Please do something about water sieve and electrolyzer

[trukogre]

1 minute ago, leoroy said:

Sorry I had not notice your message! Yup, I feel you too, I do agree that the sieve is way easier, overpower compared to other solutions.

The sieve is a very interesting piece of machinery if you look at it over the course of the past year.  For most of that time people refused to use it because it used sand and so wasn't 'sustainable', even if you have enough sand for ten thousand cycles it still bugged people for some reason so many people simply didn't use it at all.  We always knew it was OP at cooling, but there were so many other OP cooling methods that no one really cared about an unsustainable method of cooling.  Then they started removing the other OP cooling methods, and then they added in regolith so it wasn't 'unsustainable' and actually made dirt sustainable through composting; and the water sieve has slowly become one of the most valuable and oft used pieces of machinery in the game.  Quite a journey for this little beast.

[blash365]

22 minutes ago, leoroy said:

And just to clarify, I'm against using sieve as cooling device too (Most of the time I sieve cold water lol)

Exactly.

The current quirkiness is even detrimental to the main usage of the water sieve, since it leaves us with output that can not be used for farming and will heat up our base if not properly isolated. This might be by design to force players to use advanced cooling to be able to farm bristles or sleat wheet. Still the energy input should account for that at least.

Players who choose not to use the sieve as a cooler, will instead be forced to use it as a heater (unless they provide water at exactly 40°C).

[trukogre]

26 minutes ago, blash365 said:

Exactly.

The current quirkiness is even detrimental to the main usage of the water sieve, since it leaves us with output that can not be used for farming and will heat up our base if not properly isolated. This might be by design to force players to use advanced cooling to be able to farm bristles or sleat wheet. Still the energy input should account for that at least.

Players who choose not to use the sieve as a cooler, will instead be forced to use it as a heater (unless they provide water at exactly 40°C).

If the water sieve is overpowered, then detrimental effects are actually a good thing, as it makes it less overpowered.

Why should the energy input need to account for a detrimental effect? and how?

[ImDaMisterL]

Again everyone, please be respectful and mindful of your replies. This thread can get pretty heated at times, so I just ask you to be calm and try not to be rude. If you feel your post might be addressing a user in a bad way or might offend someone, then maybe it's better not to post it.

[ToiDiaeRaRIsuOy]

35 minutes ago, leoroy said:

Sorry I had not notice your message! Yup, I feel you too, I do agree that the sieve is way easier, overpower compared to other solutions.

No problem. And of course it's a doubled edged sword: just take it away and bases will be hard to cool down. This is a part of ONI that imo needs to be fleshed out more.

[thewreckedangle]

1 hour ago, trukogre said:

only the most dedicated players tend to visit forums frequently.

only the most vocal. and not always in a good way /:

(and it's not just me that feels this)

[Mariilyn]

It was very well explained that the water sieve heating & cooling abilities are deeply unbalanced, compared to other buildings designed for these purposes, and especially considering its position in the tech tree.

And that these heating & cooling abilities are counterintuitive for many players, especially new ones, because they don't expect this kind of extreme behaviour from a simple water sieve.

It's obvious that the fixed ouput temperature is just a placeholder game mechanic until the sieve gets reworked. We just need to be patient about it.

[trukogre]

"It was very well explained that the water sieve heating & cooling abilities are deeply unbalanced, compared to other buildings designed for these purposes, and especially considering its position in the tech tree."

But the amusing thing, as I referenced above, is that the water sieve was once considered basically unusable, now everyone thinks it's overpowered...and nothing about the water sieve itself has changed, only the context around it.  I've always thought it was overpowered, however.

"And that these heating & cooling abilities are counterintuitive for many players, especially new ones, because they don't expect this kind of extreme behaviour from a simple water sieve."

I think understanding the water sieve is far from the greatest difficulty a new player faces, this doesn't seem all that relevant here.

"It's obvious that the fixed ouput temperature is just a placeholder game mechanic until the sieve gets reworked. We just need to be patient about it."

 

Fixed output temperature has been around since the game came out.  It's been so long that the main complaint about fixed output temperatures was once how they added so much heat to the base--now the complaint has come around the complete other direction.  The one constant has been people saying " don't worry,it's obviously a placeholder game mechanic that will soon be changed.  Just be patient."  It still may get changed--but soon has come and gone.

