Opinion on mini pumps; and Maybe tune down dupe oxygen consumption a bit?

[UristMcKerman]

At the moment of speaking mini pumps are essentially useless: they are weak, hungry, made of high-tech material which is melting at high temperature, and ugly (-10 decor for those sleek sexy pumps).

I see them as air scrubbers and liquid drainages you can place here and there in your dupes base to collect leaked liquids and gases, CO2 mainly, or just for cooling out the air. But for that purpose they are too power hungly, ugly, and melting too easily. Also would be great if they killed some germs passing through.

Second point: currently oxygen management is a pain in the ass. Every tile can contain enough oxygen for 20-26 seconds (200-266 seconds if you overpressurize). Industrial grade pump can deliver only 5 seconds worth of oxygen per second, gas pipes - 10. Again, mini gas pumps can't even support a single dupe. Sort of iconic for a game that have oxygen in its title, but right now it is horribly irritating, especially given that more activities (rather than spinning wheel that pumps oxygen to base) wll be added for dupes later in development. So I suggest reducing oxygen consumption by certain degree (like halving it, if not more).

[Saturnus]

No offence intended but are you sure you just don't need to play longer? Oxygen consumption is really quite trivial to cope with. I also think you have really misunderstood the purpose of small pumps. Given the negative decor it's quite obvious they're not intended for use in areas the dupe frequent. It's used to feed machinery or in other circumstances where a very low throughput is needed, and where space restrictions mandate their use over a regular pump with valve.

[Oozinator]

59 minutes ago, UristMcKerman said:

. So I suggest reducing oxygen consumption by certain degree (like halving it, if not more).

No please not and never!
So "easy", to get rid of o², when you have water and they consume not much.
Build similar to these, no need for divers lungs or "reducing".

[Risu]

I'd say the main purpose of the pumps are their lower power use. Lets you avoid the power spikes that hits the bigger pumps when they infrequently kick on to replace spent mass in the pipe. So use them on pipelines that use a small amount of mass for a consistent power cost. Their lower cost allows you to fit more on the same line too so you can pump in more locations around the area.

Their only negative is the plastic cost which places them firmly at endgame content where they would only get used in fun projects instead of colony survival.
 

[BlueLance]

Yeah reducing the oxygen needed is a bad idea, the picture above could in theory support 16 dupes. I have a similar setup which only has pumps for pulling away the Hydrogen, the oxygen diffuses naturally. 

I agree with what Risu said, My idea for using the pumps was to shrink most of my systems so that instead of every pump using 240W they will be using less. which means less power needs, which is less heat etc. or more electricity to power other fun things to test out. I think the pumps are pretty well balanced in my opinion anyway, I would love if they sucked up just a wee bit more though (60g/s would be nice) but thats just cuz im stingy

[UristMcKerman]

1 minute ago, BlueLance said:

Yeah reducing the oxygen needed is a bad idea, the picture above could in theory support 16 dupes. I have a similar setup which only has pumps for pulling away the Hydrogen, the oxygen diffuses naturally. 

I agree with what Risu said, My idea for using the pumps was to shrink most of my systems so that instead of every pump using 240W they will be using less. which means less power needs, which is less heat etc. or more electricity to power other fun things to test out. I think the pumps are pretty well balanced in my opinion anyway, I would love if they sucked up just a wee bit more though (60g/s would be nice) but thats just cuz im stingy

On practice that setup will barely support 5 at cost of 840 W. Been there, seen that. And also it produces gas at 343 K, a bit hot for their taste

[Cilya]

You consider that oxygen consumption is good as it is because you use an exploit to filter hydrogen. Some other people said that *I* was using an exploit because i let hydrogen float in my base. Removing those two exploits, you have to filter with the gas filter and pumps, and distribute the oxygen through your whole base. This is much less energy efficient. The op is right, you need a 100% of the time active pump to feed 5 dupes. I've done that for a 48 duplicant colony, it's a lot of pumps and pipes and the main expense in electricity, far above anything else.

If you think about it, it's much more interesting to have to deal with the oxygen distribution system than using those exploits. It requires careful planning to run pipes through your colony. The game is probably much more enjoyable if it is a matter of colony planning rather than a matter of copy/paste a design.

As always, don't think "it's too easy, don't make the game easier" but rather "some things can be made easier if some other are made harder". This will bring the focus on a more interesting question which is "what is fun and what is less fun ?" instead of "is the game too easy or not ?".

[Oozinator]

Just now, Cilya said:

..you use an exploit to filter hydrogen...

