List of issues encountered

[Afro69]

Made this list while playing the game he weekend:

• Water very sticky, can stack really high and not flow.
• No indication when normal research is done later on in the tree. I need to constantly check in the research tab to see when its done.
• No input/output stats for sink
• Duplicates in Atmo suits should not only do one thing. With all the effort needed to make the Atmo suits dupes should be more efficient when using them otherwise its not really worth it.
• Instances where dupes don't harvest. Sometimes I need to change the priority after a while to "remind" them to harvest.
• Unnecessarily cleaning tiles at points of interest.
• Better control over sweep. Perhaps a priority like mop has would be nice. Just better control over because at the moment its a whole complicated way of doing it to get them to sweep the thing you want and even then it takes forever to get done.
• Plants indicated as died when uprooted. Really don need this notification.
• Atmo suit gets randomly dropped my dupes in middle of nowhere while they using it. You need to request the suit for them to pick it off the ground.
• Auto-switches should show their current reading. That way we can see what value to set when the measurement needed is reached.
• Overload damage when only one pump attached to wire. It seems like a single wire carries the load of everything in the game instead of it just carrying the load of the device(s) its attached to. This is resulting in wires suffering circuit overload damage when they shouldn't
• Attaching a small wire to a Hi-watt wire will remove the Hi-watt wire. Perhaps make it that if we want the Hi-wattt replaced that we have to deconstruct it first instead of it automatically being removed when when attaching a smaller wire.

Love the game hopefully this helps in making it even better.

[WanderingKid]

Sweep: Use a sweep only box and set the box's priority to a higher level, they'll sweep like champions.

Click on tile at POI, and disable auto-disinfect.

Autoswitches do show you their value.  IE: Atmo switch shows you current pressure, then your activate settings.

Overloaded circuits: You need a heavi-watt backbone and a transformer to step down the current.

[Afro69]

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Sweep: Use a sweep only box and set the box's priority to a higher level, they'll sweep like champions.

I already do this thats why I said there needs to be a better way. it should be simpler

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Click on tile at POI, and disable auto-disinfect.

The dupe was stuck in a loop doing nothing else but going back to the exact same tile. You should not have to disable auto-disinfect.

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Autoswitches do show you their value.  IE: Atmo switch shows you current pressure, then your activate settings.

I misunderstood and thought that it was for the current setting thanks for pointing that out.

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Overloaded circuits: You need a heavi-watt backbone and a transformer to step down the current.

I do have a heavi-watt backbone. I am specifically talking about a single wire running to one device, a pump for example. It should not overload that wire. Only power on that wire should be the power for the one pump.

[WanderingKid]

@Afro69 Oh I don't disagree on having to disable the auto-disinfect, drives me nuts too.  Just offering a way around it, didn't know you were already aware. As to sweep?  Not quite sure how that can be made simpler.  What were you expecting of it?

Regarding the power, I'm not sure what you mean.  The entire circuit runs at the full power of the circuit.  The only way to separate circuits in this game is with transformers or literally not connecting them up to each other at all.  If you run your heavy-watt backbone, hook it to a transformer, and then run your light wire down to the pump, you'll only have the pump on that circuit.

 

[Kasuha]

Water very sticky, can stack really high and not flow.

That's how water is implemented in the game. Notice there's one "ambient" element (gas/liquid/solid) per tile and it comes with some drawbacks. There's a lot of peculiarities around it.

No indication when normal research is done later on in the tree. I need to constantly check in the research tab to see when its done.

You always get the "No research task selected" notification in the upper left corner when all research is done.

Duplicates in Atmo suits should not only do one thing. With all the effort needed to make the Atmo suits dupes should be more efficient when using them otherwise its not really worth it.

That's not how it works for me. Their behavior doesn't depend on whether they have suits or not.

Instances where dupes don't harvest. Sometimes I need to change the priority after a while to "remind" them to harvest.

That's usually if you have priority 5 plants and many priority 6+ tasks planned. I found it better to give priority to maintenance tasks (e.g. exchanging sand in deodorizers) and plan everything at 5.

Unnecessarily cleaning tiles at points of interest.

It's not unnecessary - they have task to disinfect, so they do. I admit it gets annoying and painting "don't disinfect" would be nice to have. There are ways around it, such as digging the slime around them to get rid of the germ source, or encapsulating them in another layer of tiles.

Auto-switches should show their current reading. That way we can see what value to set when the measurement needed is reached.

You mean power switches? They do show their current reading in the status window.

