Nuclear Power Plant from the future

[Koub]

Also, I'd be curious what you folks think about this reactor. Dunno about ratios and all since this is B&A and I can't be bothered to switch modlists.

Its only "flaw" is its non tileability. I do agree, in the grand scheme of things, you won't lose that much compared to an "infinitely tileable" setup, but what OP tried to illustrate, I think, is that for his understanding, no matter how long the nuclear plant is, a single pipe should be able to feed the whole plant with enough water - as long as enough pumps are providing enough overall water.

I'm still skeptical the 2.0 fluids can achieve this result, I suspect there's something we haven't seen yet, some kind of intrinsic limitation or something. All this reminds me of the shitstorm when the devs dared simplify the basic oil processing, and were crucified on the public place, by committing what could be considered as worse than the original sin, and predicted this was the end of Factorio, and here we are, 5-ish years later, who still is nostalgic of the times when the basic oil processing was as complex as the advanced one ? Remember this ?

I'm pretty sure people will quickly forget their predictions of how much this trivialisation removes fun, especially when it brings predictability and the ability to build more complex pipe networks without having to guess how dark magic fluids work.

[mmmPI]

Also, I'd be curious what you folks think about this reactor.

( without blueprint it's just a picture of a modded thing, it's hard to tell what we are looking at)

But since you claim it works , i would say it illustrate that you can in fact do things without using millions of pumps because you could do like in Koub's design for the water input ^^

[functional]

[...]

I doubt there's any intrinsic limits. As they describe it, it seems like only limits are the inputs and (possibly) outputs, which are controlled through pumps. Doesn't seem like there will be any other kind of limits.

But you're right though, the oil processing change did come to my mind and the reason I made this account was because I hated it and protested it. I don't think they simplified it though as I recall it, they just made two different recipes because initially IIRC you had to store the heavy oil or something? Can't remember that well anymore. I liked it because you could just plop down the whole thing and deal with the heavy oil later. But you can still do it, it's just that the pipes wont connect to the refineries, so I dunno why I was being a baby about it back then... Anyway, I did forget about it eventually. Hopefully I didn't proclaim that I quit the game back then, but I was pretty peeved about it :p

And I'm all with you here in terms of how this change makes the game more fun. And on sidenote, it also makes more complex mods more accessible. A&B is most notorious for its petrochem and a lot of that has to do with fluid mechanics more so than any puzzle (although I build to scale and trivialize the I/O with trains, so ymmv)

[mmmPI]

what OP tried to illustrate, I think, is that for his understanding, no matter how long the nuclear plant is, a single pipe should be able to feed the whole plant with enough water - as long as enough pumps are providing enough overall water.

Yes it may not have been fully understood with my words by everyone, but that is what the power plant was meat to illustrate, what i anticipate negatively the most after my first read of the FFF last Friday :

Will it it be the case that one single pipe is enough ? are 3 pumps too many ? why ?

I'm still skeptical the 2.0 fluids can achieve this result, I suspect there's something we haven't seen yet, some kind of intrinsic limitation or something. All this reminds me of the shitstorm when the devs dared simplify the basic oil processing, and were crucified on the public place,

To make things clear i wasn't crucifiying the devs back then, rather my position was to welcome the simplification of the oil change after some explanations of why the devs did it, i am indeed seeing the parallel, and i think that the people who were mad back then about a "dumbing down" that i contradicted are hopefully not all going to post on this thread to tell me that they remember 5 years ago they said something like "you will see in the future the game will be even more dumbed down" and now come say "oh you discarded my warnings 5 years ago, look they took another step " because it's not needed i can remember some of them even quit going on the forum or giving their opinion on those things like the person who made the mod you quote.

Now for the present/future : I'm skeptical too that my power plant will work as is in 2.0, i will be able to measure the misunderstanding after more explanations, if i have to change it to make it work, which i guess could serve a reminder for later.

I think it's too silly, but i'm not understanding how there can be a set of rules that apply to create a situation where it wouldn't be the case, i guess i'm just curious x)

the ability to build more complex pipe networks without having to guess how dark magic fluids work.

You didn't HAVE TO guess, you could also try to run experiment in game to identify something that works and re-use it, that is more for younger audience maybe but it will also be the case for the future system; Isuppose , that some early guesses will have to be done or researched, the amount of knowledge to make things works is less, but it's still a system that need be understood properly ^^

[mmmPI]

Does it even matter? Even if mmmPi were to remove all the circuits and extra tanks and whatever other superfluous items, that doesn't change the overall point of the design demonstration.