So long that 1 stuff at a time at one tile is max, i call it gamemechanics. I used hydrogen with free floating through the base, works too, but why do it the "floatway"?

[Cilya]

It wasn't the point. You can consider it an exploit or not. The thing is, if you chose not to use it, the game is actually a bit harder. For people who don't use it, the game might be better with a lower oxygen consumption. I just want you to consider other way of playing.

 

One more (off-topic) thing : the electrolyzer could be changed to break this exploit, even keeping the "one element by tile" thing.

[BlueLance]

10 minutes ago, Cilya said:

You consider that oxygen consumption is good as it is because you use an exploit to filter hydrogen.

Sorry If you want I can go back to my older system which used a filter in an enclosed room.... 120W extra for 8 dupes considering I do not have power issues it is 6 and half a dozen oxygen consumption is still good, and in all honest I get more hydrogen out of my older design since it doesn't get deleted.

I still do not see why oxygen needs to be reduced, or the pumps being useless.

1 gas per tile is a game mechanic, but even if it wasnt, then having it in an enclosed room would work, and so would letting it naturally float upwards and doing that is in no way an exploit. having multiple gasses in a tile the hydrogen would still float up to the top as it is the lightest gas currently in the game.

[Moggles]

The fact with electrolyzers is that no matter what configuration you have them in you will have a hydrogen oxygen separation eventually. Exploit or not.

Consider this system. It's not the same as the common set up but the same effect occurs. This could just as well be a huge area 25 x 25 rather than a thin tall tube but eventually the hydrogen and oxygen will separate at the position of the electrolyzer.

Saying one way is easier than another doesn't make sense.

[Saturnus]

14 minutes ago, Cilya said:

It wasn't the point. You can consider an exploit or not.

In this case you cannot under any circumstances consider using basic game mechanics as exploits. It's just a ridiculous statement.

[Cilya]

16 minutes ago, BlueLance said:

I still do not see why oxygen needs to be reduced, or the pumps being useless.

It's really not an absolute necessity, in my opinion. I just understand that reducing the oxygen consumption can change the way we play, and can lead to interesting things. In the current version, using pumps and pipe to move the oxygen is very inefficient (one pipe can only feed 10 dupes) so the players will almost all chose to use exploits rather than trying to build a complex oxygen distribution system, air recycling network and so on.

 

11 minutes ago, Moggles said:

Saying one way is easier than another doesn't make sense.

Actually, you just made sense of it. You built a system which a bit more complex than the one above. So, you just illustrated how changes in the electrolyzer would encourage the player to build more complex things.

[BlueLance]

12 minutes ago, Cilya said:

It wasn't the point. You can consider an exploit or not. The thing is, if you chose not to use it, the game is actually a bit harder. For people who don't use it, the game might be better with a lower oxygen consumption. I just want you to consider other way of playing.

 

One more (off-topic) thing : the electrolyzer could be changed to break this exploit, even keeping the "one element by tile" thing.

I am not going against it being better to play the game harder. Other people do play the game differently. But the fact is the gasses naturally split, and no matter how you set up an electrolyzer you are always going to get enough oxygen for at least 4 dupes, and at most 8 dupes. Whether you use two pumps and a filter for maximum efficiency, or 1 pump and naturally letting gas do its own thing, or 1 and a filter Or just having them out in the open, some are exploiting how the game works and others are not. It doesn't change the fact that its a lot of oxygen you get and depending how you set it up you might never need to separate them.

 

15 minutes ago, Cilya said:

One more (off-topic) thing : the electrolyzer could be changed to break this exploit, even keeping the "one element by tile" thing.

Even if you fix an exploit where gas goes where it goes, it wouldn't affect how every other set up works. Even if you made it projectile straight down or teleport the oxygen is still gonna do what it does, and so will the hydrogen, and how people clean them up is what will create different designs. Where someone will say its an exploit, and others will be entirely exploits whilst others are just naturally working. Won't change that you get a lot of oxygen.

Also to the OP sorry that this has derailed. For oxygen if you want the most without it being an exploit, a sealed room with two pumps, an electrolyzer and a filter should give you enough oxygen to feed 8 dupes, and create enough power so that only 1 dupe or a coal generator needs to be working at a time, you can adjust the pipes to run two hydrogen generators but they need to be pretty close. 

Just now, Cilya said:

In the current version, using pumps and pipe to move the oxygen is very inefficient (one pipe can only feed 10 dupes) so the players will almost all chose to use exploits rather than trying to build a complex oxygen distribution system, air recycling network and so on.

