Inconsistency of machine output methods

[Nebbie]

I'm really finding it annoying to deal with different machines, mostly generators and the oil stuff, having seemingly arbitrary ways to deal with their outputs. For instance, the natural gas generator has a pipe output for its CO2, but the petroleum generator just spits it out in the general vicinity, as does the coal generator. The refinery has everything piped...except natural gas that just ends up all around. The epitome of this is the polymer press, which dumps steam of all things in its vicinity.

I understand the reason for some of these being not having two output pipes of the same type on a machine (as there'd be no way to tell CO2 from steam or natural gas), but could we at least get it so that you can either let your generators drip or pipe from the spouts (and same for CO2 from them)? Basically, a special kind of output that will spit stuff out locally unless a pipe is attached. As for two output pipes of the same type, labeling them could help not just for this, but for remembering what the hell you're actually making piping for.

[Neotix]

Those differences suppose to be a challenge and not to use one solution for everything.

[Yobbin]

I find the arbitrary temperature changes to be more annoying. Some buildings such as the gas generator give you outputs at the same temperature as inputs Which makes sense to me. But then some like the water purifier cool the output to 40 degrees no matter how hot the input is which feels buggy and non intuitive to me. 

[trukogre]

9 minutes ago, Yobbin said:

I find the arbitrary temperature changes to be more annoying. Some buildings such as the gas generator give you outputs at the same temperature as inputs Which makes sense to me. But then some like the water purifier cool the output to 40 degrees no matter how hot the input is which feels buggy and non intuitive to me. 

They're generally not arbitrary.  Electrolyzer output of 70 C for example is the operating temperature for the most common low temperature electrolysis method.  Electrolyzers outputting at 70 C constant makes much more sense than cooling a NGG and getting polluted water and CO2 emitted at -20 C.Water purification in your local treatment plant has steps which warm the water as well, so I can see why 'water purifiers' warm the output to 40 degrees no matter how cool the input is.  Or showers cooling water from 90C to 20 C while not being warmed by the input water at all, how does that make sense? I tend to disagree with you for nearly every machine.

[Coolthulhu]

38 minutes ago, trukogre said:

Or showers cooling water from 90C to 20 C while not being warmed by the input water at all, how does that make sense?

That's a bug though.

[trukogre]

1 hour ago, Coolthulhu said:

That's a bug though.

Is it?  Showers didn't used to do that, and that behavior changed with Outbreak IIRC, which made it seem as if Klei made the change to prevent simply using geyser water in lavatories and showers from killing all the germs in the output polluted water tank without effort, thereby trivializing one of the two diseases even more.

[Coolthulhu]

5 hours ago, trukogre said:

Is it?  Showers didn't used to do that, and that behavior changed with Outbreak IIRC, which made it seem as if Klei made the change to prevent simply using geyser water in lavatories and showers from killing all the germs in the output polluted water tank without effort, thereby trivializing one of the two diseases even more.

It did happen around Outbreak, but even if Klei liked the effect and decided to keep it, I'm pretty sure that it is still a bug, because of how it works.

Note that the temperature of output for showers and lavatories isn't hard-set to some value, like with CO2 scrubber or water distiller. Instead, it is produced at the temperature of stored output (which may be 0kg). It will slowly drift towards the temperature of the environment, but only during use, because 0kg items do not exchange any heat. And the 0kg output is removed when loading a save (and replaced with input temperature on first use after load), so you need to watch it closely to understand what is going on.

I didn't test in a while, so it might have been changed after oil update release.

[Nebbie]

18 hours ago, Neotix said:

Those differences suppose to be a challenge and not to use one solution for everything.

But it really isn't challenging, an extra pump or two is generally meaningless. This is especially the case for CO2 (which is the main source of the inconsistency), as it's often best to just let the CO2 out right there anyways.