I agree with you for the point of the demonstration not being adressed by the post you quoted. But you re-used the words "superfluous" from that post, and in fact it was a missnomer from previous user ^^

The extra tanks are not superfluous ! they are meant to abuse what was explained in the FFF that the pull rate of machine would depend on the % of fill of the pipe network in which they are connected.

Since there are such huge tank buffer, it will make the level of the "segment" in % drop only very little when connected to another segment. In my understanding this will allow the machines connected to have a better input rate than if there was no tanks in the setup, as if tank were acting like water tower and pressurizing the segment in which they belong.

This is also the purpose of the circuitry, to allow water or steam to go to the next segment only when the previous is 80 % full, by reading the tanks content so that whenever the segment connect the liquid flows "fast" never "slow" no sure if that make sense.

[aka13]

Does it even matter? Even if mmmPi were to remove all the circuits and extra tanks and whatever other superfluous items, that doesn't change the overall point of the design demonstration.

I agree with you for the point of the demonstration not being adressed by the post you quoted. But you re-used the words "superfluous" from that post, and in fact it was a missnomer from previous user ^^

The extra tanks are not superfluous ! they are meant to abuse what was explained in the FFF that the pull rate of machine would depend on the % of fill of the pipe network in which they are connected.

Since there are such huge tank buffer, it will make the level of the "segment" in % drop only very little when connected to another segment. In my understanding this will allow the machines connected to have a better input rate than if there was no tanks in the setup, as if tank were acting like water tower and pressurizing the segment in which they belong.

This is also the purpose of the circuitry, to allow water or steam to go to the next segment only when the previous is 80 % full, by reading the tanks content so that whenever the segment connect the liquid flows "fast" never "slow" no sure if that make sense.

That's an interesting idea, I have not considered that part of your build either.
Now I am curious, if it will work as you intend it to.

[mmmPI]

That's an interesting idea, I have not considered that part of your build either.
Now I am curious, if it will work as you intend it to.

Thank you, now that i know it is under renewed scrutiny, i questionned it again, and i have to admit i'm not sure the math were done properly, but it explain also why i added tanks for just water before the heat exchanger which i wouldn't otherwise. Math was eyeballed, considering heat exchanger can hold 200 fluid and turbines too, but heat exchanger require 100 fluid per second in the build, whereas turbines only 60. So in my mind that would translate as requiring a "lower" number of tanks per turbines than per heat exchanger.

I connected groups of tanks together and to a contant combinator holding the value "12" or "15" tanks for steam or water, and the pump are allowed to run only if "water"/"number of tanks" > 20 000K to make it "tileable" on the left without having to change manually the numbers. ( It's not properly tileable because the "extra pumps" on the right need to be added for every tile pasted on the "left") This is on purpose because that's the silly part i wanted to demonstrate as the cause of my reserve for the FFF.

One thing that is not visible on the picture is that i wasn't require to think about the junctions that split the fluid bottlenecked at the pump area into the many rows of heat exchanger & same for turbines. In the future in my understanding there will be no question of "which branch gets all the fluid in case of shortage", with a power plant it's 100% good, but with assembly machine or chemplant, it may have been preferable that only the first few are fed so they produce and starve the other rather than all machine gets a tiny bit of fluid not enough for anything. Such behavior would still be possible using pumps though, it will be like "playing the old system".

As Medusalem pointed earlier, it could very well end up for me that i play the same, even if i notice the difference because i will still want to control precisely the flow of fluid and be allowed to use pumps in the same way as before, since i wasn't using them much for thoughput but already as valve.

In the build though, i'm not sure having pumps "open" or "closed" will in practice means that "2 segment" becomes "1" and "2" again, or if it's always 2 segment, with a pump in between wether or not it is "open" or "closed". This i realized was something i couldn't understand and conclude from the FFF, but not sure if cuz i missed it or i'm dumb after all that discussion and still not getting it or if because it's not explained in the FFF and may be next week .

[FuryoftheStars]

Does it even matter? Even if mmmPi were to remove all the circuits and extra tanks and whatever other superfluous items, that doesn't change the overall point of the design demonstration.

Makes it more difficult to take as a serious concern that people can do a simple design when most people (including me) overcomplicate their designs virtually by nature.