Overload damage when only one pump attached to wire. It seems like a single wire carries the load of everything in the game instead of it just carrying the load of the device(s) its attached to. This is resulting in wires suffering circuit overload damage when they shouldn't

Power load works differently than in real world - a continuous wire carries "load" of all power consumers on it, regardless of its topology. There are very good reasony why it's implemented that way. To get rid of overloads, divide the grid into subgrids below 1 kW and power them through transformers from a distribution grid made of heavy wire.

Attaching a small wire to a Hi-watt wire will remove the Hi-watt wire. Perhaps make it that if we want the Hi-wattt replaced that we have to deconstruct it first instead of it automatically being removed when when attaching a smaller wire.

You don't want to attach standard wire to heavy wire, ever. When a single piece of standard wire is attached to power grid, it will overload above 1 kW and then any heavy wire on it is pointless.

 

[Afro69]

@WanderingKid If we can appliy priority to sweep like we can to mop that would be great. Regarding power if they want to implement transformers then they should get rid of the power stat and use voltage. A wire should only carry the power required by the load. The way its set up now power flows every like its the Force instead of acting like actual electricity.

[Afro69]

@Kasuha

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You always get the "No research task selected" notification in the upper left corner when all research is done.

But I do have a research task selected. I disable the super computer while doing simple research to save power early on. The "No research task selected" does not appear because I do have a research task selected.

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That's not how it works for me. Their behavior doesn't depend on whether they have suits or not.

And this should change. They should have better efficiency when using suits

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That's usually if you have priority 5 plants and many priority 6+ tasks planned. I found it better to give priority to maintenance tasks (e.g. exchanging sand in deodorizers) and plan everything at 5.

Well this was not my situation. I clearly stated that I changed priority. I would change it to an arbitrary number(I changed it to 1) then change it back to 5 and they would harvest again. They did forget to harvest.

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It's not unnecessary - they have task to disinfect, so they do. I admit it gets annoying and painting "don't disinfect" would be nice to have. There are ways around it, such as digging the slime around them to get rid of the germ source, or encapsulating them in another layer of tiles.

The dupe was stuck in a loop. Running to base then running to the exact same tile and disinfecting it. He did nothing else. I had to remove the slime touching the tile to get him to stop. Thats something that should be fixed.

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Power load works differently than in real world - a continuous wire carries "load" of all power consumers on it, regardless of its topology. There are very good reasony why it's implemented that way. To get rid of overloads, divide the grid into subgrids below 1 kW and power them through transformers from a distribution grid made of heavy wire.

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You don't want to attach standard wire to heavy wire, ever. When a single piece of standard wire is attached to power grid, it will overload above 1 kW and then any heavy wire on it is pointless.

If they want to implement a transformer system then they should use voltage and current instead of power. A wire only carries the power required by the load. At the moment power exists everywhere and acts like the force rather than electricity. They should change it so it makes sense.

[WanderingKid]

41 minutes ago, Afro69 said:

@WanderingKid If we can appliy priority to sweep like we can to mop that would be great. Regarding power if they want to implement transformers then they should get rid of the power stat and use voltage. A wire should only carry the power required by the load. The way its set up now power flows every like its the Force instead of acting like actual electricity.

You have to size your breaker to the smallest wire on the circuit.  I'm not a certified electrician but this is in all the (American) local electricity codes to make sure you don't end up with fires and other issues when you splice a smaller wire into a larger capacity one.  Since power is simply Amps and Voltage, and the small wire would have much higher ohms because of the resistance, it personally makes sense to me to use something as a step down (it should really be a subpanel or a fuse block; it's named poorly, I'll give you that) to make sure the smaller line doesn't carry more than it can bear.  You typically run the higher gauge wire early or for long runs to avoid voltage drops, but you still have to limit the amps.

Not trying to be an arse, but gases should mix instead of lava lamp, gases and liquids should share tiles so a few grams of CO2 can't block water movement, plants should absorb CO2 to grow and not be water negative... there are a number of systems in place they made compromises to simplify the simulation.  Using power draw/production across the entire wire is one of them they applied here.  It's not a bad compromise in my mind, as most people don't even know the codes or expectations for rewiring their own home, nevermind something the equivalent of a power plant and skyscraper in one.  Now, does that need to be clearer and more spelled out in game?  Absolutely.

[Kasuha]

43 minutes ago, Afro69 said:

And this should change. They should have better efficiency when using suits

They don't interupt their work to go catch breath and they don't inhale germs. That's hefty enough improvement and makes sense in the relation. There's no reason for any eventual improvements to job selection to be restricted to exosuits.

