Need conductive material for fabricating

[Zafhset]

Ever since wires stopped providing pharosium for fabricating needs, either steel or molitz served as a replacement for conductive material - that seems to have stopped recently.

This makes any plan that involves mass fabrication unfeasible even if you raid the small stock of pharosium available in each fabricator on station.

[Noah Buttes]

This is my fault and is actually the correction of a previous, longstanding bug.

The relevant portions of code prior to my patch were as follows:

Code:

                if ("CON")
                    switch(secondpart)
                        if(2)
                            return (mat.getProperty(PROP_ELECTRICAL) >= 75)  || (mat.material_flags & MATERIAL_METAL)
                        else
                            return (mat.getProperty(PROP_ELECTRICAL) >= 50) || (mat.material_flags & MATERIAL_METAL)

Those ||'s function as operators that will return true if either of the conditions are met.

In other words, for material to be usable as normall conductive material it has to either have an electrical property greater than or equal to fifty OR it an just be a metal.

In other words, you could have used SLAG as a conductive material or quite literally any other metal at all

My patch changes this to 

Code:

    if ("CON")
                    switch(secondpart)
                        if(2)
                            return (mat.getProperty(PROP_ELECTRICAL) >= 80) && (mat.material_flags & MATERIAL_METAL) || (mat.getProperty(PROP_ELECTRICAL) >= 80) && (mat.material_flags & MATERIAL_CRYSTAL) //Wow! Claretine has a use again!
                        else
                            return (mat.getProperty(PROP_ELECTRICAL) >= 50) && (mat.material_flags & MATERIAL_METAL) || (mat.getProperty(PROP_ELECTRICAL) >= 50) && (mat.material_flags & MATERIAL_CRYSTAL)

Which means the material has to have the proper electrical properties AND has to be the right type of material in order to actually fit the criteria for conductive material.



To make a long story short:

You'll have to rely on mining to get you some pharosium or other conductive materials now!

I suppose you could also use the arc smelter in an attempt to stretch the limited supply of properly conductive materials on station, too.

[Zafhset]

Would it be possible to make the materials used in wires conductive again then? It makes no sense for us to get non-conductive materials when recycling something used to conduct electricity.

The inability to procure conductive materials from the normal QM goods makes fabricating more than 2 items a nightmare for mechanics.

[Xeram]

It really makes no sense that steel isn't counted as a conductive metal for fabricators.

You know, seeing as literally every wire on station ever is now made of it.

And the patch for fixing materials came after that fact had been around for quite some time.

(Please do this, Cyborgs typically like to have treads and those bloody machines like to munch all the pharosium before steel and surprise now you have no conductive material for treads.)

[Noah Buttes]

I'll see what I can do about the wires.

I could probably just use pharosium instead of steel, but it would be more appropriate to make another terrestrial analogue.

[Noah Buttes]

This patch should address the issue:

http://forum.ss13.co/showthread.php?tid=6494