High Temperature Substance Handling

[InternetGuy]

I am such a derp. I only found the Suggestion thread and I don't know how to delete this post I made on the General discussion thread. So sorry, mods. :'(

I've been playing Oxygen Not Included for a while now and just now decided to join the forums. As a chemical engineering student, I loved it for the resource gathering and processing of materials in order to survive! A few quirks here and there do make me laugh on how ridiculous they are like liquids not evaporating in a vacuum. I know this is a game so I can get behind those weird in-game physics. The game though has a very few ways to do certain processes in high temperature environments.

I want to have a discussion first if the changes I have in mind makes sense within this game so I hope I can get everyone's feedback here. If there's any criticism of the following, please let me know. Also note, the devs might be planning on some of these features already but I don't know where I can see their planned features until they release a patch.

Feature suggestions:

• Liquid and Gas Reservoirs - Since these were only meant as buffers in a liquid and gas line respectively, why not remove their overheat temperature and base their temperature threshold on the material's melting point? They don't have any moving parts that can break under extreme temperatures and they can't be automated thus far. It just makes sense. What I would do with this feature would be using steam to transfer heat from a volcano or the surface exposed to space to power a steam turbine and having a gas buffer to hold the super heated steam would be awesome without relying on the good old pipe spaghetti.
• Tungsten - I am confused why Tungsten does not increase overheat capacity of a machine that it's constructed with. Tungsten has the highest melting point among all the pure elements so far as I know. Let tungsten increase a machine's overheat capacity to +300 to +500 since it should be harder to melt than steel.
• Industrial pumps - I have to rely on the air lock trick to move hot steam around since air pumps can't keep up with the flowrate of steam and the operating temperature is well over its overheating temperature even with gold amalgalm. I propose the use of Industrial pumps wherein for 300W or more can pump 20-30 kg of gas and liquid. The catch being is that it can't be connected to a pipe. Instead, these pumps transfer gas/liquid from one side to another; much like the airlock door trick that's already being done.
• Mining laser - Regolith is a pesky thing to have when having a solar array exposed to space or getting heat from space. I can send out duplicants to clear it out really and I don't mind it staying this way at all. Automation of removing regolith using airlocks though feels cheaty to me and I don't think it's an intended feature so I propose a high powered mining laser. It's default overheat value is 175 C and consumes about 300W or more with a limited mining distance of 8 tiles. It can be constructed from refined metal but requires diamonds. It also heats up like crazy so it can overheat easily if not cooled properly.
• Refined metals in all machines - I know that there is a way to get more raw metals via the rocket but it's a bit overboard to get metal from outerspace to fix the microbemusher that someone (Meep) decided to pee on. This is not so much on high temperature handling of machines and can ban the use of steel and tungsten to construct these machines if need be to retain balance in game like to avoid using the thermo aquatuner to power the steam turbine.

 

That's all thus far. Thank you for listening to me. I hope I get some feedback on this.

[D.L.S.]

13 hours ago, InternetGuy said:

Industrial pumps - I have to rely on the air lock trick to move hot steam around since air pumps can't keep up with the flowrate of steam and the operating temperature is well over its overheating temperature even with gold amalgalm. I propose the use of Industrial pumps wherein for 300W or more can pump 20-30 kg of gas and liquid. The catch being is that it can't be connected to a pipe. Instead, these pumps transfer gas/liquid from one side to another; much like the airlock door trick that's already being done.

 

Yes i also like devices which interacting with environment(like steam turbine) so you have more creativity to build things using game mechanics. I think 1x1 tile pump which will push liquid(or gas in case of gas pump) in certain direction will be fine, need more - just stack pumps in parallel. But power consumption should be significant.

[InternetGuy]

1 hour ago, D.L.S. said:

 

Yes i also like devices which interacting with environment(like steam turbine) so you have more creativity to build things using game mechanics. I think 1x1 tile pump which will push liquid(or gas in case of gas pump) in certain direction will be fine, need more - just stack pumps in parallel. But power consumption should be significant.

Thank you. I was thinking it would be a 2x2 structure much like the gas pump but I guess having it 1 tile wide offers much more options to use. It could even be just a fan wherein if power stops flowing to it, the gases start backflowing which makes the use of airlocks necessary in the build.

[crypticorb]

On 9/24/2018 at 9:12 AM, InternetGuy said:

Tungsten - I am confused why Tungsten does not increase overheat capacity of a machine that it's constructed with. Tungsten has the highest melting point among all the pure elements so far as I know. Let tungsten increase a machine's overheat capacity to +300 to +500 since it should be harder to melt than steel.

This is VERY much needed. I never really understood why gold amalgam, which is a gold/mercury alloy and has a relatively low melting point, increases overheat temperature, while materials like iron ore and wolframite (and their refined counterparts) have no effect.

The game desperately needs a means of processing 200^oC+ materials, such as steam, partially cooled refined metals, regolith, sour gas, etc. Even if it only has endgame accessibility, it would be a highly desired research goal.

