Atmospheric Pipe Changes Megathread

[TrickyWolfer]

NEWEST THREAD TL;DR HERE
Newest Atmos pipe related merge: Pipes incased in walls have increased fatigue pressure

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Atmospherics is one of the core mechanics in SS13. We have air, we have plasma, and it's up to the players to harness it. We have science, which has a toxins wing dedicated to research plasma and all about gas properties in SS13. We have TEG engineers, trying to min-max temperature and pressure exchange between TEG loops to make good power. This was usually controlled with the existence of atmos pipes, which lets player controls down to the molarity of the gas to achieve the goal.

However, with the very recent change , this has made the ability to achieve these goals are really hard. This wasn't the first time that happened, e.g. Scaling leak was added which received a lot of backlash . It was understandable that somewhere down the line, the atmos system needs to be balanced, but it's clear these kinds of changes needs more consultations before it was added.

This thread aims to be a general catch-all about everything around atmos pipes (and to collate it). What do you used it for, why the recent change is pretty bad (or maybe balanced)! What are the possible fixes, you name it! The reason why this was made was because apparently a lot seems to have a lot of things to say, but none seem to be sure where to lump where the main devs could actually read.

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I'll start first: This new 'manifold bursting' merge is really detrimental not only for engineering, but also toxin researchers. The idea why manifold was first added was so to have a container that doesn't burst and maim the players ever since scaling leak was added, among other things (such as uncontrollable leakage, messing up the mix). The idea that it was added just because TEG making big power is short-sighted, especially with no proper solution to mitigate it (HGC can only reach 1 billion kPa as of writing).

The necessity to have unbreakable pipes is a must from the ever evolving player base that slowly more and more educated about the atmos system. At the end, it's impossible for players not to hit the game limit. It scales with knowledge, and there should be a better system to mitigate it. Some examples that could probably work:

1. Make unbreakable pipes HPD possible, but only be bought for a really high price. this scales well with PTL output (competency of engineers) + competency of QM to get the thing. This also works for toxins because they would be able to make their bombs somewhere in the middle (or even early) in the round.

2. Stackable reinforcement / scale up HGC's limit. This gives more incentive to gather resources and reinforce the pipes before doing something really big

There was a new merge as of writing, however, reaching 100x pressure would still be hit within small amount of time, and thus engineering/toxins gameplay of just squatting and welding pipes will return.

[Cringe]

waoh neat

[cheekybrdy]

Considering the main debate of welder Sisyphus currently, how about a advanced gas restoring pipes when leaked? I had a idea for a nanites gas that'd act as foamed metal when it went into a breach, could also just heal pipes. The idea I had also had it so if nanites were a certain percent of the gas on the tile it'd outright become a nanite on sparking.

[TrickyWolfer]

Another idea:
Part of MechComp gameplay: Just make automated welders/wrenchers, etc etc. It would be funny and removes the sisyphean welding gameplay

[LeahTheTech]

To be clear, the reason for the manifold change is because constructible atmos made it trivial to just build your entire pipe network out of unbreakable manifolds.
I don't think that's good, but the fact that people are so attached to unbreakable pipes just to get away from the TEG gameplay loop of constant repairs may be telling.
Ideally I think the TEG should be more like the nuclear reactor and singulo: low(ish) maintenance when things are going well, but very dangerous when pushed too far or misused.
Suggestions on how to do that are very welcome: one potential idea would be making pipes burst only on rapid changes in pressure/temperature.

[Lord_earthfire]

To be honest, with reinforcing and ghc, rupturing pipes is something i have not encountered very often anymore. And you only need ghc for maxcap-level pipeburns.

There are a few engines that are a pain to reinforce, though (cog 2)

[TrickyWolfer]

To be clear, the reason for the manifold change is because constructible atmos made it trivial to just build your entire pipe network out of unbreakable manifolds.
I don't think that's good, but the fact that people are so attached to unbreakable pipes just to get away from the TEG gameplay loop of constant repairs may be telling.
Ideally I think the TEG should be more like the nuclear reactor and singulo: low(ish) maintenance when things are going well, but very dangerous when pushed too far or misused.
Suggestions on how to do that are very welcome: one potential idea would be making pipes burst only on rapid changes in pressure/temperature.

