Natural Gas Description

[ShadowBound]

"(CH4) Natural Gas is a mixture of various alkanes in a Gaseous state." I find this confusing because CH4 is Methane, one gas and not a mixture, so is Natural Gas pure Methane or is it a mixture of different gasses and Methane is the one gas that there is the most of?

[Risu]

Methane was the original name of the element. It was changed to remove the requirement of oxygen from the generator I believe.
 

[Michi01]

22 minutes ago, Risu said:

Methane was the original name of the element. It was changed to remove the requirement of oxygen from the generator I believe.
 

I don't think that's the reason, since according to its description it still doesn't contain any oxygen and combustion in ONI generally doesn't require oxygen, so just keeping the name methane wouldn't have been illogical. I think the name was changed because natural gas is a more well known term.
I actually think that it should be renamed back to methane, because while it makes sense for it to be called natural gas when it's coming from geysers, it doesn't make sense for it to be called that when it's coming from flatulent dupes, fertilizer synthesizer or oil refinement. i was actually thinking about making a thread with a poll to see what opinion other people have on it, I might do that soon.

[Risu]

4 minutes ago, Michi01 said:

I don't think that's the reason, since according to its description it still doesn't contain any oxygen and combustion in ONI generally doesn't require oxygen, so just keeping the name methane wouldn't have been illogical. I think the name was changed because natural gas is a more well known term.
I actually think that it should be renamed back to methane, because while it makes sense for it to be called natural gas when it's coming from geysers, it doesn't make sense for it to be called that when it's coming from flatulent dupes, fertilizer synthesizer or oil refinement. i was actually thinking about making a thread with a poll to see what opinion other people have on it, I might do that soon.

From EB-215179 back in May:
 

Quote

methane generator is now called natural gas generator 
fertilizer maker now spits out natural gas 
natural gas generator no longer requires oxygen 
farts are now made of natural gas(instead of polluted oxygen)

[Kasuha]

24 minutes ago, Michi01 said:

I actually think that it should be renamed back to methane, because while it makes sense for it to be called natural gas when it's coming from geysers, it doesn't make sense for it to be called that when it's coming from flatulent dupes, fertilizer synthesizer or oil refinement.

Actually I see no reason why either of the production methods you mention should be creating pure methane. What does not make scientific sense to me is that a gas heavier that oxygen should be called methane.

Given the fact that many of the "elements" in the game are in reality rather complex compounds if they exist at all, I wouldn't mind if it was called Fart Gas but to deserve being called Methane, devs should fix element molar masses first. And perhaps give it a different color, because orange methane is just wrong, too.

[Michi01]

37 minutes ago, Risu said:

methane generator is now called natural gas generator 
fertilizer maker now spits out natural gas 
natural gas generator no longer requires oxygen 
farts are now made of natural gas(instead of polluted oxygen)

This doesn't state really state why it was renamed, though it did happen at the same time as removing the oxygen requirement. Both are possible I guess.

22 minutes ago, Kasuha said:

Actually I see no reason why either of the production methods you mention should be creating pure methane. What does not make scientific sense to me is that a gas heavier that oxygen should be called methane.

Given the fact that many of the "elements" in the game are in reality rather complex compounds if they exist at all, I wouldn't mind if it was called Fart Gas but to deserve being called Methane, devs should fix element molar masses first. And perhaps give it a different color, because orange methane is just wrong, too.

I'll admit that there must be traces of other hydrocarbons in there as well, but articles on it actually specifically refer to it as methane from manure. And while methane itself is only contained in farts in traces, the only other things that aren't contained in farts in traces are nitrogen and oxygen, and it'd be kinda weird and pointless for the farts in ONI to be producing oxygen.
We also shouldn't try to apply complete logic to the oil refinery, it doesn't produce a lot of things that it should.
Even if it's a bit illogical for those things to be producing pure methane, it makes a lot more sense than calling it natural gas.
Also, I agree that molar masses need to be fixed, but I don't think it's a valid argument for it to not be named methane. In fact it's molar mass is actually right, the ones that are wrong are that of elements that form molecules with two atoms in them.
By your logic, chlorine doesn't deserve its name in the game because it's lighter than CO2. Natural gas also wouldn't deserve it's name because it's also supposed to be lighter than oxygen, since it's mostly methane.
 

[Kasuha]

12 minutes ago, Michi01 said:

I'll admit that there must be traces of other hydrocarbons in there as well, but articles on it actually specifically refer to it as methane from manure.

You mean natural gas?

13 minutes ago, Michi01 said:

but I don't think it's a valid argument for it to not be named methane.

Maybe it should be called butane then. Unlike methane, butane is heavier than air while it is still flamable and is a product of both organic processes and crude oil refinement. 

