Please fix the science

[Prakhar]

Hello!

List:

1. Gases don't have proper masses

2. Joule is the unit of energy, not power and watt is the unit of power, not energy (This is BIG, improper units are the leading cause of failure in physics)

3. Surface tension ain't work that way

4. Hydrogen gas is H2, not H (similarly for other gases except oxygen)

These are all I've found till now. Will update.

My first ranty list!

 

[Michi01]

3 hours ago, Prakhar said:

2. Joule is the unit of energy, not power and watt is the unit of power, not energy (This is BIG, improper units are the leading cause of failure in physics)

I don't think they're doing anything wrong in that regard, they use watt to show how much power a building consumes or produces and joule to show how much energy is stored in a battery.

[Prakhar]

17 minutes ago, Michi01 said:

I don't think they're doing anything wrong in that regard, they use watt to show how much power a building consumes or produces and joule to show how much energy is stored in a battery.

Last I checked (5 minutes before this thread), batteries showed power in J and energy in W. Will update with a screenshot when I get to play again.

[BlueLance]

In all honesty I wish a battery would display how many Watts/s it has XD or soemthing similar, because 40kj is only telling me that its 40kj, I donno how many Watts that is etc.

[WanderingKid]

27 minutes ago, BlueLance said:

In all honesty I wish a battery would display how many Watts/s it has XD or soemthing similar, because 40kj is only telling me that its 40kj, I donno how many Watts that is etc.

Watt = Joules/sec. IE: 40kj (Kilojoules) can feed a 1kw demand for 40 seconds. 

[brummbar7]

2 hours ago, BlueLance said:

In all honesty I wish a battery would display how many Watts/s it has XD or something similar, because 40kj is only telling me that its 40kj, I donno how many Watts that is etc.

Ya, I wish batteries did the maths for me and gave me watts per day amount of energy (in addition to joules).  It would relate a lot better to how energy is used in the game.  One battery holds 40kj/600 = 66.7 watts for an entire day that battery can supply (or, 1 watt continuously for 66.7 days).  I can look at that and know that I would need 2 batteries to power a deoxidizer for an entire day, and x10ing it to watts per hour is easy to do off the top of one's head, so I could easily see I can power 5 fridges for an hour off of it.  40kj is pretty non-intuitive for most people I would imagine as far as converting it to useful info (though possibly educational) and not as easy of math at moving a decimal point.

[BlueLance]

So in theory 2 batteries can power a Filter for an entire cycle, 4 batteries can power a pump for an entire cycle. Eish that actually hurts to know that. Or am i reading it wrong?

[Ciderblock]

39 minutes ago, BlueLance said:

So in theory 2 batteries can power a Filter for an entire cycle, 4 batteries can power a pump for an entire cycle. Eish that actually hurts to know that. Or am i reading it wrong?

That's pretty much right, though there is a little bit left in the battery in both examples. This is assuming they're already full charge, of course.

[Gravityx]

7 hours ago, Prakhar said:

Last I checked (5 minutes before this thread), batteries showed power in J and energy in W. Will update with a screenshot when I get to play again.

Yes you are right. On a battery, it says "Power Avaliable: xx.x kJ." It also says "This building is producing x.x W of energy" on many buildings.

 

Small semantics error there...but as for the rest of your issues, ITS A GAME. It could be cool to make things closer to reality, but gameplay should come first.

[chaos0720]

16 hours ago, Prakhar said:

 

3. Surface tension ain't work that way

 

 

Criticizes game for not being realistic. Posts unrealistic grammar on forums.

[Prakhar]

17 hours ago, chaos0720 said:

Criticizes game for not being realistic. Posts unrealistic grammar on forums.

Good one. Can I use that? Please!!!

P.S: That was intentional.

22 hours ago, Gravityx said:

Yes you are right. On a battery, it says "Power Avaliable: xx.x kJ." It also says "This building is producing x.x W of energy" on many buildings.

 

Small semantics error there...but as for the rest of your issues, ITS A GAME. It could be cool to make things closer to reality, but gameplay should come first.

