Hydrofan Appreciation

[InternetGuy]

Now we all never used the hydrofan after we used it once and it didn't do much if anything for us in heat regulation in the base. My suggestion is to make the hydrofan a bit more useful in the late game and somewhat useful in the early and mid game.

Suggestion:

• Make the hydrofan electrically powered because why even bother spending a dupes time in a task that's like emptying an ocean using a bucket?
• Make the hydrofan cool its surroundings when active but only down to 10C.
• In order for the hydrofan to work, cool water (and only water) needs to be piped in it and only leaves the fan at 40 C.

It's kind of a wheezwort that dump heat elsewhere basically and consumes some electricity.

[Madbro]

Thanks dude, I hate the absolutely-useless hydrofan in the current version.

:I

[Yukiya]

Yeah, something like this could be useful. Hydrofan, currently, is practically useless unless you want cool small, enclosed, insulated room which... have no use right?

[crypticorb]

I made a thread similar to this, and the more it's mentioned the more devs see it.

One suggestion from the other thread was to have it powered with ice, rather than water. This would give us a real reason to freeze water, or possibly even a use for polluted ice.

[Machenoid]

4 hours ago, crypticorb said:

I made a thread similar to this, and the more it's mentioned the more devs see it.

One suggestion from the other thread was to have it powered with ice, rather than water. This would give us a real reason to freeze water, or possibly even a use for polluted ice.

I would've made another thread for this post but i don't want to spam the suggestion forum with "Yet Another Hydrofan Post" so, to the suggestion:

Cooling and heating is a job other machines can already do, and perform much better. The one kind of machine we kind-of don't have right now that would actually be useful?

A blower fan that creates a pressure difference between the intake and output.

tl;dr

Make the hydrofan a genuine liquid/gas heat-exchanger (NOT A HEAT PUMP!) that operates as a true fan which creates a pressure difference between inlet and outlet, that can be automated by liquid flow rate through the machine or still operated manually by a dupe with a selected liquid delivery.

Longer explanation:

• The player should be able to choose between manual operation and piped liquid automation:

1. Manual operation behaves like now, except the hydrofan no longer explicitly deletes heat: The dupe delivers a liquid and deletes it to modify the atmosphere the machine interacts with to be closer towards the liquid temperature. A hot liquid will heat the area and a cold liquid will cool the area. Otherwise it's the same as now.
2. Piped operation: Involves a liquid input, liquid output, internal liquid storage, and Flow Rate as in a liquid valve. Having a pipe on either input or output disables manual mode entirely (otherwise you're just deleting piped liquid; players who "forget things" like the water deleting machine using the same water pipe as the farms would hate it) The rate of flow impacts how much atmosphere is absorbed and output by the machine, how much gas temperature interacts with the liquid temperature inside the machine (and the machine itself) and the lower and upper limit on gas pressure on the input and output sides. A full 10kg/s should be able to reach a maximum output pressure of 2kg (to avoid popped eardrums) and a vacuum on the intake (at which point the machine shuts off due to no atmosphere)

• Obviously has a flow rate meter like the liquid and gas valves do, so the player can control how much work the machine is doing when automated. Obviously obviously, changing the value requires a dupe to interact with the machine, like a valve.
• A physical barrier built into it like the steam generator has, which is there to stop any moved gasses from returning to the point of origin, in order to actually create a pressure difference.
• Can be rotated so it can be placed in a variety of positions and not just on the floor, though 3 of the rotations do require floor if the machine is operated manually. If the machine is automated by a piped liquid, the machine can be placed freely without support, like the steam turbine.
• Offers a bonus to the rate of heat exchange between the stored liquid and gas.
• Requires raw ore and has an overheat value of 75^oC, but can be adjusted by refined metal use (steel and above)
• Has a negative decor penalty because it's an ugly machine, but it's not proper industrial equipment since it's just a liquid-powered fan with a one-way vent; so it can be placed in a room with no ill effect.

Side note: There is the ability for the player to create a "Pipe Physics"^TM perpetual loop with the liquid inside the machine, allowing for a free-energy gas pump... HOWEVER, because the liquid is in a closed loop it will eventually equalize its temperature with the surroundings. This will break the machine or the pipe when the liquid phase-changes inside of them if it's not a liquid at ambient temperature. Also, a wheeze-wort does the same thing in a smaller space with free cooling and not block any tiles for movement; see the "wheezewort airlock" or "wheezewort gas pump" designs. So with a "Pipe Physics"^TM perpetual loop the hydrofan becomes a wheezewort without free cooling that blocks movement between vacuum and atmosphere; just a perpetual 2kg limited air pump with no ability to actually pipe a gas someplace... which can be useful to move around CO2 or trapped hydrogen to the opposite side of a wall. (Edit - Or create a genuine automated airlock without gas deletion as long as the output of the machine doesn't over-pressurize... Though again, if the machines use a closed loop of liquid, and one side of the machine is always hot, the machine could break from overheating IF the airlock is used frequently enough)

Do pictures help? Pictures might help. (Artists forgive me for the copy/paste butchery of the hydrofan, steam turbine, and shower)

[InternetGuy]

6 hours ago, crypticorb said:

I made a thread similar to this, and the more it's mentioned the more devs see it.

One suggestion from the other thread was to have it powered with ice, rather than water. This would give us a real reason to freeze water, or possibly even a use for polluted ice.

Hydrofans seriously need some love.

Am not too confident about polluted ice though. I would feel like that would introduce some polluted water and gunk up the system.

2 hours ago, Machenoid said:

Make the hydrofan a genuine liquid/gas heat-exchanger (NOT A HEAT PUMP!) that operates as a true fan which creates a pressure difference between inlet and outlet, that can be automated by liquid flow rate through the machine or still operated manually by a dupe with a selected liquid delivery.

I think I like your hydrofan idea better. I was thinking that how the improved hydrofan would work is equalize the temperature of the liquid in it and its surroundings very efficiently but I felt like it may be more trouble that it's worth so transferring heat it is. I guess they can make it so that the fan can't cool below the temperature the water in it.