Any good uses for mercury?

[skyhrg]

Low heat cap.
Stays liquid most of the time.
High thermal conductivity.

What uses are there...?

[Herr Morlock]

euphoria96 eredeti hozzászólása:

Anyone try to use it as coolant in metal refinery? The low heat cap means its going to get super hot, which is great for thermal transfer. Would making steel vaporize it?

I tried it out, since it looks perfect on paper. The problem is, that if you feed the refinery with liquid mercury around -10°C to -20°C, it gets absurdely hot, when it comes out again. It reaches immediately a temperature of over 900°C (sic) which makes it evaporate inside the pipe, which results in a burst and liquid mercury all over the floor...

I tried a lot to make it work, but it seems to be impossible. So, I am back again to polluted water, although I might try out the tip below, and gather enough nectar to maybe use THAT instead...

[skyhrg]

Herr Morlock eredeti hozzászólása:

I tried it out, since it looks perfect on paper. The problem is, that if you feed the refinery with liquid mercury around -10°C to -20°C, it gets absurdely hot, when it comes out again. It reaches immediately a temperature of over 900°C (sic) which makes it evaporate inside the pipe, which results in a burst and liquid mercury all over the floor...

I tried a lot to make it work, but it seems to be impossible. So, I am back again to polluted water, although I might try out the tip below, and gather enough nectar to maybe use THAT instead...

Why do you say it looks "perfect on paper"? I would imagine the low heat cap makes it far from perfect...?

[Nekone Smug Face]

is a good substitute for the hydra SPOM, gonna try to use as coolant for farms and for refinery, but outside of that I don't see much use.

[Shame]

Why is everyone talking about it being a good coolant? Ethanol is a better coolant for low temperatures, which is quite common already on the DLC starting planetoids. Petroleum and even crude oil are better alternatives if you need cold but potentially high temperatures. You cannot use mercury as coolant for a refinery unless you're refining gold or something that barely heats up the coolant liquid (+3C when using water btw) as the liquid metal has incredibly low heat capacity despite the bigger temperature range as a liquid than any type of water or ethanol.

Only real things it is ok for are few niche places you can use it as a solid metal where other solid metals would be better to use anyway and maybe a liquid lock, that's it. It is a trash metal given the context, I really wish it was replaced by gallium in the game.

[skyhrg]

Shame eredeti hozzászólása:

You cannot use mercury as coolant for a refinery unless you're refining gold or something that barely heats up the coolant liquid (+3C when using water btw) as the liquid metal has incredibly low heat capacity despite the bigger temperature range as a liquid than any type of water or ethanol.

Yeah, I'm thinking that the only good usage it has is mercury lamps, and liquid locks...

[Skellor]

Shame eredeti hozzászólása:

Why is everyone talking about it being a good coolant? Ethanol is a better coolant for low temperatures, which is quite common already on the DLC starting planetoids. Petroleum and even crude oil are better alternatives if you need cold but potentially high temperatures. You cannot use mercury as coolant for a refinery unless you're refining gold or something that barely heats up the coolant liquid (+3C when using water btw) as the liquid metal has incredibly low heat capacity despite the bigger temperature range as a liquid than any type of water or ethanol.

Only real things it is ok for are few niche places you can use it as a solid metal where other solid metals would be better to use anyway and maybe a liquid lock, that's it. It is a trash metal given the context, I really wish it was replaced by gallium in the game.

nectar which you can get using mercury and bonbon is even better coolant, it's same parameters as Polluted water, but bigger temperature range

["Hard Tack" Tom]

Mercury ceiling light!
60,000 lux. Makes solar panels and the new nectar trees go brrr

[euphoria96]

Mercury is great for making steam turbines. :-)

For metal refinery coolants, late game I prefer Petroleum. Mid game I used normal water, although you have to keep the water coolant below about 40C or it will vaporize when making steel. Not an issue if you transfer the heat into a cooling pool to melt more water from ice using radiant pipes.

[Roy Hess]

Mercury ceiling light -> bonbon tree -> nectar -> plastic -> profit

[Shame]

Regarding the ceiling light, the fact that mercury is consumed, doesn't that mean that eventually you will run out? It doesn't seem like it's easily renewable, if that's possible at all, since there is no geyser associated with the resource so if you want a permanent nectar source or just continue growing the bonbon trees, you would have to use some other methods for keeping high lux around the branches.

[Tregon]

Shame eredeti hozzászólása:

Regarding the ceiling light, the fact that mercury is consumed, doesn't that mean that eventually you will run out? It doesn't seem like it's easily renewable, if that's possible at all, since there is no geyser associated with the resource so if you want a permanent nectar source or just continue growing the bonbon trees, you would have to use some other methods for keeping high lux around the branches.

There are tons and tons of stuff.
Even more if you refine cinnabar ore to mercury.
And space POI can contain more.

By the time you have mined and used all, you have tech and industrial base to use other solutions even if they are more power hungry.

["the" Chase]

Only useful thing I've used it for is mercury lamps. Once I had nectar, I used that for all my liquid locks. 2 of the nectar trees, 4 spigot seals and 2 mercury lamps has given basically unlimited tallow and supports 3 bammoths at a ranch with the ethanol being used for their feed plants. A vertical ranch would have let me use 1 lamp for multiple plants (will do in the future probably).

Once I run out of mercury, going to have to do a complete redesign but i mean thats in like 2000 more cycles.

One thing I can say, its there is mercury everywhere. Its a very annoying material but that makes for more interesting gameplay.

[Haiyoooo]

I made smart batteries and stuff with it in a cold section xD and just heavy watt wire it over to my warm section for early game refined metal.

But now I’ve found iron ore xD

[TooMuchCoffee]

Beach chairs.

["the" Chase]

I found a new use for mercury https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3370376526