Fertilizer synthesizers and natural gas

[eggsvbacon]

Oh did you mean that the mass would basically eventually take up multiple tiles as the weight increased from production or dropping material of the same form or otherwise onto a tile? Like hatches pooping in the same spot for 45 cycles would make  a big ol mound of charcoal?

[Saturnus]

Just now, Lifegrow said:

This was a while ago...

Yes, it was...

[Lifegrow]

Just now, eggsvbacon said:

Oh did you mean that the mass would basically eventually take up multiple tiles as the weight increased from production or dropping material of the same form or otherwise onto a tile? Like hatches pooping in the same spot for 45 cycles would make  a big ol mound of charcoal?

Yes, it happened in my hatch farm, only place it could happen. Hatches only had one or two places free to lay their droppings, and eventually it would hit a certain value, then reset to 0.

[Lifegrow]

Just now, Saturnus said:

Yes, it was...

And many, many bugs from earlier than this date are still in the game. As I said, feel free to correct me if you can.

[Saturnus]

39 minutes ago, Lifegrow said:

And many, many bugs from earlier than this date are still in the game. As I said, feel free to correct me if you can.

I already did.

Edit: Correct screen posted further down.

[Lifegrow]

8 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

I already did.

Sorry, I must have missed that. I don't see a post of you proving anything. I once had a night of passion with Scarlett Johansson, i'd prove it but you'll have to take my word for it  

Ahhh, you edited your double post - my mistake. I did clearly link you to the bug tracker thread where it explains it clearly. The stack limit is per individual item type.

Unfortunately, you're also some 100 tons away from the limit. Think it's a memory thing in the coding iirc.

[eggsvbacon]

1 hour ago, Michi01 said:

I had that thought too, but what are you supposed to do with the carbonated water?

My dupes wouldn't mind some carbonated beverages at the apothecary, "tasty" carbonated drinks to soothe their stomach, how about a bubbling hot tub? I could imagine doing some fun stuff with fizzly water. Shake a room up and bust a  tile and watch it foam I'm for two waste type waters with that converter thing.

How does one make power with waste water? That is weird, I don't get it. (any sort of waste water?)

[Whispershade]

15 minutes ago, Lifegrow said:

I once had a night of passion with Scarlett Johansson

Was she dressed at Motoko?

[Lifegrow]

Just now, Whispershade said:

Was she dressed at Motoko?

Weirdly she was dressed as a desktop computer... I debugged her all night, she was corrupt as hell. 

[Whispershade]

3 minutes ago, Lifegrow said:

Weirdly she was dressed as a desktop computer... I debugged her all night, she was corrupt as hell. 

So you're saying she was dressed as Samantha, then. I guess that's less odd than some of Gaga's outfits.

[trukogre]

Hi all, just a friendly reminder about using time efficiently: take 2 minutes, if you have debug mode enabled, and you can see what the current behavior is, instead of spending twice as long posting old pictures.

I have a bunch of tiles with 900 tons of clay sitting on each tile, however it's grouped itself into 50 ton balls, but there are many many balls on each 1x1 cell.  Just a big convention of big sticky balls all nestling up against each other.  However, it now enters my mind, I didn't test it with hatches and coal, they may use different code and thus exhibit different behavior.  However, since this discussion didn't start with hatches, and they are a fringe case,  they don't actually affect the initial scenario noticeably. Anyway, If I were to continue with that savefile I wouldn't look forward to building 300 storage compactors to hold all that clay.  I'd probably just leave the ball party be.

[Saturnus]

7 minutes ago, trukogre said:

Take 2 minutes, if you have debug mode enabled, and you can see what the current behavior is, instead of posting old pictures.

I have a bunch of tiles with 900 tons of clay sitting on each tile, however it's grouped itself into 50 ton balls, but there are many many balls on each 1x1 cell.  Just a big convention of big sticky balls all nestling up against each other.  However, I didn't test it with hatches and coal, they may use different code and thus exhibit different behavior. If I were to continue with that savefile I wouldn't look forward to building 300 storage compactors to hold all that clay.  I'd probably just leave the ball party be.

