Pipe bottle inputs

[DehWaffls]

Pipe bottle inputs are a useful idea I thought of while making a renewable bathroom.

The input is attached to a pipe, and is quick to build and also cheap. Once made, you can specify a liquid, an amount and then request that amount of liquid. A duplicant will fetch that liquid from a pitcher pump (if possible) and pump it in. While the bottle is being pumped into the pipe, the duplicant must operate it (by pulling on a pulley and then letting it release or something like that). These can't be automated, and liquid piped in cannot be piped back out.

This is basically to help with starting pipe systems, as renewable bathrooms require a large pipe to be made from your water source to the bathroom just so it can start.

[vovik]

This should really be in General Discussions...

[Oozinator]

On 16.1.2018 at 3:10 PM, vovik said:

This should really be in General Discussions...

Only when we start a discussion!
So far it's a suggestion.
^^

[Zarquan]

I like this idea.  Manually filling pipes could be a nice early step before you can really use liquid pumps (which are power hogs in the early game).  If you don't need too much water in your pipes, this could be interesting.  I think it would have to be slow, like maybe 1 or 2 kg/s and have a dupe operate it.  You would want to move away from it asap because the dupe worker is more valuable than the power for a liquid pump, but I could certainly see this as useful for moving small bodies of water around or as an emergency backup if you draw too much power.

It would also be cool if we could have bottled water outputs as well.  It feels weird that I have to dump the water only to have a dupe manually pump it.  It would make sense to just have a device that has a liquid input and the dupes can get a bottle out of.

Also, this is definitely a suggestion, even if there is a discussion about it.

[AileTheAlien]

I'd actually rather have the manual inputs on specific buildings. Outhouse takes manual input already, so it's set precedent.

[Zarquan]

It would also make sense for buildings to have manual inputs for liquids for some buildings.  However, I think that the idea if manually pumping liquids in to pipes makes more sense in the game.  Lots of buildings have manual inputs, but very few have manual liquid inputs.  Not to mention you would likely want to be able to disable manual liquid inputs, as you don't want the split-second your electrolyzer is short on water for your dupes to decide "I need to get water for the electrolyzer."  The bottle to pipe building can simply be deconstructed or set to not take liquids.

The pipe idea would also be a nice replacement for the bottle emptier when you have established pluming.  Who keeps an open reservoir in their basement?  Usually, when I have waste water, I don't take it to the sewer/water treatment plant myself.  I pour it down a drain (which is a real world example of a manual pipe input)

I think it makes more sense to have the pipe input because it would stress the need for pipes for these buildings and it would require a smaller change to the game.  @AileTheAlien, I have made my case, and I would like to hear yours.

[AileTheAlien]

5 hours ago, Zarquan said:

you would likely want to be able to disable manual liquid inputs, as you don't want the split-second your electrolyzer is short on water for your dupes to decide "I need to get water for the electrolyzer."

This is already the behaviour for buildings, though. If the Microbe Musher needs water, your dupes will go fill it, and there's already some (as far as I can tell) "not very empty" threshold where they won't refill it right away. (See also, Outhouses.) Also, if you don't want them to refill it at all, you can disable the building.

5 hours ago, Zarquan said:

Who keeps an open reservoir in their basement?  Usually, when I have waste water, I don't take it to the sewer/water treatment plant myself.  I pour it down a drain (which is a real world example of a manual pipe input)

A drain in real life is much closer in function to a mesh tile, than this new proposed building. Every drain I've ever seen in a building, has been an open grate of some kind, with a water trap / U-bend in the pipe, to stop (most of) the smells and gases from coming back up the pipe into the building. Maybe where you live they have some kind of gasket and valve in place, but I have never seen a drain like this.

[Zarquan]

I don't want to disable my elecrolyzers though.  I just don't want my dupes delivering water to it.  The only precedent for liquid being deliverable in two ways for the same building that I know is an algae terrarium, but that doesn't use pipes.  There is no precedent for a building having the appropriate pipe input and also being able to take water from a duplicant.  I would argue the simpler and more consistent method is the manual water to pipe insertion rather more than hand delivering to every building. 

Plus, they usually make it so that we don't need to worry about all the plumbing issues.  If they did, we would need a pump in self-sustaining bathrooms and carbon skimmers.  Water pressure isn't really a thing in ONI, and the only times you have pumps in your real world house to pump sewage is if the sewage pressure is too high to just drop it in and let gravity do the work.