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[MERGED PR] Post-Hellburn Adjustment (Gas Burn Temps & Molitz Availability)
#1
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PULL REQUEST DETAILS



[balance][input wanted]
About the PR

- [X] [FEEDBACK RECEIVED]

Raise ceiling for chamber burns (ATMOS hotspots) across the board.
* Note: There seems to be some odd inconsistencies in how different TEG's behave that appear to be a function of layout and burn chamber thermal pipe size. That is beyond the scope of this PR.

Puts a maximum temperature for hotspots at 1e31. `INFINITY` chosen for consistency with codebase and readability. Approaching 1e35 certain calculations start propagating `NaN`.

Increases availability of Molitz Beta.

Why's this needed?
Improve balance.
Addresses #3480
Seeks to address issues observed on Discord that I could find.


Changelog


Code:
changelog
(u)Azrun
(*)Increases "standard" burn chamber temperature and improve Molitz Beta drop chance.  Research Director now has a briefcase with Molitz Beta in their office.


PULL REQUEST DETAILS
#2
Super interested in how Molitz Beta has impacted your shifts. Have you been getting by without it just for? Have you been able to get enough to make it seem like nothing happened.
#3
When the update first hit, I worked with mining for a few shifts to get Molitz B. I've usually seen only a handful of Molitz B each shift.
I also did a few shifts as a borg. I hit up and tore through a bunch of the mining field asteroids and I maybe found only five molitz B the whole time. I'm aware they are supposed to come from the quantum telescope but it can be a bit of a pain to work with that, especially because only the Chief Engineer has direct access to mining.

Since Engineering and Mining need to work closer on TEG maps, i'm curious if maybe Engineering can get access to the mining ready room so that they have access to the Quantum Telescope. The mini-game can be a bit of a drag, but if you want to be a Chief Engineer and get the TEG cash objective done, you really need to sit your ass in front of it now.
#4
I'd personally think that capping the burns at least at at 100k would be a pretty reasonable option. It's still nowhere near what hellburns used to be in terms of temperatures, but it'd make chamber burns a viable option, and a better alternative to charburns. (That's up to debate tho, it's hard to predict how the chamber burn temps affect the pipe gas temperatures without testing it)

Speaking of, with current 10k cap, making toxins bombs is pretty much impossible, using the regular method, as the gas inside the chamber is too cold to affect the pipes. You can go for the other methods (that also make the gas temps pretty unstable and crazy), but I think the atmos changes should be balanced to allow players at least reach the TTV temperatures with regular chamber burns. Canbombs should be exclusive to Molitz B shenanigans tho.

I haven't personally witnessed Molitz B burns yet, but then again, I play on main noRP where departmental cooperation is next to non existent. I think there should be some way to get it that doesn't involve mining too.
#5
(02-01-2021, 03:04 AM)RGBDeadSilent Wrote: Since Engineering and Mining need to work closer on TEG maps, i'm curious if maybe Engineering can get access to the mining ready room so that they have access to the Quantum Telescope. The mini-game can be a bit of a drag, but if you want to be a Chief Engineer and get the TEG cash objective done, you really need to sit your ass in front of it now.
All TEG maps have 2 Quantum Telescopes, so CE should be able to work with Mining, Science, or Silicon. Kondaru has 3, and you just need to get outside to use that one!  Seems like something the CE should be able to delegate to someone... or conscript request a Staff Assistant.

(02-01-2021, 09:06 AM)TTerc Wrote: I'd personally think that capping the burns at least at at 100k would be a pretty reasonable option.
...
Speaking of, with current 10k cap, making toxins bombs is pretty much impossible, using the regular method, as the gas inside the chamber is too cold to affect the pipes. You can go for the other methods (that also make the gas temps pretty unstable and crazy), but I think the atmos changes should be balanced to allow players at least reach the TTV temperatures with regular chamber burns.
100k is around the point where there is enough thermal energy pass through the walls that it starts to heat up rooms that will eventually require someone to RCD some holes. 80k seems to be a nice slow rise.

Speaking of RCD, added a briefcase with 6 pieces of Molitz Beta for the Research Director to use as they see fit (or whoever gets to their office first).
#6
I've spent a good few shifts since my last post going through engineering and mining. As a miner, I have spent numerous shifts sitting in front of the Quantum Telescope plugging away constantly looking for materials.

Perhaps its just my luck, but I have had shifts where i've found more Starstone than Molitz asteroids.

Molitz is an addon material you can find in other things, but even then its not really a lot. Plus most other miners won't want to pull in a char asteroid that has a small amount of Molitz.