I guess it's a small thing, it just bugs me. A game that is using scientific quantities should at least get them correct.

I don't know much about semantics, but if you make that mistake in a physics class, you're hopeless. 

As I said, wrong units are the leading cause of failure in physics.

 

[Michi01]

On 8.9.2017 at 0:40 PM, Prakhar said:

Last I checked (5 minutes before this thread), batteries showed power in J and energy in W. Will update with a screenshot when I get to play again.

Ah, I didn't realize what you meant until now, my bad. I hadn't noticed that, I hope they fix it.

[Ciderblock]

44 minutes ago, Prakhar said:

Good one. Can I use that? Please!!!

P.S: That was intentional.

I guess it's a small thing, it just bugs me. A game that is using scientific quantities should at least get them correct.

I don't know much about semantics, but if you make that mistake in a physics class, you're hopeless. 

As I said, wrong units are the leading cause of failure in physics.

 

The quantities themselves are all labeled with their correct units, the errors are in the verbal descriptions. So it's the reverse of the kind of error that ruins you in a physics class.

Also, surface tension is not even simulated, and probably never will be. It looks like you have bizarro world surface tension because of how our world works, but in ONI it's just a consequence of "one fluid per tile" and pressure dynamics, plus the fact that a small amount of liquid looks way bigger than it should on the screen. Thus for example a pocket of dense gas can hold back liquid from merging with other liquid.

A much bigger scientific problem here is the whole "a dupe breathes 100 g O2 and exhales only 2 g CO2". This one actually has gameplay implications.

[trukogre]

On 9/9/2017 at 10:30 AM, Ciderblock said:

 

A much bigger scientific problem here is the whole "a dupe breathes 100 g O2 and exhales only 2 g CO2". This one actually has gameplay implications.

I fail to see how that is a problem for science.  Gameplay implications is an understatement, the number for CO2 exhalation was chosen to not match the O2 number for gameplay reasons, obviously.  The carbon skimmer is moderate level research, if a matching amount of CO2 exhalation was present than a carbon skimmer+generator would be the first thing you'd want to build.  It's pretty obvious that the designers made these choices intentionally.

[Ciderblock]

18 hours ago, trukogre said:

I fail to see how that is a problem for science.  Gameplay implications is an understatement, the number for CO2 exhalation was chosen to not match the O2 number for gameplay reasons, obviously.  The carbon skimmer is moderate level research, if a matching amount of CO2 exhalation was present than a carbon skimmer+generator would be the first thing you'd want to build.  It's pretty obvious that the designers made these choices intentionally.

From a science perspective, mass should be conserved in all your reactions. Approximate is not so jarring, but more than 98% loss ("more" because of food content) is just absurd.

[trukogre]

3 hours ago, Ciderblock said:

From a science perspective, mass should be conserved in all your reactions. Approximate is not so jarring, but more than 98% loss ("more" because of food content) is just absurd.

That's true, but from a science perspective, ONI is a video game, and science doesn't really care about games.  The majority of reactions in ONI seem to violate the conservation of mass, many of them without as much gameplay justification, if any at all, so *shrugs*

[chaos0720]

10 hours ago, Ciderblock said:

From a science perspective, mass should be conserved in all your reactions. Approximate is not so jarring, but more than 98% loss ("more" because of food content) is just absurd.

If you're going to complain about game mechanics from a 'science perspective' then you're going to have a lot to complain about.  There are a lot of things in the game that don't make sense according to science. It's almost as if Klei is attempting to make a game. More people should tell them that their physics/science simulator is too game like and not real enough. Unless they actually are trying to make a game.... ****. Can anyone confirm please? Is this supposed to be a game?

[Ciderblock]

On 9/15/2017 at 4:53 PM, trukogre said:

That's true, but from a science perspective, ONI is a video game, and science doesn't really care about games.  The majority of reactions in ONI seem to violate the conservation of mass, many of them without as much gameplay justification, if any at all, so *shrugs*

A lot of the reactions actually do conserve mass, like electrolysis and boiling polluted water.

