Gas Movement and Partial Pressuers of Gases

[Retovath]

The current gas(and related movement) system needs some rethinking. The overarching theme of this game is that supplies are allways running out. Oxygen/Gas in particular is in the title and the current system is no bueno.

The way the current system is implemented, is that there is no mixing of gases(partial pressures of gas), and gas pressure is determined by a volume of gas in a tile. There is also minimal diffusion of gasses(high pressure to low pressure)

My suggestion is as follows:
1: Implement an actual pressure system. That way gases in tiles have a pressure per square inch/MMHG/Kilopascal measurement (this makes actual airlocks valuable for conserving gases)

2: Based off that system make gasses into partial pressures per tile. To do this, multiple layers of gasses(Oxygen on a unique layer, CO2 on a unique layer, ect..) should be created. Each layer gets composed into a total volume of gas in the tile.


---This would allow for:
---1: Easier flow/diffusion of gases (as it stands now, only one gas can occupy a tile, and this wastes a lot of cpu cycles as the game tries to figure out which gas currently belongs in a given tile, flickering tiles back and forth between two gasses is horrible, three gasses makes it worse, and four had previously stalled a game as it tried to trade all 4 gases into one tile at the same time.
---2: Better breathability. I'm a little fustrated with random pockets of CO2 just floating about where my minions are working, dispite there being 500+grams of O2 floating above their heads.
a system of partial pressures per tile would solve that by putting oxygen in the same tile as co2. at that point, breathability can be determined by the partial Pressure of O2 in the tile.

Ex: there's a cap of 2000 grams of gasses in a given tile. oxygen has 400 grams that it can present for that tile, co2 has 800 grams for that tile, 1200 grams of gasses in the tile. the tile remains breathable and usable, versus these crappy pockets of random co2 that block my minion's ability to breathe.

[Baelorack]

Originally posted by nina:

well, it IS annoying to have hydrogen at the top of my base, put a gas pump up at the top of the room, get told that it is not in a gas constantly because it somehow makes total vaccume in the middle of a wide open room... without actualy depleating the hydrogen in the room... just one block of vaccume for a couple ticks.

They seem to have improved gas movement in the temperature testing stage. My hydrogen pumps have been pumping continuously. I'd have to verify again whether its just because there is so much hydrogen, but it does seem better.

[The Queen Salis]

What annoys me in this is that a tiny puddle on gas permable tile blocks a huge buildup of gas beneath and there's no temperature exchange between them

[Anelyn]

My problem is that when you stabilize your base (which requires having mechanic doors that maintain pressure and prevent liquid / gas flow) after you finish the research and have a (semi)sustainable base, the pressure starts to create new problems that can't be resolved long term.

Pretty much you will hit max pressure in your living area because you won't have too many dupes consuming O2 (because more dupes means more food required, which means more fertilizer / seeds etc), and your O2 producing system(s) will come to a halt because they can't pump / create anymore.

As a result your Hydrogen production will suffer which affects directly your energy output (you can't have that many coal engines nor manual gens for various reasons), which starts to create more problems as now you have to stick dupes into manual generators or eat more coal than you can produce / find to keep your systems running. If the dupes are operating the manual gens, they can't produce fertilizer, fertilize plants, refill coal gens, harvest & cook & store food, refill biodistillers, dig into new places at acceptable speeds, move stuff around etc.

Since we are inside an asteroid, we should be able to "vent" some gas outside into space, you simply can't continually expand to create more room for gasses your produce to fill up, as everytime you expand you get to new gas areas (some of which you can't deal with currently in any way), release more liquids, geysers, ice melts etc and it creates more and more problems.

Also, even if you could expand in all directions until you hit the ends of map, that is still a finite space that will continue to slowly fill up with gasses until max pressure is reached in all map entirely (yeah will take a long time but you will get there eventually).

So you create O2, Hydrogen and CO2 pretty much as far as gases go. You breath some of the O2, but not enough (again limited dupes number for obvious reasons, and by limited I am not saying 6, but 12+), you create some CO2, but air scrubbers and/or algae terrariums take care of that (some adding a bit more O2 as a result), Hydrogen is used for energy creation, we can purify polluted O2, which results into more O2 being generated.

There is nothing that consumes O2 at an acceptable pace and produces something else like CO2 or Hydrogen - which you can remove, or a liquid / solid that you can consume / use. Even having multiple mouth breathers in your base doesn't really help much.

And when the max pressure comes in, you can't cool stuff with O2 anymore, you can't produce more O2 and Hydrogen and the problems start to pile up more and more - forcing you to dig around to clear new areas, time in which you can't manage your equipment / machineries / garden etc, which creates more problems that create more problems etc :)

[The Queen Salis]

so there's a cheat to destroy gasses - seal off a room and going diagonally build tile after tile (you can build tiles through diagonal gaps the air can't get through) make it smaller and smaller. You'll get several kilos of gas in single square, depressurising your base somewhat. You can then build a tile there to destroy that gas. This is used to destroy chlorine, but can also help in your case.

[Anelyn]

Yeah, thanks for the tip but I hope that devs got something in mind in future updates to deal with this with in-game mechanics ya know? :)

Like a machinery that consumes oxygen (dunno could be something more advanced like a forge that eats O2 to heat up metals and make new ones or something).

Also the lack of metals is really disturbing. I found out that on my map - the entire map scouted in all 4 directions, there is no more copper, some scraps of Iron and gold, and a very small amount of wolframite (or what is called). And I'm only on day 120 and used all my copper and a good amount of gold.

I need separate energy lines in my base, currently am on 3 separate ones, each with it's own hydro gens, coal gens, manual gens, then all the wiring, and then the pumps, fertilizers, biodistillers, refrigerators, cooking stations, electrolyzers etc you name it.

I have enough coal (got 6 hatches I feed regularly), sand am still on 75k kgs, so will hold me a while till I make heat proof suits to tackle magma and replenish sand, fertilizer is barely enough with 3 fertilizers and 2 composts (3 outhouses and 4 latrines for 12 dupes) for 14 fruits (each row comes online every other day), construction material is fine since you can use multiple types (and the special ones you only really need in specific locations).

Also there is something buggy with hydro gens - and with coal gens as well. They should turn off - stop consuming fuel when the batteries are full or over the threshold specified. Coal gens at least you know they get filled whenever they empty, but hydro gens never fill up (the green bar), I even deactivated 2 hydro gens that are fueled by 2 hydrogen pump from an area with tons of hydrogen so that the pipes will fill up completely, then turned them on, they sucked in to about half (28-29kg Hydrogen each hydro gen) then continued to slowly drain as they pumped energy despite the pipes were still full of hydrogen (max quantity not drops, since they gather up when you don't use it until each dot is full) and the pumps where non stop working with plenty of available hydrogen.

Biodistillers should make more algae and more polluted water per second (not that algae are very important later on, outside of couple algae terrariums to drop in tunnels etc), water purifier should have an even exchange rate of purified water -> polluted water, and for some reason 3 stacked coal generators can't produce enough CO2 to keep running an air scrubber tucked in between them in an area that already had plenty of CO2 to begin with.