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Rotwood Coming to Steam Early Access April 24

Specific heat capacity of some elements is way off

llunak

By llunak

    • Branch: Preview Branch Version: Linux Pending

EDIT: Ok, I was curious and dug up a bit more (I'm a software developer with electrotechnical education, so I have a little clue, but I'm not an expert). And apparently this heat stuff is way too complicated for the way ONI works (https://www.khanacademy.org/science/chemistry/states-of-matter-and-intermolecular-forces/states-of-matter/v/specific-heat-heat-of-fusion-and-vaporization was very educational and I doubt ONI implements that). So let's just reduce this whole thing to "I think the heat capacity of polluter water should be the same as water, otherwise it heat/cools surroundings way too much" and "water sieve shouldn't have fixed temperature output, because it complicates life for beginners and experienced players will find a way anyway if wanted (e.g. pincha peppernuts, it turns out, are actually a massive heat sink)".

 

It has come up during the discussion in the topic below that some in-game elements have broken heat capacity.

The specific example there is (clean) water vs polluted water, where water has about 4 J/g/K while polluted water has about 6 J/g/K. This means that water sieve with its fixed temperature output actually cools things down, even if the input temperature is lower - with these values, the input should be polluted ice for the output to be 40C for energy conservation to take place, and 30C polluted water should make water sieve output steam. This also means that since showers and sinks only convert clean water to polluted water, they technically add huge amounts of heat.

I checked using some sources as such https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-heat-capacity-d_391.html and it seems many elements are correct (or reasonably close), so it seems like you've actually tried to make the game use the correct values.

Therefore, I find it strange that polluted water have such a strange value. It doesn't make sense technically, if polluted water is water+dirt (heating up polluted water in-game makes steam+dirt) or is water+CO2 (carbon scrubber pollutes water), then it doesn't make sense that adding something with lower heat capacity would make polluted water have higher heat capacity. It also doesn't seem to make much sense for the game, having so significantly different heat capacity of clean and polluted water just complicates matters, when it should be just about the same. I mean, the game tries to simulate thermodynamics to quite some degree and even advertises this as one of the main features on the Steam page. But having heat of such a base element broken should make everything related to heat a complicated mess, where trying to fix anything related to heat would mean just fixing broken things by adding more broken things on top.

The other elements I've found that have their values way too off are hydrogen (see the link above) and steam (should be about 2, see e.g. http://www2.ucdsb.on.ca/tiss/stretton/database/specific_heat_capacity_table.html).

Is there a specific reason why these elements should have their heat capacity so significantly different? As far as I can tell, the current situation with polluted water just breaks the game for everybody. New players will cook their crops when trying to reuse their water (that certainly happened to me and even nowadays it's a problem for me when I try to play without exploiting things). Experienced players, instead of handling problems properly, can just get polluted water somehow, use it for extensive cooling and then get rid of the heat with the water sieve.

Steps to Reproduce
Check properties of (clean) water and polluted water and then use some tables or common sense. EDIT: Or remember the rule "it's easy to suggest solutions when one has no clue about the problem" when posting suggestions :).
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User Feedback


Ambaire

It's a game design thing, allowing for the removal of massive quantities of extra heat if the player does clever base design based on those mechanics. Without stuff like that, the asteroid would relatively quickly overheat due to tons of sources of hot stuff and not many ways to get rid of it.

 

I can say the fixed temperature outputs is deliberate design, although I can't quote the relevant posts.

 

Same for polluted water higher heat capacity.

 

Don't play this expecting true to life mechanics ^-^

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llunak
14 minutes ago, Ambaire said:

I can say the fixed temperature outputs is deliberate design, although I can't quote the relevant posts.

Everybody says that and nobody can quote it. I'm starting to think this is just an urban myth that everybody repeats. If it's really so deliberate, why does it affect a base device where it will ruin bases of new players, instead of being at least somewhat apparent like with the AETN?

 

17 minutes ago, Ambaire said:

Without stuff like that, the asteroid would relatively quickly overheat due to tons of sources of hot stuff and not many ways to get rid of it.

Funny that, mine doesn't. 500 cycles in. And the water sieve adds heat for me, not remove it.

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Ambaire
1 hour ago, llunak said:

Funny that, mine doesn't. 500 cycles in. And the water sieve adds heat for me, not remove it.

If you're just doing the germy water bathroom recycle, then yeah, it will. The intended use is to use the polluted water as a heat sink with the thermo regulator stuff and then either run it thru the sieve or let it boil and then feed the nearly boiling clean water to an electrolyzer.

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llunak
30 minutes ago, Ambaire said:

The intended use

[citation needed]

Since, normally, the intended use of water sieves is to clean water again for reuse.

 

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Ambaire
31 minutes ago, llunak said:

[citation needed]

Since, normally, the intended use of water sieves is to clean water again for reuse.

 

Ahahaha. This is a game, not some stuffy research journal.

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llunak

Even a game should make sense, at least within its own rules. All I did in the bugreport was that I pointed out that few elements were inconsistent with the rest, I pointed out the problems it causes and then asked if there was a reason for that.

Besides, if you can post random unfounded personal opinion (which is what it looks like so far, unless you can finally back it up with something instead of dodging), then so can I.

 

 

 

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Kabrute

a hard coded value in one object that has a doppleganger using variables on another object ( code is the same between sieve and shower) with the only major difference being that Sieve put a fixed value on its output while shower floats a variable.  If they are doing 2 separate effects with the same strip of code, and both are accurately reflected in game you can not argue that it is an unintended effect(bug).  You are claiming that code is not deliberate and that is at best arrogant.  Grab a copy of ilspy and look.  Sieves float an override value for temps on the element filter while shower do not........

Edited by Kabrute

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