Hydrocon

[ThunderTurtle]

How the f*ck do they get hydrogen from iron oxide??? That's 2 iron and 3 oxygen. No hydrogen whatsoever.


Edit: Xavier989's answer is confirmed. According to a later in-game video disc, the Molecular Phase Deconstructor breaks down the rust into the building blocks that they need for hydrogen fuel, water, and oxygen; which probably means that they could make those componenets from almost any compound but chose rust because it's abundant on Mars. It's a stretch, but it's also science fiction.

[zert]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_oxide_cycle ?

[ThunderTurtle]

@zert You have to get the hydrogen from somewhere. There is no hydrogen in rust. You can pull hydrogen out of water, but then you are not making water, you are destroying it. The law of conservation of mass cannot be broken. That process requires for there to already be water. It also takes the energy to create high temps and a third element like nickel (II).

[zert]

Who cares?
It's a videogame. With demons.

[ThunderTurtle]

Originally posted by zert:

Who cares?
It's a videogame. With demons.

If they wanted to make the game all story rich and whatnot they could have at least had it make sense

[Poppi !!]

Originally posted by zert:

Who cares?
It's a videogame. With demons.

Ditto.

[lucent]

The Hydrocon is a device which features new technology for transforming iron oxide (Fe2O3) into oxygen (O2) and hydrogen (H2); the oxygen is mainly used for turning Mars and the UAC Labs into habitable environments, but is also used for the production of oxygen canisters. The hydrogen is stored by the MFS.

The Hydrocon can be found in Alpha Labs - Sector 1: Union Aerospace Science Division.

The Hydrocon can be shot, and if shot will explode, causing widespread fire throughout the area, and killing the player almost instantly. A single stray bullet into the glass casing is enough to cause the Hydrocon to explode violently.

"New Technology Transforming"

[whoisrediska?://]

SATAN IS SANS

[Xavier989]

They were really stretching with this one, but the hydrogen was coming from the iron. How could this ever be possible? They had the Molecular phase deconstructor. Which broke apart the iron molecules and rearranged them into hydrogen molecules. This is theoretically possible given you have the technology to do so. but the only thing they don't explain is what happens to all of the excess atomic particles. Do they get rearranged into something else? Who knows, it's sci-fi. You tell me how Stormtroopers have highly advanced technology but can't aim to save their life.

[Major Havoc]

[76561197983720997]

The iron oxide cycle is currently the only viable reaction posted here, but it's rather hard to scale up and the yield is very small. It also needs extremely high temperatures and high yield reactions are extremely difficult at those temperatures/pressures because everything fatigues or deforms instantly. All of this is made moot because you need water and if you have water, you can simply use hydrolysis to get hydrogen and skip the iron oxide cycle.

It's entirely possible to get hydrogen from any other element through nuclear methods. Hydrogen is simply one proton and one electron, or if in gaseous form, two protons and two electrons. It is the simplest elemental atom so you can derive it from any other element. This occurs in natural decay and fission. Think of uranium fission during a nuclear bomb detonation. Energy is relased and you end up with elements of lesser atomic mass. These elements are more energetically stable (otherwise you would be putting energy into a fission reaction, ask yourself, is a nuclear reaction cooling?). This magnitude of stability can be thought of as the binding energy. The higher binding energy means it's more stable so all elements will decay or fuse to yield these elements given the means. Funnily, iron has the highest binding energy and hydrogen has the lowest binding energy. This means that hydrogen and other lighter elements combining (fusion) will output energy, too, to reach more stable elements. If you want to reverse this reaction like in the Hydrocon, you have to input lots of energy. I'm not sure what the energetics of iron oxide is like, but the breakdown of iron oxide and production of pure oxygen (relatively high binding energy) may produce energy to generate small amounts of hydrogen gas. It's still not as efficient as collecting it elsewhere and shipping it in.

[DarthPostalDude]

who cares, no one else who plays it cares, and neither did the developers.

[76561197983720997]

Originally posted by Dr.Faceless Malevolence:

who cares, no one else who plays it cares, and neither did the developers.

why comment then?

[lucent]

I really don't think people see John Carmack's vision in this game.

For people that say bad levels or corridors, don't have a damn clue. If you don't see each and every level showing you that you are on a space station, then you are running around blind.

Where you put the creatures, were second thought. That's why they were popping out of walls or spawning in. I created Doom 2 levels and the hardest part were the spawns.

Doom's 3 level design was outstanding. People just didn 't get the part "poof" there is a monster.

[lucent]

That was the point of the flashlight. Monsters teleported in all over the place so that you couldn't get complacent and slowly clear areas room by room. It was done to be tense. Went right over many gamers's heads, however.

Exactly, this is the first game that I had a flashlight as my secondary mouse button.

I got it from the start, they wanted you to use the flashlight and then pull a weapon. Sure, I could of just used the f button. Hell no, I am side stepping to the right and using my mouse buttons.

Then I try to remember in marine mode, if I pushed forward too fast. Like people trying to run to the next new thing. In marine mode it felt like, oh another thing from behind.

Then playing in veteran mode felt more balance. Attack from the front, attack from behind, things spawning in...and when you went back for a med pack, one more attack.

For 2004 it makes me feel like jumping into a scifi movie, more than a game.

[Major Havoc]

Originally posted by ThunderTurtle:

@zert You have to get the hydrogen from somewhere. There is no hydrogen in rust. You can pull hydrogen out of water, but then you are not making water, you are destroying it. The law of conservation of mass cannot be broken. That process requires for there to already be water. It also takes the energy to create high temps and a third element like nickel (II).

I guess you have no clue how much hydrogen is in iron. Guess what, it is mainly made up of hydrogen atoms. That is why our hydrogen burning Sun has an immense iron core.