I'm sorry that you are unable separate the parts that were done out of habit but have no impact on the point of the design to be able to have an actual discussion about it.

--------------------------------------

All this reminds me of the shitstorm when the devs dared simplify the basic oil processing, and were crucified on the public place, by committing what could be considered as worse than the original sin, and predicted this was the end of Factorio, and here we are, 5-ish years later, who still is nostalgic of the times when the basic oil processing was as complex as the advanced one ?

I was one to be angry by that, though I don't believe I ever said it'd be "the end of Factorio". I'm sure some did, not going to dispute that, but that was obviously an over exaggeration, as is any claims that the current changes to fluids will be. But there will be people who'll stop playing (and despite other's feelings on that, that is their own perogative to do so if they wish).

I am still nostalgic for the old oil and created a mod to bring it back. And still use it in all of my play throughs. This one with fluids, however, is likely to not be moddable back.

------------------------------------

[...]

[...]

[...] I don't think they simplified it though as I recall it, they just made two different recipes because initially IIRC you had to store the heavy oil or something?

There were already 2 recipes, the change was BOP used to produce all 3 oils at a more balanced ratio compared to AOP; now BOP only produces petrol.

-------------------------------------

And I say you can. The result is 2 * 1 plus 1 remainder. All integers. xD
It is not pretty and not what you want, but a viable solution.

I meant to illustrate something that make no sense or is impossible that could be understood as such. I will think of something else where it would make no sense there is a remainder

2 divided into 3 equal integer parts.

[rhynex]

I am sorry if it is said already, post is too long, but I wanted to tell one thing I captured from FFF416 and pictures here.

if fluid 2.0 comes, I would never bother building a nuclear reactor setup like this anymore (FYI, I have many compact 2xN reactors designs working, generally 2x8 and 2x10 scale). according to my understanding of FFF there is no benefit or real need anymore to put heat exchangers and turbines next to each other. NRs & heat exchangers can stay at a spot far away from turbines, and it will be more like solar panel building expansion.

if steam is low, then attach more NRs + heat exchanges. if power is low then attach more turbines. like you could do with belts, putting a splitter to branch away your belt in your bus. you do not need to design sophisticated reactor setups like that anymore (still limited to heat but you are free with turbines). uranium is fairly cheap compared to other sources so you may skip reactor neighbor bonus even

same can be said if Wube changes heat handling similar to fluid 2.0.

I might be wrong but that is what I understood from FFF. if it is correct then "in reality nothing will change but in fact everything already has changed"

[mmmPI]

I am sorry if it is said already, post is too long, but I wanted to tell one thing I captured from FFF416 and pictures here.

if fluid 2.0 comes, I would never bother building a nuclear reactor setup like this anymore (FYI, I have many compact 2xN reactors designs working, generally 2x8 and 2x10 scale). according to my understanding of FFF there is no benefit or real need anymore to put heat exchangers and turbines next to each other. NRs & heat exchangers can stay at a spot far away from turbines, and it will be more like solar panel building expansion.

That makes total sense and wasn't mentionned in this thread, the "tileabe design" i saw as a "design exercise" to compare the reasonning "before"/"after" in my mind. But i share the understanding that there will be others alternative opened, as one could have a blueprint with only turbines and one with only heat exchanger , and have them connected by a pipe and extend one or the other, eyeballing the ratios over period of 10 minutes while reading the buffer tanks or something.

Similarly for solar, you could embed accu + solar pannel in a blueprint, or you could have a blueprint of accumulator only, and another one only of solar pannel. Either you use the 0.84 or close ratio for the tile that contain both, or you can eyeball the number of accu/ solar you need when looking at battery at night and adding accu or pannel-only tile to correct.

2 divided into 3 equal integer parts.

I think someone will say 0 is an integer, it will be (3*0) +2 as reminder. Maybe something like storing 3 states into 1 bit of information, i had time to think about it

[FuryoftheStars]

2 divided into 3 equal integer parts.

I think someone will say 0 is an integer, it will be (3*0) +2 as reminder. Maybe something like storing 3 states into 1 bit of information, i had time to think about it

Ah, true, silly me.

[Theikkru]

[...]
The extra tanks are not superfluous ! they are meant to abuse what was explained in the FFF that the pull rate of machine would depend on the % of fill of the pipe network in which they are connected.

