Control room design

[kodes]

Are there plans to improve the functionality, user-friendliness, realism and general aesthetic of the control room?

Creating a mod to completely overhaul this (if possible; that is, I'm but a humble 3D artist) would be such a fun side project, But I wonder if the intent to overhaul will overshadow it in the near future

Do forgive me if this is frequently asked, I did a small bit of digging through just to check.

[ne_propheta]

Mh, generally speaking, often user friendliness clashes a lot with realism - the more realistic a simulator is, the less user-friendly it would be.

Here we have knots and valves (there's the separated chemical control room too) and fuse boxes and whatsoever, so I'm not very sure about what to improve without having to sacrifice the black rooster on the cursed altair of Userland. Sorta.

Anyways, at the end of the day, the real answers are in the hand of Iwa (the one-man-army developer of Aerilian Games) so I'll leave the stage for him.

[kodes]

Originally posted by ne_propheta:

Mh, generally speaking, often user friendliness clashes a lot with realism - the more realistic a simulator is, the less user-friendly it would be.

Here we have knots and valves (there's the separated chemical control room too) and fuse boxes and whatsoever, so I'm not very sure about what to improve without having to sacrifice the black rooster on the cursed altair of Userland. Sorta.

Anyways, at the end of the day, the real answers are in the hand of Iwa (the one-man-army developer of Aerilian Games) so I'll leave the stage for him.

It depends really, what I more meant is everything is super spread out, bulky, and clunky to use in the current control room. A more realistic layout and control setup would be more user friendly

[Stonehammers]

Originally posted by ne_propheta:

Mh, generally speaking, often user friendliness clashes a lot with realism - the more realistic a simulator is, the less user-friendly it would be.

Here we have knots and valves (there's the separated chemical control room too) and fuse boxes and whatsoever, so I'm not very sure about what to improve without having to sacrifice the black rooster on the cursed altair of Userland. Sorta.

Anyways, at the end of the day, the real answers are in the hand of Iwa (the one-man-army developer of Aerilian Games) so I'll leave the stage for him.

Control rooms do try to be user friendly in real life. Complicated controls and confusing readouts is how three mile island happened.

[Sphinx]

Originally posted by Stonehammers:

Originally posted by ne_propheta:

Mh, generally speaking, often user friendliness clashes a lot with realism - the more realistic a simulator is, the less user-friendly it would be.

Here we have knots and valves (there's the separated chemical control room too) and fuse boxes and whatsoever, so I'm not very sure about what to improve without having to sacrifice the black rooster on the cursed altair of Userland. Sorta.

Anyways, at the end of the day, the real answers are in the hand of Iwa (the one-man-army developer of Aerilian Games) so I'll leave the stage for him.

Control rooms do try to be user friendly in real life. Complicated controls and confusing readouts is how three mile island happened.

im pretty sure three mile island happened due to a failure of the pressuriser release valve got stuck opening and causing the water to boil away stopping a moderation of the fission and cooling of the core, and i think if you look at the reactor control rooms into comparison to this very friendly to the user control room its very simplified.

[kodes]

Originally posted by Sphinx:

Originally posted by Stonehammers:

Control rooms do try to be user friendly in real life. Complicated controls and confusing readouts is how three mile island happened.

im pretty sure three mile island happened due to a failure of the pressuriser release valve got stuck opening and causing the water to boil away stopping a moderation of the fission and cooling of the core, and i think if you look at the reactor control rooms into comparison to this very friendly to the user control room its very simplified.

Again I will say, it's maybe too simplified to the point it's difficult to use and navigate in, echoing my previous sentiment of it being a bit too spread out and bulky. I just question if there are planned updates, or if it wouldn't be a waste to mod in a more condensed control room

[Stonehammers]

Originally posted by Sphinx:

Originally posted by Stonehammers:

Control rooms do try to be user friendly in real life. Complicated controls and confusing readouts is how three mile island happened.

im pretty sure three mile island happened due to a failure of the pressuriser release valve got stuck opening and causing the water to boil away stopping a moderation of the fission and cooling of the core, and i think if you look at the reactor control rooms into comparison to this very friendly to the user control room its very simplified.

That kicked it off, but the control room was dealing with one reading that said the reactor had too much water, while another said it didn't have enough. Ironically if they didn't do anything at all the reactor would have saved itself with the emergency system they shut off.

[Sphinx]

Originally posted by Stonehammers:

Originally posted by Sphinx:

im pretty sure three mile island happened due to a failure of the pressuriser release valve got stuck opening and causing the water to boil away stopping a moderation of the fission and cooling of the core, and i think if you look at the reactor control rooms into comparison to this very friendly to the user control room its very simplified.