The highest i've had a burn reach since this change is around 20k without molitz, and that was with a lot of fiddling with other things, and it also didn't hold there constantly. The highest the engine hit that shift without molitz was only 4.2mW, which over the shift wasn't enough to cap out the SMES. Smes was only at around 79% at the time the engine suddenly and inexplicably died and sat constantly at 19.3 kw.
#7
(02-07-2021, 12:26 PM)RGBDeadSilent Wrote: I've spent a good few shifts since my last post going through engineering and mining. As a miner, I have spent numerous shifts sitting in front of the Quantum Telescope plugging away constantly looking for materials.

Perhaps its just my luck, but I have had shifts where i've found more Starstone than Molitz asteroids.

Molitz Asteroids were also added as a "+1" when you find asteroid on the telescope as well.
    "The scanner is picking up something else ..."
    "To your surprise, you find that the asteroid also carries some ..."

Seems odd that you saw more Starstone Asteroids.

(02-07-2021, 12:26 PM)RGBDeadSilent Wrote: The highest i've had a burn reach since this change is around 20k without molitz, and that was with a lot of fiddling with other things, and it also didn't hold there constantly. The highest the engine hit that shift without molitz was only 4.2mW, which over the shift wasn't enough to cap out the SMES. Smes was only at around 79% at the time the engine suddenly and inexplicably died and sat constantly at 19.3 kw.

I'm not quite sure what you saying on the first part of that.  Was the majority of the "output" then being fed back into powering the blower?  Do you feel the changes as part of this PR would help address that issue?

"the engine suddenly and inexplicably died and sat constantly at 19.3 kw" - Wish I knew more so I could tell you what the problem is or if there was a bug somewhere... sad greater domestic space-bee
#8
(Para 4-5 and para 10 [ones with triple asterisks] are relevant to only this PR, and added a TLDR at end)


Howdy, finally got around to posting on the forum. Okie, so my thought process is more to talk generally about the engine and the recent changes, instead of specifically the changes to molitz/gas burn temps, so I might need to move this reply else where just let me know if I do. I play on goon main, and I am mostly a conwoker/engineer, so I will be speaking from that perspective. This will contain my personal experiences of having worked with the changes, so what you see/hear/interpret may vary. 

More framing for my response, part of what got me into goon/SS13 was seeing Tex's vids on hellburns. I like seeing systems get exploited like that and pushed to their seeming limits. Yes, it is super overpowered and destructive to the station as I've learned, but its... its fun to make engine go BRRRRRRRR. 

Given that I appreciate that Molitz B has the intended function of allowing this to occur again. I think leaving this in at all is a good move, given the amount of fun people have had doing hellburns and the spectacle they cause.

***Molitz B does require aid from mining though, and mining tends not to want to provide Molitz unless they are feeling just super cooperative that day. They do not get rewarded in anyway for providing this to engineering as far as I see? I guess they can make money from engineering buying it from them, but they make money from selling it to anyone/the QM. If engineering could reward them better in turn (maybe routing power to the mining magnet or something) or if mining got a reward for providing Molitz B to engineering/toxins, then maybe that would help here? I don't know just it's kinda rough getting it from them unless they are just very nice or the CE hounds them about it. Think adding it to the RD's case is a great move, as it adds more routes for acquisition for everyone, though will need to see in practice what effects it has.

***Ok thats acquisition now for what I'm more opinionated about. Use. I don't know if anyone has figured out how Molitz B functions well enough to actually get a hellburn running utilizing it. I would be SUPER interested to see if anyone has actually gotten like even GWs out of a Molitz B hellburn and how they did it. My attempts have been done as follows. Acquire Molitz B, cube the Molitz B in reclaimer (have also attempted this raw though much less), spread Molitz B and Molitz cubes in burn chamber (have tried spreading them out individually, leaving them in a pile, and keeping some back to throw in later), fill chamber with Plasma and O2 mix as per standard mix ratio usually running it a touch plasma heavy, light, watch as it heats to the point the molitz performs color change, panic as chamber gets dumped full of O2 and try desperately to increase the plasma feed rate by adjusting the feed pump at the computer (I've set it to like 300 kPA and cut off the O2 can), panic again as the heat from the chamber makes the molitz B outside hit reaction temps and chuck it in to the chamber if I left any outside, check the mix to see presence of small percentage of Agent B, reenable the O2 feed as the mix in the chamber evens out, watch as the flames continue at 10K degrees C and don't increase. Now this was pre-80k degree cap change. I have been using pipeburns, since the change as it is a lot more fun and effective. I also tried the same process as above, but vented, this was not very effective either. If someone has got Molitz B to let us return to hellburning as it was I would love to know, as I have been unable to do so. Maybe with more availability we will be able to test setups more.

With using pipeburns more however I have noticed some things about the circulator changes that I hadn't previously.