47 minutes ago, Afro69 said:

Well this was not my situation. I clearly stated that I changed priority. I would change it to an arbitrary number(I changed it to 1) then change it back to 5 and they would harvest again. They did forget to harvest.

There's plenty of reasons why dupes won't go to do a task player thinks they should which all can be collected under player not understanding how the mechanic works do and your description is just not detailed enough. Priority 1 is the lowest priority, by the way.

50 minutes ago, Afro69 said:

The dupe was stuck in a loop. Running to base then running to the exact same tile and disinfecting it. He did nothing else. I had to remove the slime touching the tile to get him to stop. Thats something that should be fixed.

The question is what was happening with the tile's germ level in the meantime and what are your autodisinfect settings. Did you check the germs overlay, did you check the tile? Again it could have been perfectly normal behavior which you just didn't expect.

53 minutes ago, Afro69 said:

If they want to implement a transformer system then they should use voltage and current instead of power. ... They should change it so it makes sense.

It makes perfect sense in terms of ONI game physics. 

A lot of people were upset about it when the mechanic was introduced with Thermal Update, it was discussed over and over again many times since then. You're not first to not like it and certainly not last either. I don't think I want to repeat all the reasons why the "intuitive" and "realistic" behavior is not feasible for the game and why it would lead to more problems than the current system. People who propose implementation that "makes sense" usually only think about simple configurations, not about anything a player can throw at the game. And also expect all other players to have at least the same level of insight into power load distribution they have.

[Afro69]

55 minutes ago, WanderingKid said:

You have to size your breaker to the smallest wire on the circuit.  I'm not a certified electrician but this is in all the (American) local electricity codes to make sure you don't end up with fires and other issues when you splice a smaller wire into a larger capacity one.  Since power is simply Amps and Voltage, and the small wire would have much higher ohms because of the resistance, it personally makes sense to me to use something as a step down (it should really be a subpanel or a fuse block; it's named poorly, I'll give you that) to make sure the smaller line doesn't carry more than it can bear.  You typically run the higher gauge wire early or for long runs to avoid voltage drops, but you still have to limit the amps.

Not trying to be an arse, but gases should mix instead of lava lamp, gases and liquids should share tiles so a few grams of CO2 can't block water movement, plants should absorb CO2 to grow and not be water negative... there are a number of systems in place they made compromises to simplify the simulation.  Using power draw/production across the entire wire is one of them they applied here.  It's not a bad compromise in my mind, as most people don't even know the codes or expectations for rewiring their own home, nevermind something the equivalent of a power plant and skyscraper in one.  Now, does that need to be clearer and more spelled out in game?  Absolutely.

I am well versed in the way electricity works. I dont expect it to be realistic but when they implement a new system which is unreasonable and not very fun it is an issue. If I run one little wire to my one lonely pump and get a circuit overload warning its pretty unreasonable. There are much better ways to implement the transformer that can still make the gameplay challenging and fun, because atm its just much easier running a seperate line for each supply than using a transformer. I dont think it needs to be renamed it just needs a better implementation. And now is the time to do it before the game gets released.

[Afro69]

45 minutes ago, Kasuha said:

Priority 1 is the lowest priority, by the way.

I think this is the issue right here. I know priority 1 is the lowest. I have been playing the game since it was available. Do I know everything definitely not but I am competent at the game and my issues I encountered are real issues not my misunderstanding of how the game works.

[WanderingKid]

24 minutes ago, Afro69 said:

I am well versed in the way electricity works. I dont expect it to be realistic but when they implement a new system which is unreasonable and not very fun it is an issue. If I run one little wire to my one lonely pump and get a circuit overload warning its pretty unreasonable. There are much better ways to implement the transformer that can still make the gameplay challenging and fun, because atm its just much easier running a seperate line for each than using a transformer. I dont think it needs to be renamed it just needs a better implementation. And now is the time to do it before the game gets released.

I think we have different expectations of fun here.  A simplified electrical system means I *can* have fun, instead of becoming a journeyman electrician.  A simple equation: 20 KW on the backbone, 1KW max on circuits separated out by a step-down mechanism, in this case named a transformer.  Running a separate line for each from where?  How small is your power network?

Let me ask you a different question, since you've obviously got something in mind here.  I have a battery bank of 30+ batteries currently, 3 Natural Gas Generators on the east, another 3 constructing on the west.  2 coal generators are intermittently used when I put heavy load on the system, such as when my tepidizers need to activate, they're down near the bottom of my base where I want the CO2 for mushrooms.  Somewhere above my base are 2 hydrogen generator which sporadically kick off when my atmo switch gets enough pressure, and I'm in the process of getting petroleum setup way the heck over on the other side of the asteroid.  Add to this I've got pumps, electrolyzers, HVAC, grills and fridges, and all sorts of other minor gear all over the place in the base.