That kicked it off, but the control room was dealing with one reading that said the reactor had too much water, while another said it didn't have enough. Ironically if they didn't do anything at all the reactor would have saved itself with the emergency system they shut off.

yeah the readings were a bit off but i think it comes down to the maintenance of the facility because the other reactor that was built before had being running for longer no problems what so ever. so just rule it down to poor maintenance and bad decision making

[Sphinx]

also i will not that there is a weird bug that happens when you walk up to the dial or part of the area of the control room the reading will only just show up as if they do anything unless your looking at them idk

[EyesBlack84]

I just want a chair to sit and watch the bubbles lol

[Hyd3]

hear me out, we lack good complicated games, if anything, I would personally love to see more controls, valves, common headers on the turbines and other systems so you can bypass things on the fly for maintenance, and ofc at least one more reactor. I can coast this game all day but adding in stuck components where you have to go manually open a valve or free it up would be a fun little side task. I realize start up and shut down is inevitable at some point, but if you could idle a reactor and bring it on line when the rods are due, I would pay triple a price for the above mentioned. Complexity is why we are here, lets discourage people a little and make your ability to run the plant be rewarding!

[Barking Sands]

Originally posted by Sphinx:

Originally posted by Stonehammers:

Control rooms do try to be user friendly in real life. Complicated controls and confusing readouts is how three mile island happened.

im pretty sure three mile island happened due to a failure of the pressuriser release valve got stuck opening and causing the water to boil away stopping a moderation of the fission and cooling of the core, and i think if you look at the reactor control rooms into comparison to this very friendly to the user control room its very simplified.

I was going to say the same thing Stonehammers said. There were many ingredients at 3MI, but the one that's relevant to our conversation is the cluttered state of the control room and too many alarm notification indicators constantly being left unaddressed which made it impossible to notice important new messages that were lost in the mess of outdated caution indications. Also there was a maintenance tag blocking an important light that indicated an open pilot-operated relief valve that would have prevented the emergency backup core coolant loading pump from being deactivated had that indicator light been seen.

Also relevant is the fact that real nuclear power plant control rooms are ergonomically designed to match the flow of the facility's design. In this case, the primary and secondary loop fluid pump controls should be adjacent reading left to right from the core to the condenser, and in the game there is a surveillance camera system and electrical output panel in-between.

It might also help to have different keypad designs for different functions, such as a black-gray striped pattern for unloading fuel rods and yellow-black striped pattern for the keypad that moves fresh fuel rods to the core. Too many similar-looking controls are an issue at my job site and it causes many employees to press buttons that can damage equipment and materials by mistake.

[kodes]

Originally posted by Barking Sands:

Originally posted by Sphinx:

im pretty sure three mile island happened due to a failure of the pressuriser release valve got stuck opening and causing the water to boil away stopping a moderation of the fission and cooling of the core, and i think if you look at the reactor control rooms into comparison to this very friendly to the user control room its very simplified.

I was going to say the same thing Stonehammers said. There were many ingredients at 3MI, but the one that's relevant to our conversation is the cluttered state of the control room and too many alarm notification indicators constantly being left unaddressed which made it impossible to notice important new messages that were lost in the mess of outdated caution indications. Also there was a maintenance tag blocking an important light that indicated an open pilot-operated relief valve that would have prevented the emergency backup core coolant loading pump from being deactivated had that indicator light been seen.

Also relevant is the fact that real nuclear power plant control rooms are ergonomically designed to match the flow of the facility's design. In this case, the primary and secondary loop fluid pump controls should be adjacent reading left to right from the core to the condenser, and in the game there is a surveillance camera system and electrical output panel in-between.

It might also help to have different keypad designs for different functions, such as a black-gray striped pattern for unloading fuel rods and yellow-black striped pattern for the keypad that moves fresh fuel rods to the core. Too many similar-looking controls are an issue at my job site and it causes many employees to press buttons that can damage equipment and materials by mistake.

I wasn't thinking terribly deep into it to be honest, I know very little of modding, and know only slightly more about NPPs. I was just wondering if the control room will be replaced at some point or if it'd be a good idea to mod a new one in if possible since (I really mean no offence to the developer here, I can understand having a lot of different things to work on as a solo developer) The current one looks like ♥♥♥♥ and is inherently user-unfriendly, not because it's realistic or complicated, but because it's clunky and bulky, in fact, very user-unfriendly because it's not realistic.

But that's coming from someone who has a heavy bias toward compact controls, too much too spread out just overwhelms my brain, I fly planes; I can deal with 100 inch-big switches under my nose, but if they're all as big as my foot and spread out across an auditorium sized room I will lose my mind, I feel like a child in a jungle gym.

Could even be a fun little project for the nerdy nerds to get together and do.