(I'm more ranting about how the engine works below)

The pressure moving through the Hot loop circ appears to be the main way power output is determined. By activating the hot loop circ you control how much pressure it consumes from the inlet side in a game tick. There appears to be a direct correlation to how much is consumed to how much power is produced, this also appears to disregard the temperature of the loops (except that hot gas expands and thus more pressure, Ideal gas law and all that). If you wanted you could force the circulator to consume all the pressure in the inlet for a large power spike, but this kills the pressure going forwards. This means that for max consistent power you want to match the rate of pressure increase you're seeing at your inlet with the amount of pressure the hot loop circ is set to. With circulators powered off it seems like the circs make their own determination of what rate to consume this pressure. 

(rant over)

While I like the amount of control adjusting circs gives, it means that I am attached at the hip to the engine constantly adjust it as the rate of pressure gain increases. 

If you leave the circs on their default setting, you have to adjust the pressure in the outlet pipe (or so it seems to me) to ensure the outlet pressure is not higher than the inlet (as otherwise power either isn't generated or not generated well). Not all of the maps are well geared for venting pressure from the outlet of the hot loop as a number have vents on the inlet side of the hot loop instead. Once again this requires constant finicking. 

***Back to this PR, raising the cap is good, as charburns were way out preforming plasma and O2 burns (which is super unthematic if what is effectively coal out preforms the substance that the entire station was built around researching, and also imho was super demoralizing to see my hot loop inlet sometimes be colder after the burn chamber than when it went in). 

I'm going to speak to what I have heard the purposes of these changes have been.

More engaging engine gameplay:

At first I thought that the new changes were bad in this area. The more I play with pipeburns the more I like the hotspot changes, as pipeburns do feel far more rewarding for technical expertise in engines than hellburns do. I love changing the circ settings or letting out outlet pressure and watching the engineers around me go from "HEY WHY ENGINE NO WORK" to "HOW YOU MAKE ENGINE GO BRRRR?????!!!???". This being said, the only rewarding thing about making the engine go BRR is making the engine go BRR at the moment. The effort in fighting for the few extra MW you can squeeze out goes unrewarded at the moment. Anything over the SMES draw is for your own gratification. Admittedly, there is a certain breed like me for whom that's enough. I like engine go brrr. I can imagine it turns a lot of people away though. I know PTL adjustments are down the line, hopefully those rectify this issue. IF someone can figure out a hellburn with Molitz B, then I can speak to how engaging that is, but as far as I have seen no one has made it work. I don't know how I feel about varient TEGs. Cold varient doesn't make much sense. IMHO we don't have a great way to make a cold engine as far as I can figure out doubly, so since power gen appears to be pressure reliant. 

Safe engine gameplay:

HAHA SAFE???? I'm an engineer. If I'm not actively causing the world around me to spontaneously combust, then I have not performed adequately in my job and should be tossed into the engine. Now this being said, the worst hellburn I experienced forced us out into the escape hallway, and moderately annoyed cargo and mechanics. For me it was a blast. I have never seen a hellburn literally melt the floor or the station at large. I can see why that would be annoying, especially if it was low effort to do so. I don't know if this was done consistently or not, so I won't speak to it. From what I understand this was more an issue for RP servers. There has been some mentions I've seen of not wanting engineers to have to vent atmos to run the engine. I still do this with pipeburns to prevent flooding us with plasma and bursting cans. Venting atmos is just gonna be a reality if you want engines to go brrr at all, unless you make it so pipes can't burst or transfer heat externally. It's the most efficient way for an engineer to fix that issue, unless you like give us a button to vent atmos from engineering. Even then at high enough temps the cans will still probably burst. If you want engineers to not light fires, then imho engineering will be very boring and make no power.

This is all that comes to my brain for now. MeThink.exe has crashed.

TLDR.
Temp cap raise probably good since coal > plasma seems weird, and more molitz b = more opportunities to try to get molitz b to work (which I haven't).
#9
Alright so I've been trying to get back into engine stuff again after a while and i can get some good burns going and I'm sure there's a lot of people following these PR's closely. But me coming back after a while and not sure whats going on, the only bit of information i can find is about "lubricants" on the wiki. I'd really appreciate more information about how the engine works. Some basic stuff like how high certain gasses can heat up etc. would be really useful. I find it really odd that you can get a ton of information about how chemicals work on the wiki, but there's barely any information on the engine and their gasses. The only thing thats explained is how to get a basic char burn going, but theres barely any information on what pressure differences do. I think you get my point now about how im missing information.

