For example, I would love to see the coal generator changed to become a boiler and a turbine instead.  These kind of systems could work well, even with the changes to the piping mechanics.

9 minutes ago, Kasuha said:

If something freezes in a pipe, yes, it should clog and eventually break (if it is water - most other substances don't actually gain volume when solidifying). But if contents of a pipe changes from liquid to vapor or vice versa, I don't really see the reason why the pipe should break. 

Because they wanted it to, to be completely honest.  It forces you to be think outside the box a bit more when designing such systems.  Additionally, given that changes of states can actually cause the spawning of different resources (such as getting dirt when boiling contaminated water) it make it easier to handle.  I do respect their decision.

---

That said, I think by making it as simple as they did, it is a bit disappointing.  It would have been neat to have leaky ducts because they cooled too much, causing the liquid to just fall out at that point, or pipes freezing over requiring a dupe to go over with a heat gun to fix them.  These would still be akin to pipes breaking, but they would feel better from an immersion standpoint.

[Kasuha]

36 minutes ago, Ecu said:

Perhaps you feel like there was no reason to this change, however, Klei likely has reasons for doing so.

Oh of course they have reasons for spending their time and money on features they add to the game. But I wrote they did it for no apparent reason.

[Ecu]

Just now, Kasuha said:

Oh of course they have reasons for spending their time and money on features they add to the game. But I wrote they did it for no apparent reason.

The apparent reason for the change is that they didn't want state changes to happen in pipes.  There doesn't seem to be able major development reason for the change, and it isn't a change that is very realistic, so that's out as well.  As such, the only real reason it could be would be gameplay.  Heck, perhaps they just wanted to have a simple reason for pipes to break, since they added breaking to basically everything during this update.  

[Kasuha]

2 hours ago, Ecu said:

The apparent reason for the change is that they didn't want state changes to happen in pipes.

The apparent reason is that they didn't care about unplanned feature that naturally emerged from previous alpha and was fun to use. Because if they did, they would support it even with adding pipe breaking on state change. Superheated or supercooled gases and liquids are perfectly valid physical phenomenons and it'd be rather easy to implement in game terms' version If they cared.

But I prefer to assume they don't have such level of negligence and did it with no apparent reason.

[Ecu]

1 hour ago, Kasuha said:

The apparent reason is that they didn't care about unplanned feature that naturally emerged from previous alpha and was fun to use. Because if they did, they would support it even with adding pipe breaking on state change. Superheated or supercooled gases and liquids are perfectly valid physical phenomenons and it'd be rather easy to implement in game terms' version If they cared.

But I prefer to assume they don't have such level of negligence and did it with no apparent reason.

They could have just as easily actually wanted people to have to work more for the benefits...which are indeed still possible.  Many things added during this update increased the challenge of the game, perhaps this is just another one.

[Yokhen]

Why don't we just come to the agreement that Klei works in mysterious ways?

[Ecu]

Just now, Yokhen said:

Why don't we just come to the agreement that Klei works in mysterious ways?

I could probably agree with that.