 

 

[Mariilyn]

40 minutes ago, trukogre said:

the water sieve was once considered basically unusable, now everyone thinks it's overpowered

From what I understand the water sieve was considered unusable because sand was not a renewable ressource. Its not the case anymore and it's got nothing to do with the fixed temperature output issue ? But criticisms related to heat addition are relevant for the current version of the game.

My personal complaint is not that other people use the water sieve as a cooling device, it's that its adding so much heat in my colonies. All early sources of polluted water are below 40C. Want to maintain a 20-25 degree closed loop water recycling system ? Well, too bad because the water sieve will heat your toilets and your living quarters.

The heart of the problem is that the water sieve is able to instantly heat or cool 5 kg of water per second, by more than 50C of difference, at the cost of 120 W. Clean water is coming out at 40C regardless of the input temperature. The thing is way more powerful than any other cooling device in the game, despite being a simple water filtration device. Why is it even logical.

40 minutes ago, trukogre said:

the water sieve is far from the greatest difficulty a new player faces

I wrote that it was counterintuitive, and I believe the behaviour I just described is counterintuitive, and unbalanced.

25 minutes ago, trukogre said:

Fixed output temperature has been around since the game came out. 

And they are gradually being corrected. As long as the game is in early access, we can expect it to change. Pointing to other inconsistent elements in the game that might also be reworked eventually is not exactly relevant either.

[trukogre]

"From what I understand the water sieve was considered unusable because sand was not a renewable ressource. Its not the case anymore and it's got nothing to do with the fixed temperature output issue ?"

That is an oversimplification.  water sieves were considered unusable for multiple factors, sand was an important one, scarcity of polluted water due to still using fert maker complexes was another, 40 C being relatively high especially before aquatuners was another, etc.  Your argument includes a claim that over time fixed output temperatures are tending towards removal, you can't make that argument, based on history, and also object when I make arguments based on other trends, or even just mention historical facts for context.  You're trying to have your cake and eat it too, there.

"The thing is way more powerful than any other cooling device in the game, despite being a simple water filtration device. Why is it even logical."

The petroleum generator can generate 750 g/s of -200 Celsius polluted ice as a byproduct of power generation via BURNING PETROLEUM.  I would argue that this is more powerful and less logical than the water sieve, actually; although the concrete answer of which is more powerful basically depends on  how you define the term.

 

"I wrote that it was counterintuitive, and I believe the behaviour I just described is counterintuitive, and unbalanced."

Yes, and I wrote what I wrote, and I believe what I believe.  ... can we agree to just take it for granted that we each 'wrote what we wrote', floating in a boat in a moat under our coat, or just on our keyboards like normal people.  we could go on like this all day but it doesn't seem to advance the argument any.

 

"And they are gradually being corrected. As long as the game is in early access, we can expect it to change. Pointing to other inconsistent elements in the game that might also be reworked eventually is not exactly relevant either"

I disagree wholeheartedly.  You are making a claim of a historical trend existing among these elements.  Pointing to other inconsistent elements is exactly how to confirm or deny such a trend.  For example:  look at the new machines that are being introduced.  Are they thermodynamically consistent?  Let's look at them:

Petroleum generator is pretty new.  Does it make sense thermodynamically?  As noted above, no it does not.

How about pet refinery and polymer press?  These are two of the more recent 'material creation' machines.  I believe both are 'fixed temp output machines'...so much for those gradually being corrected, eh?

How about metal refinery?  Well it takes some amount of electrical power, and generates like a million times as much heat as electrical energy that was used.  That doesn't really make sense either...hm.  so you've claimed that they're 'gradually being corrected", but if we actually look at examples, we see that the problem is actually growing larger with each update.  I agree that we can expect the game to change, but if you're allowed to look at the game and see trends, than you have to allow me the same privilege; and the difference is that I'm citing examples to back up the trends which I see.  You're calling my examples irrelevant, but I prefer to call them 'evidence'.  If you want to convince others, I urge you to reconsider your characterization of these examples.  Another trend I see is that Klei keeps removing cooling bugs, while adding in 300 C regolith, and volcanoes, and more and more machines which have huge heat outputs.  At some point that trend won't work anymore.

[Mariilyn]

6 hours ago, trukogre said:

water sieves were considered unusable for multiple factors

But again, why are those elements of context relevant to the current discussion regarding the fixed output temperature of the water sieve ? Knowing that it was considered unusable for unrelated reasons but is now more widely used, again for unrelated reasons, doesn't change anything about the fact that its cooling and heating abilities are unbalanced and conceptually unintuitive. You even wrote earlier that you always thought it was overpowered.