10 Dupes per pipe is slightly incorrect. if you have only 1 piping system then yes thats correct. But if you have  piping system which branches off you can easily add feeder systems in to pipes which is what I used to do. As you know when a packet reaches a split one will go 1 way the other will go the opposite. this already means that you have two pipes which are only feeding 5 dupes, adding a feeder would put this back up to 10, which mans that you are providing enough oxygen to two points for 20 dupes. and All you did was add a pipe at a junction.

You could either plan your oxygen systems so that an electrolyzer was at each split, which ok that does require foreplanning, or you could just add a long pipe which connects to the split from the same place as the original pipe. the first is harder, the second is easier Unless you already have a massive network of pipes. The other issue with lots of piping is performance. 

[Cilya]

2 minutes ago, BlueLance said:

Even if you fix an exploit where gas goes where it goes, it wouldn't affect how every other set up works.

It's in no way my intention. Let's take another angle to the problem. The OP complains is not about exploity designs of electrolyzers. It's about how many dupes a pump can feed. This can be changed without touching the overall mechanics of electrolyzers and gas, but only the quantities. Two possibilities :

1. Increase the amount of gas a pump is pumping each tick, and the amount of gas which can be moved through pipes
2. Decrease the amount of Oxygen consumed by the duplicant, but also decrease the amount of oxygen produced by the electrolyzer, and the algae XXX things, and the geyser output, and the oxylite amount on the map, and...

By changing the values as a whole, you can ensure that all the different electrolyzers setup are still working and you preserve the diversity of solutions. But the change can enable much more wider oxygen distribution systems for colonies with a lot of duplicants.

There probably is other possible changes, like reducing the filter and pump power consumption, which will also have a lot of other consequences on balance.

[BlueLance]

With two geysers a lot of large duplicant colonies can already exist.

But I do think they should change the amount a pipe can handle, after all a water pump holds 10kg, an air pump holds 1kg, bit odd that the air cannot be compressed after they introduced high pressure vents and I think the devs would be more likely to do that than change the numbers for everything, as you said literally everything to do with oxygen and its generation would need adjusted, whereas a high pressure pipe and a pump for every 5 dupes would solve the same problem but require less work. 

I would personally like to see them add industrial pumps capable of a much larger intake, even at a larger energy cost it would be worth it in my eyes 1200W? That is 3 dupes and if it can suck in gas from multiple tiles I think it could work, Like a main unit and several tenticles that suck up gasses. Which in turn goes into a high pressure pipe. They have only just touched on industrialisation though so maybe they will, but at the moment we just gotta wait and see.

[UristMcKerman]

14 minutes ago, Cilya said:

It's in no way my intention. Let's take another angle to the problem. The OP complains is not about exploity designs of electrolyzers. It's about how many dupes a pump can feed. This can be changed without touching the overall mechanics of electrolyzers and gas, but only the quantities. Two possibilities :

1. Increase the amount of gas a pump is pumping each tick, and the amount of gas which can be moved through pipes
2. Decrease the amount of Oxygen consumed by the duplicant, but also decrease the amount of oxygen produced by the electrolyzer, and the algae XXX things, and the geyser output, and the oxylite amount on the map, and...

By changing the values as a whole, you can ensure that all the different electrolyzers setup are still working and you preserve the diversity of solutions. But the change can enable much more wider oxygen distribution systems for colonies with a lot of duplicants.

There probably is other possible changes, like reducing the filter and pump power consumption, which will also have a lot of other consequences on balance.

Yup, exactly what I was thinking; generation of oxygen is not a problem at all (slime->algae or hydrolizer), but cooling and distributing it (given how wonky gas mechanics are atm).

[Saturnus]

5 minutes ago, BlueLance said:

With two geysers a lot of large duplicant colonies can already exist.

But I do think they should change the amount a pipe can handle, after all a water pump holds 10kg, an air pump holds 1kg, bit odd that the air cannot be compressed after they introduced high pressure vents...

Air already is massively compressed in pipes compared to liquids.

Think about it. A tile of water is 1000kg. A tile of breathable air is 2kg. That means the amount of gas transferred in pipes in relation to the amount of liquid is already compressed by a factor of 5.

@Cilya is massively using this exploit of gas over-compression in pipes to move cheating amounts of gases around. 

[Cilya]

7 minutes ago, BlueLance said:

With two geysers a lot of large duplicant colonies can already exist.

My point was that if you change the amount of water produced to reflect the amount of oxygen consumed by duplicants, you won't change how many duplicants a geyser can feed. The important thing is that you can change how many duplicants a gas pipe can feed without touching the balance of oxygen production. It's not easy, but it is possible.

