Over heat issue

[lordofthedamned3000]

I made a Thermo Aquatuner 1st out of copper, then out of Gold Amalgam. The gold had a 50 degree to overheat but it overheat damaged fast then copper

[jgtogi]

Yes becuase gold actually overheats faster then any other metal. The descriptions says 50 degree overheat meaning it overheats at 50 degrees and has the lowest thermal conductvity. It is a great metal for keeping you warming liquids warm and your cold liquids cool but it is useless at higher temperatures. This is why gold is so vaulable in the real world. It is quite malleable. Try making out of iron or wolvermite.

[CoolNitro]

The first time I tried this device it instantly jumped to 700c and cooked it's surroundings, I haven't had a chance to try it since but I'm pretty sure you can't run it without either sticking it water or flowing water past it.

Originally posted by jgtogi:

Yes becuase gold actually overheats faster then any other metal. The descriptions says 50 degree overheat meaning it overheats at 50 degrees and has the lowest thermal conductvity. It is a great metal for keeping you warming liquids warm and your cold liquids cool but it is useless at higher temperatures. This is why gold is so vaulable in the real world. It is quite malleable. Try making out of iron or wolvermite.

Not true gold in game has a +50 heat resistance to overheating devices meaning a device that overheats at 100c with say copper will overheat at 150c with gold as an example ofcourse I can't remember off the top of my head what the actual overheat values are, not that it matters though as I said above the Aquatuner creates insane heat way above overheating temps for all construction metals.

[AquaX]

The issue with the overheat is which 1 came first and what gas you used and the current temp of that gas when just inputed. Normally the intial cooling tends to overheat all regulators depending if you are constantly using it. Gold increases the machines overheat range by an extra 50 degrees.

Only a handful of methods insure the regulators do not overheat.
1) dripping water onto the regulators. This keep the regulators at a steady temp since it transfer the heat to the water but in small amounts. This is most ideal on most occasions since it can work for all other machines that must remain on constantly like gas generators, batteries, etc.

2) using wheezeworts. This method is so so since it is hard to know if the wheezeworts are nerfed or not. There are some occasion where i see them able to keep a regulator cool and sometimes it cant handle it. My guess is that it is based on how hot the gas is during the first cooldown. The hotter the gas, the worst it is.

[Nightstrasza]

2 wheezworts can keep a thermoregulator cool if they have enough gases to cool down, if room is filled with 2kg of oxygen they will easly handle the heat in regulator.

[jgtogi]

Originally posted by CoolNitro:

The first time I tried this device it instantly jumped to 700c and cooked it's surroundings, I haven't had a chance to try it since but I'm pretty sure you can't run it without either sticking it water or flowing water past it.

Originally posted by jgtogi:

Yes becuase gold actually overheats faster then any other metal. The descriptions says 50 degree overheat meaning it overheats at 50 degrees and has the lowest thermal conductvity. It is a great metal for keeping you warming liquids warm and your cold liquids cool but it is useless at higher temperatures. This is why gold is so vaulable in the real world. It is quite malleable. Try making out of iron or wolvermite.

Not true gold in game has a +50 heat resistance to overheating devices meaning a device that overheats at 100c with say copper will overheat at 150c with gold as an example ofcourse I can't remember off the top of my head what the actual overheat values are, not that it matters though as I said above the Aquatuner creates insane heat way above overheating temps for all construction metals.

I had my liquid pump overheat at 75 degrees when it was created with gold. I might be wrong on the overheat temperature. Although the evidence would point to that from my end. The metals themselves have more hidden properties which effect their overheat damage. The two being most important are thermal conductivity (how a metal keeps heat) and the second being melting point. Gold has the lowest value of all other metals which bad very bad.

The original poster said that is aqua tuner is breaking faster with gold and my experience confirms the same. I think how gold works is either how I said it. Either that or it is a bug. The tool tip is wrong or the game mechanics are working incorrectly.

What I said initially still stands

MAKE IT OUT OF WOLVERMITE

Also, yes you need to put the thing water or it will break down from not using it properly.

[AquaX]

Wolframite is good that it transfer the most heat out but that in itself a downside too. Since it is not stuck to the machince but sending it out into the enviornment which means you are cooking the environment instead.