 

6 hours ago, trukogre said:

Your argument includes a claim that over time fixed output temperatures are tending towards removal

Yes, I was referring to the changes made to the lavatories and showers which do not have a fixed output temperature anymore. I would also include the recent tuning of the fertilizer economy as an example of a modification that makes the fertilizer synthesizer more consistant with its primary purpose.

The petroleum generator is .... an interesting example because its precisely the kind of building that should be reworked in the future, because it can be exploited like this. I would certainly not expect it to be functional at -200C, below the freezing point of petroleum. Rather, it should require a minimum temperature for the incoming petroleum (or something very similar), like the steam turbine does. And the steam turbine is a newer building than all those you mentioned. 

Many other buildings have fixed temperature outputs. But what makes the water sieve a more blatant case than say, the petroleum generator or the polymer press is that it's an early game building currently used by most players and whose fixed temperature output has significant consequences on gameplay.

Some building might be justified in having a fixed temperature output. But if the building itself has to make up for the difference in temperature of the incoming material, that needs to be accounted for. If the building needs a specific temperature range to be able to function, then it should require a specific temperature for the incoming material.

It's kind of expected for every new building to eventually go through a couple of iterations. As the game progress, changes are made to achieve a better balance and refine the systems.

And people asking for specific changes are not demanding absolute realism, but consistency, at least on a conceptual level. Like a simple sieve should not instantly cool down boiling water and a generator relying on combustion should not be able to produce ice. Is that too big an expectation ?

 

6 hours ago, trukogre said:

Another trend I see is that Klei keeps removing cooling bugs, while adding in 300 C regolith, and volcanoes, and more and more machines which have huge heat outputs. 

Yeah... but cool slush geysers and the vacuum of space were added in the same timeframe. I get that the cool slush geysers are not as common as I thought they were and that sending hot gases and liquids in space is not early game stuff but new ways of getting rid of the heat were added. Regolith is obviously problematic at the moment. It's good that these concerns were expressed but I don't really know what to say except that the game is very playable and let's see what the next updates will bring ?

[ToiDiaeRaRIsuOy]

3 hours ago, Mariilyn said:

But again, why are those elements of context relevant to the current discussion regarding the fixed output temperature of the water sieve ? Knowing that it was considered unusable for unrelated reasons but is now more widely used, again for unrelated reasons, doesn't change anything about the fact that its cooling and heating abilities are unbalanced and conceptually unintuitive. You even wrote earlier that you always thought it was overpowered.

 

Yes, I was referring to the changes made to the lavatories and showers which do not have a fixed output temperature anymore. I would also include the recent tuning of the fertilizer economy as an example of a modification that makes the fertilizer synthesizer more consistant with its primary purpose.

The petroleum generator is .... an interesting example because its precisely the kind of building that should be reworked in the future, because it can be exploited like this. I would certainly not expect it to be functional at -200C, below the freezing point of petroleum. Rather, it should require a minimum temperature for the incoming petroleum (or something very similar), like the steam turbine does. And the steam turbine is a newer building than all those you mentioned. 

Many other buildings have fixed temperature outputs. But what makes the water sieve a more blatant case than say, the petroleum generator or the polymer press is that it's an early game building currently used by most players and whose fixed temperature output has significant consequences on gameplay.

Some building might be justified in having a fixed temperature output. But if the building itself has to make up for the difference in temperature of the incoming material, that needs to be accounted for. If the building needs a specific temperature range to be able to function, then it should require a specific temperature for the incoming material.

It's kind of expected for every new building to eventually go through a couple of iterations. As the game progress, changes are made to achieve a better balance and refine the systems.

And people asking for specific changes are not demanding absolute realism, but consistency, at least on a conceptual level. Like a simple sieve should not instantly cool down boiling water and a generator relying on combustion should not be able to produce ice. Is that too big an expectation ?

 

Yeah... but cool slush geysers and the vacuum of space were added in the same timeframe. I get that the cool slush geysers are not as common as I thought they were and that sending hot gases and liquids in space is not early game stuff but new ways of getting rid of the heat were added. Regolith is obviously problematic at the moment. It's good that these concerns were expressed but I don't really know what to say except that the game is very playable and let's see what the next updates will bring ?

