Will There Ever Be Something Better Than Gold Amalgam?

[Koningkrush]

Is there any particular reason many buildings are limited to being made of raw metal only? Why can't these buildings also be made out of something like, say Steel? Is it for balance reasons?

I feel like I would have a lot more fun messing with temperatures if I could make buildings that usually only take raw metal out of Refined metal as well.

Is there any mod for this?

[Neotuck]

5 hours ago, Koningkrush said:

Is there any particular reason many buildings are limited to being made of raw metal only? Why can't these buildings also be made out of something like, say Steel? Is it for balance reasons?

Players have been asking the devs for a way to fix this ever since metal volcanoes were added to ONI 

[Coolthulhu]

Potential balance problems with steel buildings:

• Steel generators would never overheat since the pwater will always spawn as itself, not as steam, and thus would only be 125C. Most likely easily fixable by allowing them to output steam or steam+dirt.
• Pumps never overheating in natgas geysers. But that's not a huge deal, we have to cool steam and metal geysers already and we manage it just fine.
• Aquatuner heating stuff up to 325C without breaking. I don't remember steam turbine threshold, but I think it was closer to 373C or so, so it doesn't seem to be the problem.
• Coal turns to carbon below 300C. That's so minuscule and completely unimportant that it can't be the reason.

Non-balance reasons:

• UI pollution. Increasing the number of metals from 4 to 9 would only make it as long as list of rocks (8 if I didn't forget any) and there are UIs far worse than material selection (egg selection, critter feeder with every baby critter having own entry).
• Resource availability. Smooth hatches exist and rock crusher metal recipes exist so it can't be it.

There doesn't seem to be a good reason for this.

[SkunkMaster]

I hope they give us improved versions of our current buildings. Making the progress through the research tree more meaningful, and progress not just only for the case of new buildings, but also better versions of currently unlocked ones.

[landromat]

4 hours ago, Coolthulhu said:

I think it was closer to 373C

226.9C You can run infinite steam turbine/steel aquatuner system

[avc15]

6 minutes ago, landromat said:

226.9C You can run infinite steam turbine/steel aquatuner system

Hopefully it still takes a rather large number of pumps to keep a steam generator running.

Compressing steam isn't realistic.

[Skrivener]

4 hours ago, Coolthulhu said:

There doesn't seem to be a good reason for this.

My guess is it's simply a time issue. The devs are pursuing their roadmap - spending time working in and balancing more metals would delay other items more urgent to have in place. I would expect it to come eventually, but we only just got the (presumable) end-game biome in the last update, and the list of potential things to work in is still pretty long.

[storm6436]

Watch that endgame biome be below the lava zone.  *sigh*

[Sevio]

On 6/18/2018 at 1:17 AM, Coolthulhu said:

Potential balance problems with steel buildings:

...

• Aquatuner heating stuff up to 325C without breaking. I don't remember steam turbine threshold, but I think it was closer to 373C or so, so it doesn't seem to be the problem.

...

There doesn't seem to be a good reason for this.

 

On 6/18/2018 at 5:24 AM, landromat said:

226.9C You can run infinite steam turbine/steel aquatuner system

The steam turbine could use some reworking imho. It should give a variable amount of power corresponding directly to the amount of steam going through and the cooling done, so in the process they could also balance it so that it works with lower temperature steam and using a tepidizer or aquatuner to make steam is never power positive. (but you might be able to reclaim some power when you want to boil polluted water to clean it)

I'm not sure if doing this would make the magma -> steam process unviable in terms of power return, but on the flip side, with proper setup you could maybe use cool steam vents.

[old_fantom]

I am hoping for ceramic pumps at some point.  It makes sense that they might need ceramic and steel to build.  

[BlueLance]

On 18/06/2018 at 4:31 AM, avc15 said:

Hopefully it still takes a rather large number of pumps to keep a steam generator running.

Compressing steam isn't realistic.

My build doesnt compress it, but due to a bug with steam generators it doesnt work unless you rapidly cool the steam. Also doesnt it overheat at 1000? Pretty sure thats what it showed me...