With all these changes coming in I'd really like to see the wiki pages get a drastic update too on how the TEG works, even better if it gets their own page instead of stuffed in between other engines. So people don't have to learn it from other people or closely watching PR's and we can get a centralized source of information.
#10
(02-12-2021, 10:27 AM)FallenScion Wrote: ***Molitz B does require aid from mining though, and mining tends not to want to provide Molitz unless they are feeling just super cooperative that day. They do not get rewarded in anyway for providing this to engineering as far as I see? I guess they can make money from engineering buying it from them, but they make money from selling it to anyone/the QM. If engineering could reward them better in turn (maybe routing power to the mining magnet or something) or if mining got a reward for providing Molitz B to engineering/toxins, then maybe that would help here? I don't know just it's kinda rough getting it from them unless they are just very nice or the CE hounds them about it. Think adding it to the RD's case is a great move, as it adds more routes for acquisition for everyone, though will need to see in practice what effects it has.
Does Mining really have a reward for doing anything?  Do we really get rewarded for doing anything. my mouth is opening oh no   They are under the CE so they answer to the same peeps.  Preferably it ends up in the Rockbox to be distributed as the station sees fit.

(02-12-2021, 10:27 AM)FallenScion Wrote: ***Ok thats acquisition now for what I'm more opinionated about. Use. I don't know if anyone has figured out how Molitz B functions well enough to actually get a hellburn running utilizing it. I would be SUPER interested to see if anyone has actually gotten like even GWs out of a Molitz B hellburn and how they did it. ... Maybe with more availability we will be able to test setups more.
Increased availability should allow for more experimentation.  You don't need to refine it.  Using the catalyst is going to impact the mixture of gases which is a major factor in maintaining the hotspot state.

(02-12-2021, 10:27 AM)FallenScion Wrote: At first I thought that the new changes were bad in this area. The more I play with pipeburns the more I like the hotspot changes, as pipeburns do feel far more rewarding for technical expertise in engines than hellburns do. I love changing the circ settings or letting out outlet pressure and watching the engineers around me go from "HEY WHY ENGINE NO WORK" to "HOW YOU MAKE ENGINE GO BRRRR?????!!!???". This being said, the only rewarding thing about making the engine go BRR is making the engine go BRR at the moment. The effort in fighting for the few extra MW you can squeeze out goes unrewarded at the moment. Anything over the SMES draw is for your own gratification. Admittedly, there is a certain breed like me for whom that's enough. I like engine go brrr. I can imagine it turns a lot of people away though. I know PTL adjustments are down the line, hopefully those rectify this issue. IF someone can figure out a hellburn with Molitz B, then I can speak to how engaging that is, but as far as I have seen no one has made it work. I don't know how I feel about varient TEGs. Cold varient doesn't make much sense. IMHO we don't have a great way to make a cold engine as far as I can figure out doubly, so since power gen appears to be pressure reliant.
All Ears ... ahh yes uh... sweet!  I plan on doing PTL adjustments once the community gets more dialed in as theoretically the behavior is all still there.  

Cold variant is just intended as a lower temperature burns will produce more power because the semiconductor material is more performant at those temperatures. For Science!

---

(02-12-2021, 10:43 AM)Luxizzle Wrote: With all these changes coming in I'd really like to see the wiki pages get a drastic update too on how the TEG works, even better if it gets their own page instead of stuffed in between other engines. So people don't have to learn it from other people or closely watching PR's and we can get a centralized source of information.

"So people don't have to learn it from other people", I feel like that is antithetical to how I've heard the TEG has always been.  There is sufficient information to get started and everything else is a "soft secret".  I want people to talk to the CE, to talk to their engineers, and now to talk to their miners.  Do you feel like

Are you looking for a table similar to chems that shows the specific behavior of all the gas properties and chem interactions with the circulator?   Chemicals is a question of combinations N reagents, N temperatures where learning of the existence of a reaction doesn't necessarily inform you of another.  There are a handful of gases with subtle differences between them.  If there weren't the case people could end arguments conversations by just referencing the wiki.  Different people have their own preferred mixtures and I think that is fascinating.  I guess it would be interesting to know your expectation in regards to level of detail. 

Wiki:
Quote:Lubrication system: This setup does not require any special lubricant that some more advanced setups might benefit from. Still, if you're so curious, here's a general rundown: The system can be accessed by using a screwdriver on the circulator to open the access panel. The viscosity of the fluids is used to determine how efficient the gas transfer from inlet to outlet are. Additionally there are a number of chemicals that can directly impact how the circulator behaves. A drain valve can be wrenched when the panel is open to drain the current lubricant.

Are there some other basic features/concepts that are missing some form of documentation that is required to get started with the TEG? Are there features that you feel need some at least basic detail to allow people to make the transition to more complicated aspects of the TEG?
#11
Not everybody knows what N2 stands for and then hooks it up to the hot loop and have it explode in their face. I also usually play on lesser populated times where im almost all the time the only engineer. Even some basic information would be nice. I just don't agree with the whole "soft secret" thing when the entire aspects of the game are explained to you in full detail on the wiki.

For example, you talk about Molitz Beta here, i have no clue what that is and even newer people who have no clue are never going to figure it out since its not on the wiki. Theres also a huge barrier of entry to think about for new players.


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