Since there are such huge tank buffer, it will make the level of the "segment" in % drop only very little when connected to another segment. In my understanding this will allow the machines connected to have a better input rate than if there was no tanks in the setup, as if tank were acting like water tower and pressurizing the segment in which they belong.
[...]

If I'm reading the FFF correctly, you could probably do away with most or all of the tank farm(s) if you connect the intakes for the pumps directly to tanks:

As a special case, pumps can pull at a faster rate if they are connected directly to a storage tank.

In addition, if someone does this:

[...]according to my understanding of FFF there is no benefit or real need anymore to put heat exchangers and turbines next to each other. NRs & heat exchangers can stay at a spot far away from turbines[...]

then that someone could probably skip the tanks entirely, since a tank farm would be functionally identical to a pipe snake of the same fluid capacity.

Unfortunately, ideas like pipe breaking & pipe throughput limitation mechanics wouldn't be possible/practical under the new system, since it would no longer have any understanding of the structure within "pipe segments", and ergo wouldn't be able to establish an understanding of cross-sectional flow. If you were to implement such mechanics at the "pipe segment" level instead, then all you'd really be doing is re-enforcing the current weird fluid behavior on a larger magnitude (at the scale of pipe segments instead of individual pipes).

The way the FFF reads, this:

[...]I'm still skeptical the 2.0 fluids can achieve this result, I suspect there's something we haven't seen yet, some kind of intrinsic limitation or something.[...]

is just hopium, and for the record,

[...]All this reminds me of the shitstorm when the devs dared simplify the basic oil processing[...]and here we are, 5-ish years later, who still is nostalgic of the times when the basic oil processing was as complex as the advanced one ?[...]

I'm still salty enough about the oil changes that I, like Fury, now only ever play with the mod I made, so this appeal to nostalgia rings hollow.

[aka13]

All very interesting takes. I am kinda looking forward to playing around with the plants with the new fluids now

Re: oil, I don't get the nostalgia. We didn't even have a empty pipe button, so I vividly remember having to manually break tanks to void the liquid, since the chemplant cracking recipe was not available for quite a long while. Propably the one change I remember most vividly, next to the general blue science rebalance

[mmmPI]

If I'm reading the FFF correctly, you could probably do away with most or all of the tank farm(s) if you connect the intakes for the pumps directly to tanks

I'm curious to have or not a confirmation today, i am not sure i understand what you are saying, but most of the tanks are not stricly necessary i agree only meant to "exploit" /"highlighting" fluid teleporting, creating a situation for questionning their impact on being or not in the system / pressurizing it.

Now i'm not sure where i could use the tank=> pump to my advantage in the setup, I think you mean instead of the large array of water tank, then a tiny pipe, then a pump, to allow the water to go to heat exchangers, i could have not used a pump at all between offshores pumps and heat exchangers ? ( remove all tanks and make it a single segment ?)

then that someone could probably skip the tanks entirely, since a tank farm would be functionally identical to a pipe snake of the same fluid capacity.

I too think of them as being the same functionnaly , it made me think that putting a tank after each offshore pump may be easier to do. ( still potentially useless too but in case it would act as like individual water tower)

pipe throughput limitation mechanics wouldn't be possible/practical under the new system,
is just hopium

in the FFF, to me i saw something that looked like a throughput limitation, when in the video the fluid is increasing in all the pipes of the snake at the same time. I saw fluid "teleporting" to the last pipe of the snake as soon as the pump opens, but it wasn't immediatly filled. I wonder how this mechanism works , how long is the delay and if it somehow can emulate as mentionned some sort of pseudo-simulation, not for the fluid itself but for a general behavior.

To me pumps separating segment of fluid still means that there is somewhat of a thoughput limitation not through 1 pipe, but from and to 2 different fluid-networks, based on their relative % fillness, and/or connexion ?

I have attempted to look at the link given by Loewchen on the other thread but it doesn't look like the thing you can read in diagonal and have a clue , not sure how it would impact my hopium , for now i'm full of it , and i will go back to it if it changes x)

The old New fluid system: https://jsfiddle.net/TheYeast/c9d2azjo

I'm still salty enough about the oil changes that I, like Fury, now only ever play with the mod I made, so this appeal to nostalgia rings hollow.