 

On 9/24/2018 at 9:12 AM, InternetGuy said:

Mining laser - Regolith is a pesky thing to have when having a solar array exposed to space or getting heat from space. I can send out duplicants to clear it out really and I don't mind it staying this way at all. Automation of removing regolith using airlocks though feels cheaty to me and I don't think it's an intended feature so I propose a high powered mining laser. It's default overheat value is 175 C and consumes about 300W or more with a limited mining distance of 8 tiles. It can be constructed from refined metal but requires diamonds. It also heats up like crazy so it can overheat easily if not cooled properly.

Regolith is currently a massive pain. It's incredibly hot, there's GIGAtons of it piling up, and it takes days to clear away. Even with debug floor clearing it can lag my game quite a bit on daily save.

I feel like the devs will fix this unbalance, but having the means to automate digging of material could give loads of possibilities, such as digging dirt from a dirt cooker facility, digging ice from a water freezing system, or even automatic killing of critters.

[InternetGuy]

9 hours ago, crypticorb said:

This is VERY much needed. I never really understood why gold amalgam, which is a gold/mercury alloy and has a relatively low melting point, increases overheat temperature, while materials like iron ore and wolframite (and their refined counterparts) have no effect.

The game desperately needs a means of processing 200^oC+ materials, such as steam, partially cooled refined metals, regolith, sour gas, etc. Even if it only has endgame accessibility, it would be a highly desired research goal.

There is already steel to handle 200C+ temperatures but true, some machines need to go a bit beyond that like the steam turbine. Really also do hope they add this feature to Tungsten at least.

9 hours ago, crypticorb said:

Regolith is currently a massive pain. It's incredibly hot, there's GIGAtons of it piling up, and it takes days to clear away. Even with debug floor clearing it can lag my game quite a bit on daily save.

I feel like the devs will fix this unbalance, but having the means to automate digging of material could give loads of possibilities, such as digging dirt from a dirt cooker facility, digging ice from a water freezing system, or even automatic killing of critters.

We need more machines that interact with the world directly like this. Some of it to auto-break things and one I thought is move gas from one tile to another. I am hoping we'd get an Industrial fan so we all can stop using the airlock pump since I feel the devs might get around in fixing or something.

[Zarquan]

14 hours ago, crypticorb said:

This is VERY much needed. I never really understood why gold amalgam, which is a gold/mercury alloy and has a relatively low melting point, increases overheat temperature, while materials like iron ore and wolframite (and their refined counterparts) have no effect.

It isn't about the melting point.  I believe the concept is around the idea that gold does not rust.  Rust happens more at higher temperatures, so a metal that doesn't rust and will not decay over time.  Of course, rust in the game does not exist.  I am not sure if this is what the developers had in mind, but it is a theory.

[InternetGuy]

2 hours ago, Zarquan said:

It isn't about the melting point.  I believe the concept is around the idea that gold does not rust.  Rust happens more at higher temperatures, so a metal that doesn't rust and will not decay over time.  Of course, rust in the game does not exist.  I am not sure if this is what the developers had in mind, but it is a theory.

There are various factors to consider why a machine would fail especially in high temperature environments. One would be thermal stress and it is affected by several factors such as how the material parts expand and contract in different temperatures. That's not to say that you're wrong on that but rusting typically takes much longer to take effect in making a machine break in real life. Then again, delivering the wrong element to a machine input does break it so I'm not sure with the logic either. I just really felt like Tungsten needed more use out of it and felt like high temperature application is a perfect way to use it.

[D.L.S.]

We have only 1(in some cases 2) material to build complex devices like pump or battery, it is difficult to say what was build there from this resource, we can guess that in liquid pump would be gold winding of electric motor, somehow it make sense - gold have less resistant so it will have less waste heat on winding coils(at same wire thickness, but heavier weight due to its hight density...) so can have slightly higher operating temperature then copper, but what about battery, which significant part of battery made of gold?

What i'm trying to say: having only 1(or 2) materials to build complex devices is not enough, it is too casually.

[InternetGuy]

17 minutes ago, D.L.S. said:

We have only 1(in some cases 2) material to build complex devices like pump or battery, it is difficult to say what was build there from this resource, we can guess that in liquid pump would be gold winding of electric motor, somehow it make sense - gold have less resistant so it will have less waste heat on winding coils(at same wire thickness, but heavier weight due to its hight density...) so can have slightly higher operating temperature then copper, but what about battery, which significant part of battery made of gold?

What i'm trying to say: having only 1(or 2) materials to build complex devices is not enough, it is too casually.

Yeah, the materials list make no sense when you think about it but it's just one of those things we let slide. We're still left unsure about the game logic here on what's the basis of overheating failure. I just went with an assumption higher melting point equals higher overheating value. I'm not sure if the game would any be fun if machine constructions were realistic though. That's just me. :/

[Sasza22]

What we need is a high temperature alloy for handling really hot stuff. Most real life machines aren`t build to handle super hot stuff but those that are use special alloys that retain their properties at high heat. Possibly some kind of tungsten alloy.

From my earlier suggestions:
Cast iron - a material made from iron and carbon (much more crabon than steel), can be used as a raw metal for pumps and stuff but has a much higher overheat temperature.
Advanced pumps - made from refined metals and have an attached input pipe (that`s a part of the building) that can be rotated, they can pump stuff they are not directly touching so they minimize heating themselves.

