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.
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 :).
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now