Liquid tepidizers are critically exploitable

Did you try reloading the save? Because the exploit breaks on reload and that's the way it has been "fixed" 

I can confirm that in order to reproduce the exploit one needs to load the game, remove the tepidizer, then add it again. I see it as another unrelated bug, and definitely not as a fix to anything.

According to the wiki https://oxygennotincluded.fandom.com/wiki/Liquid_Tepidizer :

Quote

After reloading the game, both previous bugs will create 4064kDTU/s below 125°C and only 64kDTU/s above that temperature despite indicating it produces 4064kDTU/s. This was a quick fix done to mitigate those 2 bugs.

So the tepidizer does indeed function differently up on building and then reloading the game, and that's apparently intentional? How is that not a bug of its own?

 

Basically you can exploit the game and produce unlimited amounts of free energy, but only until you reload your game. Once you do that, you have to destroy your tepidizers and rebuild them to keep exploiting.

Edited March 16, 2024 by SlugTamer

I feel like liquid tepedizer needs a rework in its current state. It's not very useful if not using the exploit because of the fixed target temperature. Even with the exploit, its behavior differs through reloading. A game shouldn't have any mechanics that depends on reload. The source of the exploit as well as the reload-dependent dirty fix is that the tepedizer generates more heat/power than steam turbines' efficiency. The overheat temperature is also inconsistent, without exploiting, the target temperature is fixed to 85c while overheat temperature at 125c. 

Therefore, to make it more useful, I think the heat/power ratio should be the inverse of power/heat ratio of steam turbines to avoid free power problem; this will eliminate the current exploit and the dirty fix. The target temperature should be configurable in a wider range(at least higher than overheat temperature) or entirely removed(controlled by automation, you even need this now if you don't want to heat to 85c everytime).  Even after reducing heat/power ratio to ST's efficiency, ~1032.5dtu/w, it will still be the most power efficient heat source excluding power transformers(free heat). Currently, heating liquids to higher temperatures are usually done with thermium AT, whose purpose, ironically, isn't to heat things up but to move heat around. In fact, most purposed heat sources, liquid tepedizer, space heater, are all in a bad shape and were never properly used to heat things up. Heating are mostly done using AT or metal refinery, none of which are purposely designed, exclusive heat sources.

IRL generating heat from electricity is the most basic and fundamental thing. It can be achieved simply by running electricity through a resistor. The energy efficiency of this process is also probably the highest efficiency we can achieve.