[InternetGuy]

2 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

What we need is a high temperature alloy for handling really hot stuff. Most real life machines aren`t build to handle super hot stuff but those that are use special alloys that retain their properties at high heat. Possibly some kind of tungsten alloy.

From my earlier suggestions:
Cast iron - a material made from iron and carbon (much more crabon than steel), can be used as a raw metal for pumps and stuff but has a much higher overheat temperature.
Advanced pumps - made from refined metals and have an attached input pipe (that`s a part of the building) that can be rotated, they can pump stuff they are not directly touching so they minimize heating themselves.

Cast iron in real life is kind of crappy for machines but I get where you're going with that however I do feel that a use for Tungsten or at least make each metal in the game have more distinct individual use out of it; which reminds me, wolframite is kind of useless now as a conductive pipe since we have radiant pipes. In the realm of the game though, your cast iron suggestion isn't bad at all. It can be processed from steel since it would be better than steel from what I'm getting from you.

The advance pump though, I can't quite get behind that. It seems kind of out of place and odd for how it works and interact. The devs can simply allow the construction of the pre-existing pumps using refined metal and use steel for them which would bump up the overheat value of the pumps by +200C. On how it pumps fluids without touching them, I can't imagine of a physical process on how this happens.

[D.L.S.]

I remember in minecraft we had piston device, if we had this in ONI all was easy, basically same as door pump exploit, but 1x1 tile and dedicated for this purposes device which move liquid/gas or "dynamic solid" like sand from one tile to next tile, it suppose to move substance and not just destroy it, so if no space where substance could go it will crack wall or piston itself as it happened at overpressure in game, so with this we could build pumps and valves of different size, ofc it suppose to be powered by wire(eat a lot of energy - it move 1m^3 of substance in 1 go) and activated with automation wire Just special device which should be balanced and not an exploit(door pumps which could be fixed in future). Very simple.

[StarSquid]

For the industrial gas pump, why not make it a fan? A smaller, one-tile sized fan would be incredibly useful for ventilation purposes.

[InternetGuy]

11 hours ago, D.L.S. said:

I remember in minecraft we had piston device, if we had this in ONI all was easy, basically same as door pump exploit, but 1x1 tile and dedicated for this purposes device which move liquid/gas or "dynamic solid" like sand from one tile to next tile, it suppose to move substance and not just destroy it, so if no space where substance could go it will crack wall or piston itself as it happened at overpressure in game, so with this we could build pumps and valves of different size, ofc it suppose to be powered by wire(eat a lot of energy - it move 1m^3 of substance in 1 go) and activated with automation wire Just special device which should be balanced and not an exploit(door pumps which could be fixed in future). Very simple.

I guess this would be a legit way to use the door pumping mechanic. I think this is a better alternative to the door exploit.

2 hours ago, StarSquid said:

For the industrial gas pump, why not make it a fan? A smaller, one-tile sized fan would be incredibly useful for ventilation purposes.

Exactly. We can even equalize pressure in the base much much better with this.

[Sasza22]

20 hours ago, InternetGuy said:

Cast iron in real life is kind of crappy for machines but I get where you're going with that however

I just figured out that cast iron would have similar properties to what we call "raw metal" in the game. Being a bit better just beacause of a more complicated production process. It should be perfect for basic machines.

 

21 hours ago, InternetGuy said:

The advance pump though, I can't quite get behind that. It seems kind of out of place and odd for how it works and interact.

The pump idea was a simplified concept of an intake pipe. The pump would just intake liquid or gas from a pipe that extends a few tiles away from it so it doesn`t have to interact with it directly. The pipe is an element of the pump so there`s no need to add extra buildings for it to work. I was thinking of adding a new type of pump so that it can use refined metals instead but it needs to be somehow different from regular ones so it`s not redundant. I guess it sounds clunky but the concept is simple. It just intakes gas/liquid from further away and not what it`s directly touching. The intake could be behind a wall or something and the pipe itself in a cooled room.

[InternetGuy]

2 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

I just figured out that cast iron would have similar properties to what we call "raw metal" in the game. Being a bit better just beacause of a more complicated production process. It should be perfect for basic machines.

That's a pretty good way to get renewable raw metal. I've been dreading on running out of those for quite a while now.

2 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

The pump idea was a simplified concept of an intake pipe. The pump would just intake liquid or gas from a pipe that extends a few tiles away from it so it doesn`t have to interact with it directly. The pipe is an element of the pump so there`s no need to add extra buildings for it to work. I was thinking of adding a new type of pump so that it can use refined metals instead but it needs to be somehow different from regular ones so it`s not redundant. I guess it sounds clunky but the concept is simple. It just intakes gas/liquid from further away and not what it`s directly touching. The intake could be behind a wall or something and the pipe itself in a cooled room.

Ah. I see. That is a cool way to go about in doing that. If this pump's intake can connect to pipes themselves then it can have multiple intakes. I like.

Still dig the idea of a fan that moves liquid and gases in world though. I guess we can have both since they have unique functionalities.