Regarding this general commentary about "it's a game" etc.: #1, this is a thread about "fix the science", and it's not my thread, so there's that. #2, it's true, gameplay wins over realism, but it's really great when you can have both. Both just because realism is neat for its own sake, and also because it can aid with intuition about how you should play. It is counterintuitive that oxygen is not recycled but is rather produced continuously.

Regarding CO2 specifically, you could have a system where 32 g of net-consumed O2 makes 44 g of CO2. You'd just need a way to recycle CO2 back into O2, instead of somehow polluting water with it. IRL you'd use plants for this, but there are chemical solutions too.

[trukogre]

6 minutes ago, Ciderblock said:

A lot of the reactions actually do conserve mass, like electrolysis and boiling polluted water.

Regarding this general commentary about "it's a game" etc.: #1, this is a thread about "fix the science", and it's not my thread, so there's that. #2, it's true, gameplay wins over realism, but it's really great when you can have both. Both just because realism is neat for its own sake, and also because it can aid with intuition about how you should play. It is counterintuitive that oxygen is not recycled but is rather produced continuously.

It's weird when you structure your reply like you're going to take issue with what I said but then nothing you say actually does differ with anything I said.

[chaos0720]

On 9/16/2017 at 1:20 AM, Ciderblock said:

A lot of the reactions actually do conserve mass, like electrolysis and boiling polluted water.

Regarding this general commentary about "it's a game" etc.: #1, this is a thread about "fix the science", and it's not my thread, so there's that. #2, it's true, gameplay wins over realism, but it's really great when you can have both. Both just because realism is neat for its own sake, and also because it can aid with intuition about how you should play. It is counterintuitive that oxygen is not recycled but is rather produced continuously.

Regarding CO2 specifically, you could have a system where 32 g of net-consumed O2 makes 44 g of CO2. You'd just need a way to recycle CO2 back into O2, instead of somehow polluting water with it. IRL you'd use plants for this, but there are chemical solutions to.

Okay, fine. Let's go down this rabbit hole.

If we're going to be bound by science - according to some internet research (take it or leave it) average adults inhale and exhale 11,000 liters of air per day. Only 20% of which is actually oxygen, or 2,200 liters/day. The same article states that exhaled air is about 15% oxygen, or 1,650 liters/day. Therefore, 5% of the oxygen is converted into CO2, which would be roughly 550 liters/day.

Now to convert all that into grams.

 

2200 liters per day equates 0.02546 liters per second. 1 mole of gas at STP occupies 22.4 L, which means we consume 0.011366 moles of O2/second. Multiply that by 32g/mole of O2 gives us somewhere in the realm of less than 0.04 grams per second. So we can't use this science.

 

So then let's instead of assuming that 1 second on the asteroid is the same as 1 second on earth, let's assume that 1 day on earth is equal to 1 day on the asteroid.

2200 liters per day equates 3.667 liters per second. Dividing this by the 22.4L gives us 0.16369 moles of O2/second. Multiply that by the 32g/mole of O2 gives us an O2 consumption 5.238 grams/second of oxygen

Shorthand math of the O2 exhaling = 1650 / 600 = 2.75L/s / 22.4L = 0.12277 moles * 32g/mole = 3.929 grams per second of oxygen exhaled.

Shorthand math of the CO2 exhaling = 550 / 600 = .9167L/s / 22.4L = 0.0409 moles * 44g/mole = 1.801 grams per second of CO2 exhaled.

Now we can scale this up with the knowledge that the Duplicants consume O2 at a rate of 100g/s.

100g/s air consumption divided by 5.238g/s calculated gives us a multiplier of 19.09

So if the dups consume O2 at a rate of 100g/s, according to science, they should also exhale 75g/s of O2 and 34g/s of Carbon Dioxide.

But again, that's assume the moles of gas are at STP. If they're breathing in a hot environment/cold environment/vacuum/over-pressurized room, those numbers would all need to change.