In a high-engineering gameplay, low-maintenance TEG is achievable by the fact that the pipes were unbreakable. The main holy-grail about HPD is that it scales with the knowledge of the engineer to develop that safe loop that doesn't kill engineers in one go (since the scaling leak), while also be able to be fully functional on managing the atmos calculation. It looks easy, but the TEG system works in a more complex way that is downright unintuitive; Atlas be a good example of it being a modernized engine but it doesn't seem to work unlike other older TEG setups such as cog1, 2, kondaru, and back then destiny, horizon, and clarion. It's the poor research surrounding the engine that made that the gameplay loop looked really simple, while in reality, to even reach this point, it takes back and forth asking people in the community and a whole lot of local testing.

When pushed too far, the system can and will be very dangerous by a plethora of reasons: Hotwired APC will continuously zap you, heat will still crawl from floors, excess piping would lead to game-breaking bugs that would be hard to detect, TEG throwing a fit and turned possessed. Not to mention trading off resources that the station would sometimes be underprepared for anything due to the massive pipe laying you're going to do. The current situation wasn't about hugging unbreakable pipes, but it was more of a necessity due to game-breaking things are way up on the current limit we have right now (HGC's limit, density items, etc).

Even then, HGC is very limited, especially for wide loops such as cog2 because it would meant that it's really hard to get everything done when with HPD and a bit of good knowledge, you could bypass the necessity to yell at mining and science for the entire round. It scales with knowledge, again.

I understand TEG needs to be limited, but the current thing right now is that Toxins got caught in the crossfire when the main goal was to make engineer's life slightly harder. It is already hard, the current gameplay loop to figure out a really underresearched engine takes an entire community and station is already enough, at least for me. There's a specific configuration of loop, specific gas mixing, specific wiring and or things to do to avoid bugs is something that's rarely mentioned.

If there is an alternative for a true unbreakable pipe, even if it would meant trying to power through azones in just couple of minutes or sweating in QM, anything to make sure that the pipes doesn't burst past 1e28, I'm willing to take it

[Lord_earthfire]

If there is an alternative for a true unbreakable pipe, even if it would meant trying to power through azones in just couple of minutes or sweating in QM, anything to make sure that the pipes doesn't burst past 1e28, I'm willing to take it

I feel like it is entirely undesireable to support such pressures, even the 1e10 that is achieveable with ghc and bohrum+ plating already creates energy outputs that can be considered unreasonable for an engine to achieve.

[TrickyWolfer]

If there is an alternative for a true unbreakable pipe, even if it would meant trying to power through azones in just couple of minutes or sweating in QM, anything to make sure that the pipes doesn't burst past 1e28, I'm willing to take it

I feel like it is entirely undesireable to support such pressures, even the 1e10 that is achieveable with ghc and bohrum+ plating already creates energy outputs that can be considered unreasonable for an engine to achieve.

In TEG, usually 1e10 only reach around tens to around a hundred gigawatts, and that is with ultra-optimal loop going on.
It might sound unreasonable because what's the "point"? But keep in mind, CE has these goals to make 1 million credit, not to mention 2 badges (1.21 jiggawatts + For your Ohm good) that were hanging around making energy around this amount or higher. PTL also caps on 999 TW even if you don't mechcomp it.

Around 100 gigawatts is something that most people couldn't achieve nowadays with a TEG due to continuous atmos nerf. Hellburn is RNG based (you'll have to score OxyB in mining / ultra lucky, get a nice artifact filled with it) plus pretty hard to control in a chamber, chamberburn/ charburn wouldn't cut it to earn the badge. Pipeburn right now is one of the more reliable way to create really high energy. It is undesirable for other wings, you're right, but it is highly crucial for toxins and especially veteran TEG players that want to prove their worth by fulfilling the objectives and or get the badges.

[Lord_earthfire]

The old medals and goals are outdated and rightfully so got reduced in the past.

The thing is simple: the energy output is used for mechanics, not bragging rights. So energy production needs to be in line among most engines so you can add features to it properly. The TEG breaks, and has broken in the past, this very concept, which is why not many mechanics exist to use the power the engine pumps out.

