Plumbing & Ventilation views: Should there be a special color for Abyssalite

[greggbert]

Most players have realized that insulated pipes and Abyssalite regular pipes (not insulated) are functionally similar in that you don't need insulated pipes if you have a standard one one made of Abyssalite.

If I have a stretch of pipes or gas pipes or tiles that need to be insulated, I consider them good if they have either insulation or AbyssalitE, and I usually end up with some mixture of the two. 

When I'm troubleshooting a heat problem, I will often use the temperature view, and then the plumbing and ventilation views also to see where I might need some extra insulation and that's where I run into an annoyance.  The Abyssalite pipes don't appear yellow and so they look identical to non-insulated pipes, although functionally speaking they are insulated.

This is confusing and in some cases I've even gone as far as to replace Abyssalite pipes with insulated igneous pipes (running low on sandstone) just so they will show up yellow on the display, even though I think they are not as effective!

I have a similar issue with Abyssalite tiles looking identical to non-insulated tiles, requiring me to hover my mouse over each and every tile and pipe to make sure I got it right.

1)  Is anyone else having this issue?

2) Is it something Klei should change?

3) How should the change it.  Maybe a different color for Abyssalite?   Or just make them yellow?

 

[Sasza22]

The thing is abyssalite piping shouldn`t be easier to make and more effective than insulated piping. But it is and that is the source of the problem. I tried making my insulated pipes out of ceramic but after 100 cycles of kiln running i barely had enough for a short line.

1. i don`t usually have trouble keeping track of the materials i build with, but my bases don`t have too complicated systems.

2&3 I`m not sure. Normal pipes appear as white. Abyssalite pipes are normal ones but from a different material. Giving it a different color wouldn`t be consistent with how it`s represented. They would have to make colors for all materials.

Actually i think they need to take a look on insulated stuff. Insulated pipes costing 400 kg per tile is crazy when considering ceramic. One of my ideas is to introduce new type of materials (ceramic being one of them) and insulated stuff would be constructed only from those but costing much less per tile.

[heckubis]

yah thats the problem with using abbys normal tiles/pipes instead of insulated pipes. its only a small savings in the big picture there is alot of abyss on the map. you can abyssal wall the entire magma biome and under the surface and still have plenty to play with

i wouldnt say this is kleis fault its purely a user decision to use tiles that will cause confusion later. it is the users job to keep stuff like that organized.

although i do agree that each material type should visually have a different color to match their material would. black obsidian forges built around volcanoes and vents would look awesome.

on a side note although you loose half of material on a dig you get all of it back from a deconstruct.(minus things with 2or more materials High pressure vents) so areas you have used abbysal that no longer need the insulation can be repurposed.

[Christophlette]

1 hour ago, Sasza22 said:

Actually i think they need to take a look on insulated stuff. Insulated pipes costing 400 kg per tile is crazy when considering ceramic. One of my ideas is to introduce new type of materials (ceramic being one of them) and insulated stuff would be constructed only from those but costing much less per tile.

That's actually a good idea and could lead to clay cooking with heat and then cooling it. That way you could get creative to get an increase of efficiency. The only problem I see is cooling an insulating material... But oh well, it may satisfy our complex builders

[The Plum Gate]

I'm pretty sure this still works.

Although It would be nice if Abyssalite would dig-out at the same color temperature as nutronium. This would essentially turn in pale blue when it spawns a drop block.