Flywheels and high-temp pumps

[Ainsley4ever]

So I was dreaming when I suddenly had a revelation : Why not flywheels in Oxygen not Included ?

 

A flywheel is a device used to store energy (electricity in our case) in the form of kinetic energy, in order to release it later. A system like this is very simple: It includes a very "massive mass" (try to say that several times quickly) that can rotate on itself, a motor to rotate the mass which charges the battery, and a dynamo to recover the rotational energy from the mass and convert it into electricity. It's as simple as that... Or almost.

Here's a simple schematic of a flywheel battery (it's the best I could find) :

Spoiler

 

If flywheels were introduced into Oxygen not Included, they would act as a high tier battery, which could only be unlocked towards the end of the tech tree. A flywheel would appear as a large 4x4 battery (such as the AETN or the granulator), with four times the energy storage capacity of a large conventional battery (i.e. 40x4=160 kJ) while having a much lower energy loss (the energy being stored in kinetic form, the only losses are the friction produced by the rotation itself), of 0/500 DTU per second depending on the battery charge. Yes, the less energy a flywheel contains, the slower it rotates, so the less friction it produces! 

 Here is a quick overview of what a flywheel could look like (size 4x4) :

Spoiler

(I know it's ugly, but it's the best I could do in 15 min on my phone so don't blame me for that)

 

Of course, adding an energy storage system like this would be far too broken without a big disadvantage, so here it is:

Due to the high rotational speed of the mass, flywheels have an unfortunate tendency to... explode. If it takes any damage (overheating, meteors) or if it's deconstructed while it contains energy, there is a 25% chance that a flywheel will explode (the chance is even higher if the flywheel is damaged), damaging (or killing) everything within a 5 tile radius. The damage is of course proportional to the charge level. So, if you've built a flywheel capacitor bank and a problem occurs, a real chain reaction can occur that will end your base....

 

 

Now to the pumps :

Some time ago I had imagined an improved version of normal pumps, both in terms of pumping speed and overheating temperature.

These high-temp pumps would be late game technologies. They take up more space than normal pumps (3w, 2h), cost refined metal for their construction and consume twice as much power (480 W for an improved pump) while pumping more (1 kg/sec for the gas pump and...  20 kg/sec for the liquid pump? I'm not sure about the second value, we would have to either put two liquid outputs on the pump or change the value). 

I only have an overview for a high-temp liquid pump (lack of imagination), but a high-temp gas pump takes the same place (2x3) :

Spoiler

Again it's ugly, sorry for that. 

I don't have much else to say about the pumps, I focused mainly on the flywheels. 

 

 

What do you think of these ideas ? 

 

And sorry if I look so enthusiastic, I'm just in a good mood today

[TV4Fun]

I would suggest for the flywheel that it needs to be in a vacuum in order to run optimally, as the presence of any gas would create extra friction and cause it to lose energy.

[Slvrsrfr]

i like them both.

[Ainsley4ever]

51 minutes ago, TV4Fun said:

I would suggest for the flywheel that it needs to be in a vacuum in order to run optimally, as the presence of any gas would create extra friction and cause it to lose energy.

Imagine if there's a flood...

I had thought of something like that but I think it would be too complex to manage (a bit like the solar panels that were heating in the cosmic preview). It would be better if flywheels didn't interact with their environment in this way (they should be considered isolated in a vacuum or something like that).

But they could be flooded like any other building, and explode because of that. 

[TV4Fun]

2 minutes ago, Ainsley4ever said:

Imagine if there's a flood.... 
I had thought of something like that but I think it would be too complex to manage (a bit like the solar panels that were heating in the cosmic preview). It would be better if flywheels didn't interact with their environment in this way (they should be considered isolated in a vacuum or something like that).

Obviously if there's a flood, they would very quickly heat up the water around them and possibly explode.

[Ainsley4ever]

6 minutes ago, TV4Fun said:

they would very quickly heat up the water around them and possibly explode.

Like an explosive tepidizer... I like this ! 

[Tekky]

Instead of adding a completely new type of pump to the game which supports higher temperatures, it may be sufficient to allow building the already existing pumps using different materials which are more resistant to temperature.

[Ainsley4ever]

18 minutes ago, Tekky said:

it may be sufficient to allow building the already existing pumps using different materials which are more resistant to temperature.

This could be a solution, but I find it too OP to have the starting, fragile, small pumps made out of late-game steel. I would prefer an improved version of some of the buildings, which would be bulkier, stronger, and use refined metal. That would feel more balanced to me.

[Madbro]

AWESOME!!! (•ω•)

[D.L.S.]

5 hours ago, Ainsley4ever said:

 while pumping more (1 kg/sec for the gas pump and...  20 kg/sec for the liquid pump? I'm not sure about the second value, we would have to either put two liquid outputs on the pump or change the value).

In another thread was suggested hightemp pump which work in world, not with pipes but move actual liquid tiles, so in theory could pump up to 1000kg/s for water tile. The piping system by itself limiting pumps.

[InternetGuy]

I honestly think we need a high temperature pump.

Due to the limit of the pipes though, I think it's a good balance mechanic to have the pumps only be able to pump in world by moving liquids and gases around in world.