 

1 minute ago, Saturnus said:

@Cilya is massively using this exploit of gas over-compression in pipes to move cheating amounts of gases around. 

You didn't read properly. I am using another exploit, which is letting the hydrogen float through my colony. It's much easier. But i'm not sure that ad hominem are put at good use here.

[BlueLance]

Just now, Cilya said:

My point was that if you change the amount of water produced to reflect the amount of oxygen consumed by duplicants, you won't change how many duplicants a geyser can feed. The important thing is that you can change how many duplicants a gas pipe can feed without touching the balance of oxygen production. It's not easy, but it is possible.

If it was something they will do it will probably be during a mass balancing of the game, it is possible like you said though and would require no changed to the pump mechanics.

1 minute ago, Saturnus said:

Air already is massively compressed in pipes compared to liquids.

Think about it. A tile of water is 1000kg. A tile of breathable air is 2kg. That means the amount of gas transferred in pipes in relation to the amount of liquid is already compressed by a factor of 5.

I cannot argue with that.

[Saturnus]

4 minutes ago, Cilya said:

I am using another exploit..

I already flat out stated your argument is ridiculous and makes no sense in any form. Using basic game mechanics is not an exploit. You might as well argue that dupes should not need to go to bathroom if you're not letting them eat.

[Cilya]

I chose to use another definition of exploit, which is "to use at your advantage something that was not intended by the game developer and which gives an unbalanced advantage". I do not recognize you the right to dictate me the sense of the words I use, especially when this sense is shared by a lot of people. I maintain the usage I made of the word "exploits" in this threads and in others.

I used it here on purpose, and my usage of it clearly show that this is not an universal notion, and that what some people consider exploits is not for others. This should have helped to understand that each game experience is unique, and that if some player do not want to play with these exploits, (because they consider it to be exploits) they may need other balancing changes to the game.

[BlueLance]

If we are going with the word exploit, to me it means to take advantage of how something works. Everyone has there own meaning of exploit, and how it applies to game mechanics. Allowing players to use them is a good way for bases to diversify and allow the devs to see what they should and should not change. In most cases, it is not clear if the devs intend to change these (If they do not intend to then is it an exploit?) and unless the devs state themselves if something is or is not an exploit its a very grey area in my opinion because there is a large variable which is the player and each person will see things in the way the believe.

A quick example using my meaning is getting water from a higher point to a lower point without is power is by exploiting gravity, as we all know though this is an intended mechanic, but is still an exploit of this mechanic. But it is intended by the devs. I am pretty sure what I call an exploit has another word. but that's just my thoughts

[Saturnus]

 

5 minutes ago, Cilya said:

I chose to use another definition of exploit, which is "to use at your advantage something that was not intended by the game developer and which gives an unbalanced advantage".

Interesting. So which of the game developers do you know personally who shares your view on what is intended or not? By any normal standard we can only deduce intend from the evidence we have, in this case the game. The game allows in it's current state, and the state it has been in since the very first alpha preview, gas affinity flow separation. That means we can categorically conclude it is intended. And therefore by definition, not an exploit.

You can play however you like though. It's a single player game, and no matter how much, or how little you use game mechanics to your advantage, it can never be considered cheating. But to call for a game mechanic change because of a misconception on the game developers' intend is a little presumptuous to say the least.  

[Cilya]

1 hour ago, Saturnus said:

Interesting. So which of the game developers do you know personally who shares your view on what is intended or not?

This is not a prerequisite. There are several developers, perhaps several game designers, they may disagree, they may not have a clear thought about that and, they may change during the course of the development. So this is clearly not a formal definition. This is a subjective one, which is clearly more something of a personal view. As for the evidences, there are two kinds of available evidences. The game behavior is not one of them : the way the game behave might be a bug, and that is why some of the previous exploits have been fixed by the developers. In this regard, we can say that they were exploits : they were unintended behaviors. Or they changed their mind. First kind of evidence, is the declaration they made about what they want for the game. There is a pinned subject about the roadmap. The second kind of evidence is the deduction based evidences. We could say that, if the game designers intended the gases to be easily split (not like the one above, I'm thinking about the setup with water and polluted water) then they would just give an output pipe to the electrolyzer.

So... it's already three different reason to understand this definition of exploit as a fuzzy and subjective definition. But I've already said it, and you already understood it. That's really not the point.

1 hour ago, Saturnus said:

But to call for a game mechanic change because of a misconception on the game developers' intend is a little presumptuous to say the least.  

That is the point of misunderstanding. These call are done by people who want to enable other ways of playing, not because of misconceptions.