Yeah, unfortunately I hovered over the wrong tile before but I made a cleaner one so @Lifegrow can see that the bug has been fixed and what it looks like now. You can have as much as you like on one tile. It will group itself into 50ton piles.

 

[Lifegrow]

1 minute ago, Saturnus said:

Yeah, unfortunately I hovered over the wrong tile before but I made a cleaner one so @Lifegrow can see that the bug has been fixed and what it looks like now.

 

Now that's proof of a bug being fixed  

[Ciderblock]

5 hours ago, eggsvbacon said:

How does one make power with waste water? That is weird, I don't get it. (any sort of waste water?)

Fertilizer synthesizer:  Polluted water + power -> fertilizer + natural gas

Natural gas generator: Natural gas -> power + CO2 + polluted water

Combining these together, without closing the loop, makes 150 g = about 147 J. Just redirecting the polluted water and allowing the CO2 to accumulate reduces that to 130 g of polluted water = about 147 J. Removing the CO2 with carbon skimmers further improves performance, but costs clean water (and may require switches to shut the skimmers off when CO2 pressure is low).

The point here is that a g of polluted water is equivalent to something like 1-2 J of electricity...and even just lavatories give 11.7 kg of the stuff per cycle per dupe. That means a dupe effectively makes somewhere between 20 and 40 W just by going to the bathroom.

[brummbar7]

I agree with Michi that fertilizer makers as they are, are OP.  I like the self-entombing mechanic as a 'solution', mainly because that would largely obsolete them as natgas generators.  Another option would be to separate the fertilizer maker into a building that produces only nuisance amounts of natgas, and then have a separate biogas generator that generates natgas at something like the current rate, while producing no fertilizer.  But I like the annoyance factor of entombment better, at least in the current iteration of the game. 

[trukogre]

8 minutes ago, brummbar7 said:

I agree with Michi that fertilizer makers as they are, are OP.  I like the self-entombing mechanic as a 'solution', mainly because that would largely obsolete them as natgas generators.  Another option would be to separate the fertilizer maker into a building that produces only nuisance amounts of natgas, and then have a separate biogas generator that generates natgas at something like the current rate, while producing no fertilizer.  But I like the annoyance factor of entombment better, at least in the current iteration of the game. 

I don't agree that the self-entombing mechanic would obsolete them; it would merely bring NGGS  in line with the other generators when running off FM's, in terms of upkeep/complexity.  You'd just let dupes in to pick up the fertilizer every few days, not a huge change. I personally would like to see fertilizer makers cut down to a point where people would only use them if htey actually needed the fertilizer, say cut their NG production in half.  They're just too powerful right now.

[The Plum Gate]

9 hours ago, eggsvbacon said:

how would you compress them into diamonds as is current game mechanics? I propose allowing coal to be used as a filter medium as activated charcoal? did im grandpa

Caol is kind of used as a filtration medium, just check the apothecary - it's part of the immunity boosting vitamin pill. Kind of jokingly so, too.

..Just put a power requirement on them, or a higher one. Utility for the purpose of creating a needed result seems to be leaning towards a resource destruction mechanic in the game.

..honestly, I wish there were more valuable uses for clay than just feeding the hatches, some ceramics would be interesting, decor, or the next best thing below plastic for making stuff.

[Michi01]

48 minutes ago, The Plum Gate said:

..honestly, I wish there were more valuable uses for clay than just feeding the hatches, some ceramics would be interesting, decor, or the next best thing below plastic for making stuff.

I'm pretty sure ceramics are better at handling heat than plastic, so they wouldn't have to be low tier plastic, they could have their own niche.

[The Plum Gate]

Just now, Michi01 said:

I'm pretty sure ceramics are better at handling hot materials than plastic, so they wouldn't have to be low tier plastic, they could have their own niche.