Arguments like "a year ago it was unusable" make for little more than nice anekdotes and ONI development memoires, nothing else. As you said yourself, it is not relevant to how the situation is currently so I wouldn't give too much thought on what is basically off the topic.

I agree with everything you basically said, on the basis we also get more tools for cooling, especially liquids. Take away the fixed output of the water sieve, which I do advocate to happen, and you are basically stuck with either gas cooling (very slow on liquids),  aquatuner cooling (takes huge amounts of power and you still need to deal with the heat) and the bit less conventional way of building ice sculptures in your reservoirs (takes up a lot of dupe time) or ice storage shenanigans. I got 3 proposals:

1) A low tech device that cools 5kg/s of water. It's basically a high volume ice/polluted ice/snow storage where you can pump water through. It should also work underwater. The benefits of it should outweight in some way compactors. I'd also tweak compactors not to work underwater and if they get flooded, they drop their contents. 

2) A device that cools water chemically through endothermic reaction: have the device sit in a reservoir, pump in 2 sorts of gasses, or 1 gas and one solid, that make a little bit of sense with real life endothermic reactions. Cools down water averagily. Does not work outside a water pool. Possible is that it drops a byproduct that is very hot and needs to be removed from the water, or that you first need to produce a gas/solid through exothermic reaction which then needs to be put into the device and run current through to make it endothermic.

3) Space heat radiation: space should cool down your pipes on a slow to average rate through heat radiation. If they don't already, meteors should destroy pipes when traveling through or impacting near, so you do have to protect them.

 

Next to that, aquatuners should get tweaks to make them more interesting in lieu with the proposals above. Maybe a very soft heat deletion of a couple of degrees, less power requirements, ability to make them out of refined metals (especially steel!) to make them worthwhile in a loop with steam turbines.

 

(Also, can someone explain how the petroleum generator ice trick works? This is the first time I hear about this.)

[blash365]

1 hour ago, ToiDiaeRaRIsuOy said:

I got 3 proposals:

1 and 2 sound seem to be heat moving proposals while 3 is heat removal. Since the water sieve removes heat only the third proposal might be a replacement for it.

1 hour ago, ToiDiaeRaRIsuOy said:

Maybe a very soft heat deletion of a couple of degrees,

This might allow them to cool themselves, which would again be exploit-ish.

1 hour ago, ToiDiaeRaRIsuOy said:

(Also, can someone explain how the petroleum generator ice trick works? This is the first time I hear about this.)

+1

[ToiDiaeRaRIsuOy]

1 minute ago, blash365 said:

1 and 2 sound seem to be heat moving proposals while 3 is heat removal. Since the water sieve removes heat only the third proposal might be a replacement for it.

This might allow them to cool themselves, which would again be exploit-ish.

+1

1 is definitely a heat moving proposal. It's low tech after all. Heat removal shouldn't be possible at low tech level, but you do should have some tools to deal with high mass cooling at that point.

2 Is a much higher tech and I could swing either way with heat deletion. I don't think it should be too easy either though

Either way, the solutions should not make the aquatuners redundant. So you will have to tweak it to make it somehow viable anyhow. I'm not for any insane power requirements on new solutions. It should be technically challenging and rewarding when you got the set up right. To make aquatuners still usable in all of this requires some concessions, like perhaps a very small heat deletion. Maybe not 2 degreees but perhaps 0.3 degrees? Or perhaps a different solution altogether that will keep the aquatuner's concept unchanged?

[blash365]

Well the challenge with an aquatuner (apart from the energy requirements) is that it heats up its vicinity significantly.

So if the aquatuner is rebalanced, then it has to be assured that it can not simply cool its own chamber (as you were able to with the drip cooling exploit).

I havent dont the math, so maybe it is possible with 2 degree deletion or 0.3 degree deletion.

[trukogre]

12 hours ago, Mariilyn said:

But again, why are those elements of context relevant to the current discussion regarding the fixed output temperature of the water sieve ?

That context illustrates: 1 how Klei's original intent got us to the current situation without getting changed before now, and Klei changing broken machines is your entire point, so that right there is super relevant already. 2. reminds us of the danger of making balance decisions based solely on the current environment, since we expect the game world to change going forwards. 3.  by illustrating all of the changes which affected the sieve so far, we'll have a better idea of what changes will be relevant to it going forward.  It's easy to think "Oh, we don't need to look at history, we can just look at what's happening now and figure everything out", but that thought is generally wrong.  Experience has taught us that in general, given a complex enough system, the unintended and unforeseen consequences of changes are often more significant than the intended and foreseen.