One argument that convinced me to change my mind for the oil change when i was not really understanding it at first was that the 2nd receipe the interesting one, was not removed from the game and still there, i only saw as fastening the game, but not removing the puzzle of having to deal with byproduct fluid entirely unlike my worst apprehension from the last FFF, which again i still hope are based on incomplete informations ^^

[mmmPI]

Re: oil, I don't get the nostalgia. We didn't even have a empty pipe button, so I vividly remember having to manually break tanks to void the liquid, since the chemplant cracking recipe was not available for quite a long while. Propably the one change I remember most vividly, next to the general blue science rebalance

I remember that the first blue science i researched was for beelining advanced oil cracking but for all the fluid byproduct i used to void them in steam engine like i saw on the speedrun from AntiElitz. ^^

Voiding pipe with a click to me came later, with the no-fuid-mixing, around the time i was able to avoid the situations that needed it the most but i'm glad it's there

It is unrelated but i realized there is nothing related to "quality" in my power plant. Maybe i won't need 3 pumps, but just a legendary one x). I may have overlooked other things too.

[Nidan]

Now i'm not sure where i could use the tank=> pump to my advantage in the setup, I think you mean instead of the large array of water tank, then a tiny pipe, then a pump, to allow the water to go to heat exchangers, i could have not used a pump at all between offshores pumps and heat exchangers ? ( remove all tanks and make it a single segment ?)

Based only on last week's FFF (today's not out yet (edit: and it didn't talk about fluids anyway)), placing a tank at the end of a pipeline and having a pump draw from it should exaggerate the "teleporting" aspect. A tank holds the same amount of liquid as 250 pipes and since the levels in a segment seem to be balanced, that means at least half of the liquid will be in the tank (and thus available for the pump to draw from) as long as the segment has at most 250 pipes.
You'll have to see how you can incorporate that in your build.

[FuryoftheStars]

Re: oil, I don't get the nostalgia. We didn't even have a empty pipe button, so I vividly remember having to manually break tanks to void the liquid, since the chemplant cracking recipe was not available for quite a long while. Propably the one change I remember most vividly, next to the general blue science rebalance

I remember that the first blue science i researched was for beelining advanced oil cracking but for all the fluid byproduct i used to void them in steam engine like i saw on the speedrun from AntiElitz. ^^

Voiding pipe with a click to me came later, with the no-fuid-mixing, around the time i was able to avoid the situations that needed it the most but i'm glad it's there

And here I always just set it up to produce solid fuel and prioritized it for the boilers.

last week's FFF (today's not out yet (edit: and it didn't talk about fluids anyway))

Yeah, that was very disappointing. :/ Though I guess they did say "future" FFFs, meaning it could've been this one, or could be in 5 years....

(Edit: fixed broken quote)

[Tertius]

I'm still salty enough about the oil changes that I, like Fury, now only ever play with the mod I made, so this appeal to nostalgia rings hollow.

It's quite funny to read this once in a while in this forum. I got Factorio in 2021, and I never got a different simple oil processing than what it is today. For me, it's very good design from a didactic point of view to first get the challenge to handle fluids and build pipes. Two things you never did before. Then later handle the combination of multiple outputs with advanced oil processing.

I really don't understand why someone is angry about that. It's a miracle to me (and I honestly tried hard to understand what this was about).

I guess it will be somewhat similar with the new fluid handling and players who will start with Factorio 2.0 and never saw Factorio 1.1.

May be I see this way, because I played online games (MMOs) for 15 years. MMOs are merciless with their updates. If there is an update, you will get kicked out of the game, the game updates without your approval, and after the mandatory restart the game is different and you cannot go back. After the update, there is no trace of obsoleted features. It's not just gone, it's as it never ever existed. Even the economy and internal game market adjusted within the first minutes after the update. No migration. Not even a big bang - instead, reality was changed. This is the never ending change cycle that keeps active games alive. In general, all of these updates are beneficial to the game as a whole and the gaming community in general. As gamer, you have to deal with that. If you cannot, you have to choose games with no updates.

[FuryoftheStars]

I'm still salty enough about the oil changes that I, like Fury, now only ever play with the mod I made, so this appeal to nostalgia rings hollow.

It's quite funny to read this once in a while in this forum. I got Factorio in 2021, and I never got a different simple oil processing than what it is today. For me, it's very good design from a didactic point of view to first get the challenge to handle fluids and build pipes. Two things you never did before. Then later handle the combination of multiple outputs with advanced oil processing.