The current setup allows me to run a single backbone line for all producers/batteries, and simply use a transformer when I want to bleed off (or on, when starting up, for the hamster wheels to power the network) some of that juice into the base somewhere.  This leads to base design decisions about where to run the backbone and the décor problems it causes, interesting cases where you built something that's now in your way, and simplifies how to get power onto and off of the backbone.

What do you have in mind that would make that more fun and not require me getting an associates degree in electrical engineering to understand?  You say you are well versed in how electricity works, that's great, expertise can help me understand.  I'm well enough versed to know how to do anything AFTER the fuse box, but I sure as heck ain't going near the power poles.  What changes to the existing system would you provide that would make this more fun as well as understandable?

[Afro69]

@WanderingKid I think they should just use the system they have for the plumbing. Most electrical principles usually are explained using commonly known plumbing principles. But they cant do that exactly because then its just the same system and thats boring but they can do a variation of it.This would require a new wire, lets call it a Supply wire that can carry a massive amount of power. So imagine this flowing like the plumbing does. You input the the power using the supply(like a liquid pump) and the power only flows to where it is needed(just like the liquid only flows to where it can exit). With this system where there is a huge amount of power flowing through it you need the Heavi-watt wire and you can use the smaller wires where there is little power flow. Then reduce the amount of power the heavi-watt can carry that will make the transformer needed when your attaching a massive supply source like you have to a back bone. So if you have a 10 000kW supply source you would need transformers to step it down so that the Heavi-watt wires dont get damaged.

So now you have a system that is basic for most people to understand since it works like the plumbing, current flows where its needed like liquid and when there is a lot of power running through a wire use a Heavi-watt wire. As your base grows you now need more power and therefore you need transformers to step down the massive power supply you've created so that it can distribute it to where you need it.This places transformers closer to the supply where they should be and away from rooms where they shouldn't be. Placement of Heavi-watt wires now becomes an important factor as well, for decor purposes as you pointed out. There now becomes more focus on setting up a power station like area and distributing that power from the station to specific areas.

An example of how this would look like

How its done currently:

2 x Natural Gas Generators (2 x 800W) >  Heavi-watt wire(20kW) > Transformer > Wire(1kW) > Fridge

How I would like it to be done:

4 x Natural Gas Generators (4 x 800W) > Supply-wire(1MW) > Transformer > Heavi-watt wire(5kW) > Wire(1kW) > Fridge

                                                                                                                                                                               > Wire(1kW) > Grill

                                                                                                                                                                               > Wire(1kW) > Lamp

                                                                     > Supply-wire(1MW) > Transformer > Heavi-watt wire(5kW) > Wire(1kW) > Liquid Pump

                                                                                                                                                                               > Wire(1kW) > HVAC

Supply-wire and Heavi-watt wire values would have to be tested and adjusted for game balance, but I do feel this is simple enough for most people to understand since its similar to the plumbing where the only current in a wire is what is required by the devices attached to it, just like the only liquid drawn from a pipe is what is used. It also offers interesting challenges for people that develop large power supplies for their massive bases in where they need to place their Heavi-watt wires and how many transformers will be needed if they create a large power supply area.

[WanderingKid]

@Afro69 How is your supply wire -> Transformer different than the heavi-watt -> Transformer is incorporated now?  All you've really done there is a value change.  If standard wire carried 5kw and the transformer would do a 5kw step down, you'd basically have what you wanted.

What you've described there essentially is no different than what we have now except for two things.  1) Higher values on the majority of the wires and 2) you can splice multiple small wires off an over powered main line on the circuit... which is against good practice for electricians for a reason.  I don't see much of a difference other than wanting to splice smaller wires into a larger capacity wire without insulating it from surges.

[Afro69]

@WanderingKidThe main difference is the only power in the wire now is the power being used.

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If standard wire carried 5kw and the transformer would do a 5kw step down, you'd basically have what you wanted.

Yes you are correct and that would be great because I find the current system unreasonable, but its what I came up with to keep it as close as possible to the current system.

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you can splice multiple small wires off an over powered main line on the circuit... which is against good practice for electricians for a reason.

You said the system should be simple, but now your saying I am not using "good practice for electricians". Look I have offered feedback that the current system is annoying and does not make sense and I am sure there will be more people that feel that way when they attach one little wire to a fridge and get a "circuit overload" warning. Its their choice if they want to ignore the feedback or try to make the small changes I suggested to make it more reasonable.