I was thinking in terms of antiseptic properties, but yes, they would need their own niche uses.

[Reaniel]

11 hours ago, Ciderblock said:

The point here is that a g of polluted water is equivalent to something like 1-2 J of electricity...and even just lavatories give 11.7 kg of the stuff per cycle per dupe. That means a dupe effectively makes somewhere between 20 and 40 W just by going to the bathroom.

Let's go from basic to complex:

3 Fertilizer Synthesizer: -360W, -450g/s PH2O, +360g/s Fertilizer

1 Natural Gas Generator: +800W, +67.5g/s PH2O, +82.5g/s CO2

1 Dupe Visit: +19.5g/s PH2O

=> 1 Dupe Visit = 22.43W, 1g PH2O = 1.15J

We need a Gas Pump working part-time for the Natural Gas:

Gas Pump: -240W, assuming working 1/8 of the time = -30W

==> 1 Dupe Visit = 22.43 - 1.53 = 20.9W, 1g PH2O = 1.07J

Put in a Hatch/Coal Generator system:

Hatch: -360g/s Fertilizer, +360g/s Coal

Coal Generator: +600W, -1000g/s Coal, +20g/s CO2 ==> +216W, -360g/s Coal, +7.2g/s CO2

==> 1 Dupe Visit = 20.9 + 11.01 = 31.91W, 1g PH2O = 1.64J

-------------------------------

And now, Electrolyzer, assuming multiple ones that resulted in optimal production of hydrogen:

Electrolyzer: -120W, +112g/s H2, -1000g/s H2O ==> -107.14W, +100g/s H2, -892.86g/s H2O

Hydrogen Generator: +800W, -100g/s H2

Gas Pump: -240W, assuming working 1/5 of the time = -48W

==> 1g H2O = 0.71J

-------------------------------

So, is PH2O better than H2O from a purely power generation point of view?

Sure.

It also involves a more complex system than H2O - Hydrogen.

Is it so powerful that it's OMFGOPGG that should be nerfed?

Not really.

A 20 dupe colony would give you 418W without counting the potential coal, or 638.2W counting the coal.

That's hardly "able to power my entire base just off of the polluted water from my bathrooms".

[Michi01]

12 minutes ago, Reaniel said:

That's hardly "able to power my entire base just off of the polluted water from my bathrooms".

I haven't looked at the exact numbers of everything, but my current six dupe colony is at cycle 170 and I've only been using polluted water from my bathrooms and carbon skimmers for fertilizer synthesizers (I haven't actually played on it for almost a week because I got bored after trying out all the new stuff). I had an oil refinery on at some point but it's off now, yet the pressure in my fertilizer synthesizer room keeps rising and I have more natural gas than I know what to do with. When I said "from my bathrooms" I also meant the resulting polluted water from scrubbing the CO2, I meant the polluted water from the bathrooms is enough to get that whole snowball effect going. Yes, you still need additional clean water, but unless you use so much oil that you drain the entire oil biome and need to start using oil wells, water really isn't scarce.

[Whispershade]

23 minutes ago, Michi01 said:

Yes, you still need additional clean water, but unless you use so much oil that you drain the entire oil biome and need to start using oil wells, water really isn't scarce.

Given time this is an inevitability. Just because you don't enjoy long cycle games doesn't mean other people don't get satisfaction coming up with good infinite build designs.

With the introduction of the oil biome, petroleum and slicksters, it may come to be that the natural gas loop using fertilizer makers is "over powered" as compared to other energy generation loops. But some of the suggestions  in this thread seem fairly hamfisted and myopic. They seek to tweak matter conversions without seeming to give consideration t the consequences to the values of material destruction.

At the end of the day there are quite a number of balance problems that center around clean water consumption. Fertilizer is a huge victim of it, seeing as how it is only used in conjunction with huge clean water sinks that are dangerously sub-optimal. Lowering the fert makers natural gas production doesn't make them more useful for their 'intended purpose' it makes them nigh-useless for anything at all except feeding hatches.

