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Rocket Cargo Tank contents exchange heat with atmosphere


artustan
  • Branch: Live Branch Version: Windows Pending

I am not sure if this is a bug, but it definitely feels like a bug.

Sending a rocket to mine Molten Demolior Debris almost never allows for collection of Liquid Hydrogen, at least not with Steam Engine (Steam has 12 times the thermal conductivity of CO2). Even when the rocket lands in Vacuum in space, where there's no atmosphere and the exhaust disappears fast, the rocket flies into its own exhaust which heats the Cargo contents to the point that collecting anything from the Molten Demolior Debris is basically impossible. In the provided screenshot both Liquid Hydrogen and Liquid Oxygen are already well past their vaporization points, and Molten Iridium is barely a liquid. 

image.png.e27f2c5b3311c043708b560db140cd35.png

 

There are a couple of reasons why I think it's a bug, and if it's not, then these are reasons why I think it should be changed regardless:
-Cargo Tanks don't exchange temperatures with anything themselves, their contents only exchange heat with the atmosphere, they don't even exchange temperatures with each other (at least not directly, in atmosphere they'll obviously exchange heat via material → atmosphere → material. There's no exchange in a Vacuum). 
-Liquid Rocket Port Unloaders also don't exchange heat with anything and neither do their contents.
These make it seem as if no temperature exchange was supposed to happen at all. In the screenshot below you can see burst pipes even though the Insulated Pipes made from Insulite and the Liquid Rocket Port Unloader are both 20°C. 

image.png.86bbb911171318dfeb84a52afa41ed11.png

 

Other reasons:
-The best rocket engine in the game, Hydrogen Engine, has Steam exhaust. It'd be weird to me to intentionally make it so the best rocket struggles to space mine. 
-Specifically with Demolior Debris, there's almost no point in trying to collect the Hydrogen, it has too narrow of a temperature range for this. The only way to do so would be to pipe it inside the Spacefarer Module into a vacuumed are before landing, which also doesn't seem like an intended solution. There's no difference between Large Liquid Cargo Tank and the regular Liquid Cargo Tank when using this method. Doing anything else will end with the Hydrogen immediately bursting pipes or the bottles (aquired via the "empty storage" option on the Cargo Tank) immediately evaporating. Why even add Liquid Hydrogen to a space POI if all it does is burst pipes? 
-It works against the the idea of rocket chimneys, they completely ruin any material that doesn't have a wide temperature range, and letting the exhaust just spread freely (which lowers the chances of it hitting the Cargo) makes doing anything on the surface very messy, as now there's water everywhere. 

Reddit post with discussion in the comments.


Steps to Reproduce

Use a rocket with Steam Engine to mine Molten Demolior Debris and watch the temperature of Liquid Cargo Tank content after it lands in Vacuum with no background tiles - it's different from temperatures stated in the space POI status tab. 

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User Feedback


After more testing I can tell that the only engines capable of getting Liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen from the Liquid Demolior Debris are engines with CO2 exhaust (Carbon Dioxide Engine, Sugar Engine, Small Petroleum Engine, Petroleum Engine and Biodiesel Engine). Even Radbolt Engine heated the liquids to above their boiling point.

And it only works without rocket chimneys, so you have to send rockets without tiles around them and without any backwall. It's also very much unwanted to have ~1200°C CO2 fly everywhere, so in practice something like Petroleum Engine would need like 5-7 empty tiles with 'Space exposure' to each side to avoid the hot CO2 touching anything. If you want to have multiple rockets landing with temperature sensitive material then they'd also need 5-7 tiles of space between them, or the exhaust of one of the rockets would hit the other. So now two rockets would take like 35 tiles horizontally (7 x 2 for the rocket platforms, plus 7 to each side and between them). All of this is terrible for anyone trying to build something in space.

All engines with CO2 exhaust exhaust CO2 at 990°C, except for Sugar Engine, which is even hotter at 1227°C, and Carbon Dioxide Engine which is actually -28°C, which absurdly makes it the best choice for gathering the most late game materials such as Liquid Hydrogen from space mining. I doubt the intention when designing Liquid Demolior Debris was space mining this POI using Carbon Dioxide Engines only, when they can't even have Spacefarer module + Drillcone + any storage, because they have too little height. Spacefarer module + Drillcone is 8 height, +2 from the Carbon Dioxide Engines is 10, so the limit of the engine. 

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