I really don't understand why someone is angry about that. It's a miracle to me (and I honestly tried hard to understand what this was about).

I guess it will be somewhat similar with the new fluid handling and players who will start with Factorio 2.0 and never saw Factorio 1.1.

May be I see this way, because I played online games (MMOs) for 15 years. MMOs are merciless with their updates. If there is an update, you will get kicked out of the game, the game updates without your approval, and after the mandatory restart the game is different and you cannot go back. After the update, there is no trace of obsoleted features. It's not just gone, it's as it never ever existed. Even the economy and internal game market adjusted within the first minutes after the update. No migration. Not even a big bang - instead, reality was changed. This is the never ending change cycle that keeps active games alive. In general, all of these updates are beneficial to the game as a whole and the gaming community in general. As gamer, you have to deal with that. If you cannot, you have to choose games with no updates.

This is starting to digress, though I agree with you on MMOs, but still sometimes you'll have changes that maybe some people don't like and decide is unfun (or is less fun) for them and so they'll move on. Some will gripe, many who quit over it probably won't bother. That said, this is far less common to have mechanic changes on this level in post release regular games (speaking specifically about fluids) than in pre-release. Pre-release it's expected, though people may still gripe over it because they liked it the way it was. Post-release not so much as that's when many people buy expecting mostly bugfixes, little extra content here or there (potentially as dlcs) and the like, but in general they expect the core of the game to remain stable.

Ultimately, though, what is "fun" or not to everyone is different. Each are completely entitled to these opinions. Some certainly like complexity, whereas others want it as simple as possible, and others are in-between. But I can certainly understand from the aspect of thinking that you've finally found a game that caters to your desired level of complexity, where ever that may be, to then have it get changed later down the line to no longer be what you liked. Now you have to go hunt for another one, if one exists.

[mmmPI]

Based only on last week's FFF (today's not out yet (edit: and it didn't talk about fluids anyway)), placing a tank at the end of a pipeline and having a pump draw from it should exaggerate the "teleporting" aspect.

That make total sense and didn't occured to me, the tanks can be used not at the "high elevation" but at the "low elevation" regarding the water tower analogy. It would "attract" more water in absolute value each tick due to its individual capacity being larger than one a pipe. That's a thing i will test in game when possible !

And here I always just set it up to produce solid fuel and prioritized it for the boilers.

I haven't done that for a while, this is on my list for next game x)

I really don't understand why someone is angry about that. It's a miracle to me (and I honestly tried hard to understand what this was about).

I'd rather not have all the personnal reasons explained in that thread But from a gameplay point of view there were some arguments , supposedly player were familiar with pipes already because they had electricity at this stage (boilers were 1x1 entity at the time), so players were discovering only "byproduct" that can block things, if they didn't realized it earlier when placing mining drills on ore patches. It was "fluid byproduct" with the differents methods mentionned used to store/void them, because the cracking was further in the techtree, so it also was a "hurdle" that player had to remember to research advanced oil processing when there was no research queue. The way robots were unlocked was different too, they were not "blue" science, yet required lubricant i think. And logistic research came earlier as there was no purple and yellow science. Not sure it's possible to recreate the context to try and understand, but it generally lowered the early parts of the learning curve (imo) and i think it was somewhat the stated objective by the devs which was also controversial in itself and its own topic ( that i want to avoid the most ^^ ).

May be I see this way, because I played online games (MMOs) for 15 years.

I played a fair bit of those too x) and i think the analogy ( for both oil processing and current topic of fluid flow mechanic ) could stand in that "reducing difficulty" of something one has "painfully overcome" earlier is always going to create some resistance. In MMO one could be mad to have something one farmed for week and ammassed becoming worthless overnight, or happy the opposite occurs, which i could compare as "time invested to understand the intricacies of the fluid system" or "time to prepare a set of blueprints" that could be rendered obsolete / gone, if the process was not fun in itself but made for the results one could feel at a loss.

I think in factorio the time spent "learning" is not wasted though, unlike time spent doing some very repetive task in MMO, where optimization/automation could make you rich and powerful while also ruinning the fun in game imo ^^. But maybe you could understand players feel a bit this way if one can't use aymore things in which a lot of effort went into. (took me 3 month to slowly and painfully read and understand all the math now i can finally predict fluid junction !! ... )

This is not directly related to the power plant, please don't do like i do, do like i say, about the off topic things x).