 

While I'm still sitting down here in this rabbit hole. If we're going to fix the science, technically breathing pure oxygen should be toxic.

[trukogre]

"So we can't use this science."

 

If you get a result you don't like, you just say "we can't use this science"?  That's not how science works lol.

 

 So then let's instead of assuming that 1 second on the asteroid is the same as 1 second on earth, let's assume that 1 day on earth is equal to 1 day on the asteroid."

You've also assumed that a cycle is equal to a day, you still don't get an answer that is consistent with actual human consumption, and the problem with saying "we'll just assume a cycle is equal to a 24 hour day", pretty much every time someone does unit conversion on these forums, they use seconds as the time unit, e.g. when people look at heat they use 1 watt = 1 joule/second.  By assuming that a cycle is 24 hours long, you're now doing ONI math on a completely different timescale than everyone else on the forums, and it's not consistent to say well sometimes we'll use day=cycle, and other times we'll use seconds=seconds.

 

It would be kinda funny if the forum community split into two "time-camps" over this, though.

[Botaxalim]

Get over it, ONI just a game, not reality simulator

no matter how much we disscuss or debate, it will end which gameplay will fit for game, not which realism will we add onto the game

[chaos0720]

9 hours ago, trukogre said:

"So we can't use this science."

 

If you get a result you don't like, you just say "we can't use this science"?  That's not how science works lol.

 

 So then let's instead of assuming that 1 second on the asteroid is the same as 1 second on earth, let's assume that 1 day on earth is equal to 1 day on the asteroid."

You've also assumed that a cycle is equal to a day, you still don't get an answer that is consistent with actual human consumption, and the problem with saying "we'll just assume a cycle is equal to a 24 hour day", pretty much every time someone does unit conversion on these forums, they use seconds as the time unit, e.g. when people look at heat they use 1 watt = 1 joule/second.  By assuming that a cycle is 24 hours long, you're now doing ONI math on a completely different timescale than everyone else on the forums, and it's not consistent to say well sometimes we'll use day=cycle, and other times we'll use seconds=seconds.

 

It would be kinda funny if the forum community split into two "time-camps" over this, though.

My mate said it perfectly here.

4 hours ago, Botaxalim said:

Get over it, ONI just a game, not reality simulator

no matter how much we disscuss or debate, it will end which gameplay will fit for game, not which realism will we add onto the game

The point to my post was that all these people whining about the science not matching up are also making their assumption that everything in the game is supposed to match what is real.

 

And since you apparently missed the point of my post... I calculated what the rates would be if we went 1 second for 1 second. It resulted in the miniscule amount of o2/second.  There's this thing called devil's advocate. I was, while mathematically and as scientifically accurate as I could, sarcastically proving my point that this is just a game and it doesn't need to have everything match up perfectly with the real world

 

Hell while we're at it, we should have to hook our nervous system to our computers to play so that if we die in the game we die in real life.

[trukogre]

Hey, if you want people to not miss the point of your post, try including it in your post.  Or not, your call.  You may have heard that sarcasm doesn't translate well over the internet.  It turns out that every mathematical equation you include in your post decreases the effect of your sarcasm by, well, it's a very complicated formula but take my word for it, it's massive.

 

[Crimeo]

I suggested equations ages ago for how to fix nearly every single conservation of mass issue in the game: 

It's very doable. It would not affect gameplay at a micro level really at all, and at a macro level would IMPROVE it, since you actually have an end game goal to work toward, instead of completely inevitable death, which is extremely frustrating.

Gameplay is indeed more important than realism, but when both realism AND gameplay would be improved, it's a slam dunk improvement overall, no conflict, no sacrifice necessary.

"Oh but if there was conservation of mass, you could eventually be perfectly self sustaining" YES, that's called "winning." I think you'll discover that the vast majority of timeless, popular games in the world's history involve win conditions. From chess to Super Mario Brothers to Halo to Hearthstone.

"People won't play again once they've won" -- They do in Rimworld, which is an obvious immediate inspiration for this game.