100 GW is in my opinion around the upper bound of something you should reach of an engine (maybe that's even too much). that's it's right around where the singularity can end up with, with Geothermal and the Nuclear reactor sitting in the back with ~5 GW (Although dunno how it is nowadays with the changed nuclear engine, i haven't worked much with it after the plasma to radioactive fallout change).

The goal i personally would set is distinct goals in mechanics, not bragging-rights like the medals. And these benchmark for mechanics are:
1. Maxcap canbombs for toxins
2. 5 GW for the insta explosion PTL.

For Maxcap canbombs, ghc is sufficient. It's much easier to start with a low plasma/fart mix and much easier to achieve a canbomb-suitable temperature with that. For the PTL, like already laid out, the TEG is able to achieve that. And go far beyond, so that's already a possible if you don't tryhard far enough.

Maybe, just maybe if we get the engines to be roughly producing energy at a compareable rate, we could try to -do- more with that energy.

[TrickyWolfer]

The old medals and goals are outdated and rightfully so got reduced in the past.

The thing is simple: the energy output is used for mechanics, not bragging rights. So energy production needs to be in line among most engines so you can add features to it properly. The TEG breaks, and has broken in the past, this very concept, which is why not many mechanics exist to use the power the engine pumps out.

100 GW is in my opinion around the upper bound of something you should reach of an engine (maybe that's even too much). that's it's right around where the singularity can end up with, with Geothermal and the Nuclear reactor sitting in the back with ~5 GW (Although dunno how it is nowadays with the changed nuclear engine, i haven't worked much with it after the plasma to radioactive fallout change).

The goal i personally would set is distinct goals in mechanics, not bragging-rights like the medals. And these benchmark for mechanics are:
1. Maxcap canbombs for toxins
2. 5 GW for the insta explosion PTL.

For Maxcap canbombs, ghc is sufficient. It's much easier to start with a low plasma/fart mix and much easier to achieve a canbomb-suitable temperature with that. For the PTL, like already laid out, the TEG is able to achieve that. And go far beyond, so that's already a possible if you don't tryhard far enough.

Maybe, just maybe if we get the engines to be roughly producing energy at a compareable rate, we could try to -do- more with that energy.

You're correct, really correct, however, there are some things I have also been considering:

The reason why the PTL kept lowered because it's getting harder and harder for people to achieve a certain power due to continuous balancing that lead to people quitting an already confusing (and complex) job in the station. There were a lot more engineers, so much that mechanics were still a separate job. Ever since the bad TEG updates, slowly engineers were quitting one by one, not because they wouldn't welcome a good balance, but it was pretty poorly implemented (every since the scaling leak was added, it took 3 years for HPD to come in!).

It might just be my personal preference, but let's try not to normalize lowering benchmarks.
I have heard singularities made in massive sizes and due to the new HPD, could make ultra-cooled plasma that could give you terrawatts of energy
I heard nuclears making gigawatts with the correct rod configurations and resource.
Geothermal can easily achieve gigawatts with a savvy enough engineer that could stack them and willing to dig inside the trenches.

These methods were also equally as hard and rightfully so. There are a sub-community of people trying to code-dive and optimize their setups: How many shields and arrays to build around a massive singulo? What's the behaviour of emitters? How many singulo would you need to stack? How to make the ultimate fuel rods for nuclear? What's the best configuration so neutron doesn't end up flying everywhere? How do I read the doppler shifts? How to stack the hotspots without mucking up the station? Given enough time, they too can (and will someday) break beyond terrawatts.

Mechanics is important, yes, there's a ton of engineers that wants to break the game and see how many power they could output. It's part of the game anyway. With how the recent time goes, you'd see more and more updates surrounding the usage of PTL and high energy output i.e. the mirrors to break open things in mining, making the energy beam a literal singulo feeder. It comes naturally within the sandbox environment, so I would say there is little to no need to break a mechanic that was exploited due to the ingenuity of players.