I think a more dangerous balance problem is taking a useful building and making it useless. Either way the only really useful thing about fertilizer makers is its uses in energy generation. Either coal with hatches, or its natural gas production. The other problem, up until now, was that there was no large long term energy production outside of natural gas. As both coal and places to put oxygen were rather finite. Though I suppose you could create giant hydrogen / hamster wheel farms and an absurd number of dupes with the abundance of steam geysers available prior to Outbreak.

I am confident they will look at the various energy production chains as they introduce new methods of meeting energy needs. Right now, I think asking for specific cutbacks is a mistake.

 

Edit: Oh, and water is very scarce when looking at your budget into the future. It is so scarce that almost nobody seriously considers growing large amounts of sleet wheat or bristle blossom. It is mealwood or mushrooms.

[Reaniel]

You can't have a pie and eat it too.

You either calculate it with precision that considers everything or you don't.

You can't claim that bathroom alone can power everything and then come back and say it's going to include intentionally converting water to polluted water and count that as part of your power source calculation.

You can't claim that there's so much potential water in the entire asteroid that it somehow means water isn't scarce.

A lot of people are complaining about Pincha Pepper not because there aren't any Phosphorite, but because it's not renewable.  In the grand scheme of things, you will eventually not have the ability to grow it anymore because you've run out of phosphorite.

Sand used to be like this, but after they've made it so abundant, and that sand is mostly used in early tech, people eventually stopped complaining and started using the machines.

And coming back to water.  It is something pretty abundant, sure, but in the grand scheme of things, it's pretty limited with steam geyser being capped at 2.  You don't "need to" cap a well the same way you don't "need to" grow wheat or berries, but claiming that this somehow justifies your logic of 

"I'm not using water to grow stuff or cap a well" ==> "I have excess water" ==> "I can intentionally convert water to polluted water" ==> "So much polluted water!  Nerf polluted water!"

is ridiculous.

You made an argument of bathroom alone can power an entire base, which is not the case.  You can't just go on and say that additional gameplay choice you've made now justifies the same argument.  We are "required" to use the bathroom, which gives you some additional power if fed into a system.  We can "choose" to grow food that doesn't require water and "choose" to convert any extra water into polluted water and use them for power, but we are not "required" to do so.

And nerfing something because you choose to use it a lot while it is pretty benign when used sparingly is literally taking away someone else's choice of gameplay.   

[Byste]

Looks like there's some pretty hard feelings in this thread, so I just wanted to preface my comment with that I don't have much of a horse in this race.

Anywho, I think fertilizer makers are poorly implemented in general, simply because of the uselessness of fertilizer. If I had the power to make sweeping alterations to the game, I would make fertilizer more useful to farming -- like applying it to crops hastens their maturation cycle, regardless if it's required for domestic growth or not. It could be a toggleable setting on the crop, auto-fertilize (like autoharvest or auto repair for machines). Hell, it could be a slider option, where varying the amount of fertilizer applied to the crop can proportionally modify the growth cycle of the plant (with diminishing returns obviously). That way, you could get by planting fewer crops with increased yields, saving yourself other resources like water, if you *wanted* to. More choices to make is a good thing imo, maybe I'm off my rocker here.

Then I would balance this indirect buff to fertilizer makers by giving them a more widely applicable nerf. Don't reduce the amount of nat gas they provide, rather increase how much power they use. 240W seems appropriate without thinking about it too much. Now they can't be spammed to generate a surplus of power via their ancillary output. There's a lot of variables to control on the fertilizer maker at this point -- X fertilizer required to get Y plant down to Z domestic growth cycle, and then all the input/output values of the machine itself.

Now people have an incentive to actually use fertilizer makers instead of natural gas makers, and all aspects of the fert maker are useful to everybody.

[Oozinator]

I bet Klei has something in mind, with that fertilizer. Perhaps mix it with petroleum for special machine fuel, or similar..