There's plenty of real gases that fit ONI's description of natural gas better than methane. You're just so stuck to the idea that you want it called methane that you ignore them all.

I see the fact that ONI's natural gas is heavier than air alone as very valid argument to not call it methane.

 

[Sevio]

There's one rather strong argument for me which speaks in favor of renaming Natural Gas to Methane: When you liquefy it, it becomes Methane, so right now the naming is inconsistent. The naming should at least be consistent for the different phases, whether we're going to call it Methane, Natural Gas/Liquefied Natural Gas/Solidified Natural Gas, Butane or something else.

I'm very curious now if the reason for naming it Natural Gas was familiarity for more people or to position it where it could be processed/refined into its constituents like Propane (which we already have in debug mode) and a to-be-created proper Methane element.

[Michi01]

2 hours ago, Kasuha said:

Maybe it should be called butane then. Unlike methane, butane is heavier than air while it is still flamable and is a product of both organic processes and crude oil refinement. 

There's plenty of real gases that fit ONI's description of natural gas better than methane. You're just so stuck to the idea that you want it called methane that you ignore them all.

I see the fact that ONI's natural gas is heavier than air alone as very valid argument to not call it methane.

I'm not stuck to the idea. Without taking the weight argument into consideration, methane is the only one that really makes sense. Natural gas and bio gas mainly contain methane and only traces of butane and farts contain much more methane than butane, although both only in traces. I still think that it's weight is not a valid argument, if you were to look at the masses in the files you would see that it has the right weight for methane compared to everything but hydrogen, oxygen and chlorine, which as I said are the ones with the wrong mass. I'm repeating myself but chlorine should also not be called chlorine by that logic.
Also if you would've properly read the Wikipedia page you linked, you would understand why I'm arguing against it being called methane in the first place.
The term "natural gas" is used to describe a mixture of hydrocarbons that was created from dead plants and animals over millions of years because of pressure and heat. It's used for gas that was formed under those circumstances only.

[Risu]

So all in favor of reverting the name change to natural gas and readdition of oxygen requirement to the generator?
Go ahead and add the needed oxygen requirement to both the hydrogen and coal generator while we're at it. Realism is most important.
 

[trukogre]

1 hour ago, Risu said:

So all in favor of reverting the name change to natural gas and readdition of oxygen requirement to the generator?
Go ahead and add the needed oxygen requirement to both the hydrogen and coal generator while we're at it. Realism is most important.
 

As long as algae terrariums generate algae and oxygen, and all the other plants generate oxygen, to add realism to those two areas as well as preserve game balance, that could work   I'm fine with things the way they are, it's pretty fun, but if realism were a more important priority it wouldn't be hard to add it in without destroying game balance, since we know how to design a balanced ecological/environmental system in real life; you just have to add in realism in all areas.  Sounds like a lot of work to me.

[Michi01]

13 hours ago, Risu said:

So all in favor of reverting the name change to natural gas and readdition of oxygen requirement to the generator?
Go ahead and add the needed oxygen requirement to both the hydrogen and coal generator while we're at it. Realism is most important.

I don't see how asking for a gas to have a name that makes more sense has anything to do with changing the balance to be less fun in favor of realism. I prefer realism in cases where it doesn't make the game any less fun, that doesn't meant that I think everything should be realistic.
There's an argument that I forgot, which is that it's actually still called "methane" in its liquid and solid state, because it wouldn't make sense for it to be referred to as a gas in those states.

[The Plum Gate]

All of this? They don't need to fix anything except the description part that reads "(CH4)" then.

Messing with the molar masses or properties would throw out the balance... Seeing as how that above quoted text is throwing everyone off, just get rid of that and assume the homo-heterogeneous mess has the properties that are described in the information panel.

[Sevio]

As I mentioned before, they can rename the liquid and solid phases to LNG and SNG and I'd be fine with that, especially if we later get to separate Natural Gas into constituents like propane and methane. The main point is to have consistent naming among the three phases.

[The Plum Gate]

3 hours ago, Sevio said:

As I mentioned before, they can rename the liquid and solid phases to LNG and SNG and I'd be fine with that, especially if we later get to separate Natural Gas into constituents like propane and methane. The main point is to have consistent naming among the three phases.

SNG is,  I take it you mean solid natural gas. 

In the context of the first few post...and industry, SNG is synthetic/substitutenatural gas, hilariously enough.. methane is used as a feed stock for production of fertilizer. 

One could argue the fertilizer maker is leaking it's actual reactants...or that natural gas as we know it in the game is not in fact methane.

[Sevio]

Yeah I meant Solid or Solidified Natural Gas, in the same line as Liquefied Natural Gas.