"Yes, I was referring to the changes made to the lavatories and showers which do not have a fixed output temperature anymore."

 

They never did.  They used to output at their own temperature, which wasn't fixed, now they output at the input temperature, which isn't fixed either.  This isn't a two option game, things can output at many many different temperatures, just because it's not fixed doesn't mean it's good, or better, although it could be.  Generally things which output at the building temperature are even more problematic than things with a fixed output temperature.  I used to put my first few wheezes around my showers/lavatories so they would pump out 2 Celsius polluted water...basically they functioned as a small early slush geyser.  Showers are pretty useless now but when they turned 90 Celsius geyser water into 2 Celsius polluted water, they were great.

"I would also include the recent tuning of the fertilizer economy as an example of a modification that makes the fertilizer synthesizer more consistant with its primary purpose."

And which dramatically increased sieve usage/the relative power of the sieve...somehow the fertilizer economy tuning was irrelevant context when I mentioned it in that regard, despite this entire thread being about the sieve, but when you mentioned it not in context of the sieve, suddenly it's on topic???  So basically your point here is that in a thread about the sieve, mentioning the fertilizer tuning is only on topic if you don't mention the sieve!?!?!  That's hilarious.

" Like a simple sieve should not instantly cool down boiling water and a generator relying on combustion should not be able to produce ice. Is that too big an expectation ?"

 

Well, by the evidence, obviously yes, that's too much to expect; expecting the opposite of what actually *is* never works out to well.  It's a reasonable goal, but it's important to be not only reasonable but realistic.  Remember, I'm not arguing that these problems *should* exist, I'm just disagreeing with your statement that they are on a trendline towards being fixed.  I am simply making the scientific observation that new fixed output temperature buildings are being created faster than existing ones are being revised.  This is a simple, factual statement.  We are making some progress towards agreeing on this, I think, as we are identifying building that you thought had been revised away from fixed output, that were actually never fixed output to begin with.  Hopefully at some point Klei will move away from creating a ton of new buildings and towards revising existing buildings to make sense.  I'm just being realistic in observing that we're not likely to get what you're looking for until that time.  I'm not trying to hate on Klei here, the game is super fun, they are creating a lot of new content, they are fixing bugs and improving balance.  But, if we're being honest, the fixed output temp buildings are increasing in number.  that's all.

 

"It's good that these concerns were expressed but I don't really know what to say except that the game is very playable and let's see what the next updates will bring ?"

 

That's reasonable, and it's also reasonable to look at past patches and predict that the next updates will bring more fixed output buildings.

 

[Albryant]

On 7/29/2018 at 12:46 PM, leoroy said:

 

Shall we do a survey?

I've never used the water sieve to cool water.  If I need to cool down water I'll drop some ice sculptures short term or let ice/snow slowly melt in the long term.  Of course I've never had a base go beyond 500 cycles before deciding to start fresh.  Nor have I played around with advanced builds like oil boilers and steam turbine stuff.  So my experience is only a drop in the ocean and not worth very much.

[Scorpio King]

My solution is vacuum base, dupes sleep in space suits.

[PhailRaptor]

20 hours ago, ToiDiaeRaRIsuOy said:

(Also, can someone explain how the petroleum generator ice trick works? This is the first time I hear about this.)

If it's what I think it is, it's the same thing that happens with the NatGas Generator.  The buildings are coded to produce their products at the same temperature as the machine itself currently is.  So you intentionally cool the machine itself to an extremely low temperature before you begin using it.  And in the case of the PetroGen, you also go out of your way to make that Petro absorb heat before sending it to the Generator to maximize the heat deletion (possible with NatGas too, but not as efficient).

So if your NatGas Generator itself is currently -20 C, both the CO2 and the P-H2O it produces will also be -20 C, which will cause the droplets of P-H2O to immediately freeze as they are expelled from the machine, creating blobs of Polluted Ice instead of puddles of P-H2O.  It doesn't matter whether the NatGas you pump into the Generator is at -20 C, or 20 C, or 200 C (assuming the pipes are Abyssalite).  I believe this is the same arrangement for the PetroGen, except Petro is a better container for heat energy than NatGas.