[Durmack]

aquatuner overheats at 125C, 175C if made of gold, and pretty much needs to be submerged in liquid to handle the amount of heat it transfers, unless you severely limit the volume passing through with a valve, but that makes it horribly power inefficient

[Nightstrasza]

Just don't waste time with aqua tunner, it wastes tons of energy and produces insane amounts of heat. Just make water tank out of abyssalite and produce oxygen with use of extra thermo regulator insteed, less power needed, the same -14C, less destruction.

[GD]

As with a lot of things in this game ... it's not that simple .. but thats why we love it ...

Normally Gold Amalgan is good if you want your machine survive in warmer or colder environments and/or process warmer or colder materials either gases or fluids because is allows to heat up until 125°C instead of 75°C (same for cold vice versae). Actually it's better so say it allows +50°C over the default temperature of the device. I say that, because for example Air Pumps have 75°C Default Max Temp and therefore a max 125°C when build out of Gold Amalgan, but still only 75°C when build out of Copper. The Aqua Tuner has as default temperature of 125°C, meaning when build out of Copper still 125°C, when build out of Gold Amalgan 175°C.

Viewed like that Gold Amalgan is better, but it's not that simple ....

The issue with Gold Amalgan is twosome: It has a low Thermal Conductivity (2.0). This factor says how much energie in form of heat can this material transfer between itself and something else. Copper for example has more than twice this (4.5). On top of that it can hold heat not that good, this factor is determined by the "Heat Capacity". Gold Amalgan has 0.15, Copper more than twice of that 0.39.

Now what does that mean?

Meaning: Yes build out of Gold Amalgan it can survive in environments until 125°C (or 175°C for Aqua Tuner) before taking damage, Copper would damage at 75°C and above. But because it can transfer heat much slower and on top of that can collect heat only half of the amount of the others you get really fast in trouble when the device is building up heat to fast.

If you manage to make the surroundings in a way, that it can really fast collect the heat away, than everything can heat up until 125°C/175°C, but if not the device burns itself out because of this properties.

In practise it's not easy to give a simple answer you must coordinate the environment with usage and workload and the materials used all in concert to make it work without causing problems.

As for the environments the others already wrote one thing or another. But the type and amount of material (e.g. less air = faster overheat Vaccum for example nearly instant, Fluid have more mass so can take more heat before getting warmer) around as well as it's own temperature and ability to send the heat somewhere else all matters to make it work in the long term.

EDIT: It also means there are probably always multiple working ways to do the same thing. So don't be confused if different players give different tipps.

[Reaniel]

The reason why Aquatuners and Regulators made with gold amalgam would have spiked temperature isn't because of its low thermal conductivity, but rather its low specific heat. While this is a bit annoying, the problem is more than compensated by the +50C to overheat temperature, as long as you have sufficient cooling to the machines.

There is a general misconception about how wolframite is this miracle material for conducting heat, but in reality, it's not.

The problem lies within how heat transfer actually works in the engine, and the formula it uses in the codes.

Basically, when 2 "things" are exchanging heat, the engine only uses the lower number of the two bodies in considering thermal conductivity. What this means is that, for example, if you're calculating heat transfer for something with low thermal conductivity like Chlorine (0.0081), it doesn't matter if you're using Wolframite (15) or Sandstone (2.9) pipes, the thermal conductivity used in the heat transfer is going to be 0.0081.

With the same thermal conductivity in these cases, the pipe material with higher specific heat would make the better conductor, which is... Sandstone.

Players on the official forum had done actual tests in the game with debug tool, and pretty much confirmed the result after decompiling the codes:

The test:
https://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/79966-boiling-with-thermo-regulators/?do=findComment&comment=935005

The codes:
https://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/79966-boiling-with-thermo-regulators/?do=findComment&comment=935031

There are additional tests in that thread.

Yes, I know it's counterintuitive, but as far as the current heat engine is concerned, even Sedimentary Rock conducts heat better than Wolframite due to Wolframite's low specific heat and the way thermal conductivity is determined and used during heat transfer.

[jgtogi]

Well that is interesting. The only consensuses with all the evidence is that gold amalgum is awful.

P.S. This math and physics testing is amazing although it beyond what I want to look into for a video game. Good job getting all the evidence together.