Combustion & Oxygen?

[QuantumPion]

Does anyone else think it is an odd mechanic that combustion machines and the hydrogen generator do not actually consume oxygen? Considering the management of oxygen is the the core aspect and namesake of the game, I think these mechanics could be overhauled. In order to not violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, it should not be possible to produce positive net energy by producing oxygen by electrolysis and then use that oxygen in a coal/petroleum engine or hydrogen generator. The same pretty much applies to hamster wheels, as humans/dupes are basically just low efficiency combustion engines "burning" food & oxygen for energy.

So what would we do for energy instead? Nuclear energy of course! I know this would be a major change to the game mechanics, but I think it would be much more realistic. The primary goal of the game should be produce enough oxygen for your dupes, and electrolyzation of water would be the highly energy intensive end-game method. Hamster wheels could still be used at the beginning of the game when you need a small amount of power and have oxylite and algae deoxidizers. But the middle and late game power production would come from radioisotope thermal generators and nuclear fission.

[Saturnus]

How about. It's a magical world where you can print fully functional living things on the fly so maybe physics in this magical realm just doesn't work quite like it does in the real world.

[eloy2030]

besides, the only, meaningful, way (afaik) oxygen is ¨created¨ in this planet is photosynthesis. Sooo... we would need a WHOLE lot of plants AND SOLAR radiation for your idea to actually work...I think...

[avc15]

in real life, hydrogen generators are normally called oxygen generators. They also don't consume oxygen, they electrolyze water. (maybe consuming a very miniscule amount of oxygen inside the machine in the form of RUST which causes the machine to eventually break)

 

Now, I have actually wished for a way to burn off combustible gases in this game. Natural gas, oxygen, hydrogen. To bring it back into the topic at hand.

[trukogre]

1 hour ago, avc15 said:

in real life, hydrogen generators are normally called oxygen generators. They also don't consume oxygen, they electrolyze water. (maybe consuming a very miniscule amount of oxygen inside the machine in the form of RUST which causes the machine to eventually break)

 

Now, I have actually wished for a way to burn off combustible gases in this game. Natural gas, oxygen, hydrogen. To bring it back into the topic at hand.

You seem confused.  Electrolyzers in the game generate oxygen, by electrolyzing water. Sometimes in real life, electrolyzers are referred to as hydrogen generators.   Hydrogen generators in the game are analogous to hydrogen fuel cells in real life, which consume hydrogen to produce power.  Bringing up real life hydrogen generators in a thread about ingame hydrogen generators is simply a mistake on your part, they are different machines and you are only confusing the issue by doing so.

[avc15]

ah yeah, I was confused. hydrogen generator. 

I worked on H2/O2 generators in a past life, easy to misunderstand when in the real world the term is applied to the machine making hydrogen, not a machine using hydrogen to make electricity :b

 

[trukogre]

Yea, Klei has a number of confusing names, although to be fair if HFC ever get sold to consumers in large numbers IRL we'll probably switch the term hydrogen generator to refer to them, so this is an example of a confusing name that still is logical for them to use.  E.g. every science fiction book from fifty years ago predicted that we'd be using pocket sized computers that could surf the web and watch movies etc, but how many of them predicted that we'd call them 'phones'?  Perhaps I should call my expensive gaming desktop PC a "desktop phone", I voice chat on it much more often than I do on my Iphone. I suppose every device with a confusing name in ONI is just more realism.