If anything, I do fully support a good balance, but definitely not like this. Not the idea of removing things in TEG just because they make high power by the perceived easy difficulty. The current updates were just making the environment way more dangerous than it should be, as well as reducing gameplays to just welding squatting challenge in an environment where cross-department gameplay is still a pretty massive issue

[Lord_earthfire]

It might just be my personal preference, but let's try not to normalize lowering benchmarks.
I have heard singularities made in massive sizes and due to the new HPD, could make ultra-cooled plasma that could give you terrawatts of energy
I heard nuclears making gigawatts with the correct rod configurations and resource.
Geothermal can easily achieve gigawatts with a savvy enough engineer that could stack them and willing to dig inside the trenches.

These methods were also equally as hard and rightfully so. There are a sub-community of people trying to code-dive and optimize their setups: How many shields and arrays to build around a massive singulo? What's the behaviour of emitters? How many singulo would you need to stack? How to make the ultimate fuel rods for nuclear? What's the best configuration so neutron doesn't end up flying everywhere? How do I read the doppler shifts? How to stack the hotspots without mucking up the station? Given enough time, they too can (and will someday) break beyond terrawatts.

I agree, but here's the catch: these methods don't scale infinitely without you expending recources. Or are even capped. Stacking hotspots? Keep on printing those vent generators. And that doesn't go infinetly higher. Nuclear reactor? Hope mining does their job and the output is soft limited by the reactor exploding. Singularity? Most feeders require manual work and the ones that don't (e.g. PTL, trip wire laser, thermal paper printer) got nerfed/fixed.

The pipeburn? Once set up, it keeps on scaling. Without the welding, all you need to do is keep supplying it with oxygen. And the soft cap here is the pipe failure pressure. I personally don't like time through welding being the upkeep, though.

[JORJ949]

I'll be honest the only times I ever see pipes explode is:
A) I was lazy and missed a pipe to reinforce with steel before standard burn chamber
B) Someone loaded a second plasma can into the hot loop before stronger reinforcements than steel

Perhaps to make it easier the HPD could accept a stack of sheets and reinforce placed pipes with the inserted sheets.

[Vulwin_Gilran]

Okay, I could be incredibly misinformed about this as im not a TEG wizard so bear with me here.

From what I saw of a little bit of what people were doing with indestructible piping on TEGs felt, i guess just absurd. Like I distinctly recall one round, the temperature and pressure of the pipeburn had reached literal infinity and the TEG was producing more energy than most stars. I may be misinformed on that and am free to be corrected but there is really no reason that should be a thing you can do.

I feel like just saying its just because of making "high power" is a bit misleading given how absurdly high the power was getting on some of these rounds (again feel free to correct me on this but i am mostly sure that the whole reaching RW craze was caused by the indestructible piping)

but again, i could be fully misinformed on this so take it with a grain of salt

[Lord_earthfire]

Okay, I could be incredibly misinformed about this as im not a TEG wizard so bear with me here.

From what I saw of a little bit of what people were doing with indestructible piping on TEGs felt, i guess just absurd. Like I distinctly recall one round, the temperature and pressure of the pipeburn had reached literal infinity and the TEG was producing more energy than most stars. I may be misinformed on that and am free to be corrected but there is really no reason that should be a thing you can do.

I feel like just saying its just because of making "high power" is a bit misleading given how absurdly high the power was getting on some of these rounds (again feel free to correct me on this but i am mostly sure that the whole reaching RW craze was caused by the indestructible piping)

but again, i could be fully misinformed on this so take it with a grain of salt

I mean, that's pretty much what people were doing. And exactly what the pipe-bursting mechanic tries to prevent. It was working fairly well with atmos pipes being non-constructable. Once the HPD was introduced, people abused manifold to create more or less what you describe. It's not quite infinte, but it was so high that it might as well have been.

I'll be honest the only times I ever see pipes explode is:
A) I was lazy and missed a pipe to reinforce with steel before standard burn chamber
B) Someone loaded a second plasma can into the hot loop before stronger reinforcements than steel

Perhaps to make it easier the HPD could accept a stack of sheets and reinforce placed pipes with the inserted sheets.

This thread talks about the very much high end of pipeburns. The kind that go even beyond what's needed for canbombs. So about changes that will mostly affect the pipeburn-nerds the most and noone else.