Heat Exchanger Sprites

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NamelessMurder
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Heat Exchanger Sprites

Post by NamelessMurder »

The heat exchanger is currently just a boiler with heat pipes coming out the back with little actual change. This is purely aesthetic, but I would like it if the heat exchanger had maybe a color change. But this is a tiny request, and I really don't mind if you don't act on it.

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Re: Heat Exchanger Sprites

Post by Xeorm »

They do seem a little...off? Would like them green of sorts, as their only use is with nuclear, which has a clear green trend. I know that heat = red, but as is doesn't really fit. Don't care much either way though.

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Re: Heat Exchanger Sprites

Post by JohnyDL »

to be fair the heat exchanger IS just a boiler which get's its energy from heat pipes rather than combustibles and is red to represent the 500C+ heats it gets to rather than the 165 of regular boilers, I don't really see what you're asking for, if you were asking for art without the chimney that would make sense but really the colour is right as is

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Re: Heat Exchanger Sprites

Post by Xeorm »

JohnyDL wrote:to be fair the heat exchanger IS just a boiler which get's its energy from heat pipes rather than combustibles and is red to represent the 500C+ heats it gets to rather than the 165 of regular boilers, I don't really see what you're asking for, if you were asking for art without the chimney that would make sense but really the colour is right as is
Image
For reference, the two compared side to side. The icon looks very distinctive with a red tint, but the actual exchanger itself looks almost identical to the boiler. It's almost unique in that manner, as everything either has a significant visual difference or colors to make it more obvious. Probably not required give that the two aren't used together, but could help. It's good feedback to point out, at least.

Which is why I suggested the color green, to connect it with all the other nuclear techs. It doesn't make technical sense, but it would be a cool effect, I think. Red would work fine too, but it should probably have some visual distinctions to separate it from boilers.

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Re: Heat Exchanger Sprites

Post by JohnyDL »

I honestly never noticed the world sprite was different to the inventory sprite still that chimeney is a bit odd and I'd go red on the grounds then that it's not actually nuklear in any way, it's just a very hot boiler

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teemu
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Re: Heat Exchanger Sprites

Post by teemu »

Maybe the two entities should be merged? Give boilers a heat pipe interface in addition to coal insertion, coal burning can only reach 100°C while the heat pipe interface reaches the higher temperatures. Then the heat exchanger can be discarded.

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Re: Heat Exchanger Sprites

Post by JohnyDL »

The recipes are vastly different and due to the temperatures reachable that makes sense, the boiler is just a few stone and pipe but the heat exchanger is twice as much pipe, 100 copper presumably to simulate a heat sink and 10 steel for the containing of all the added pressuer and building steam temperature upto 500C not 165C so the same structure would change the game's valuing curve of the items in a huge way.

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Re: Heat Exchanger Sprites

Post by teemu »

JohnyDL wrote:The recipes are vastly different and due to the temperatures reachable that makes sense, the boiler is just a few stone and pipe but the heat exchanger is twice as much pipe, 100 copper presumably to simulate a heat sink and 10 steel for the containing of all the added pressuer and building steam temperature upto 500C not 165C so the same structure would change the game's valuing curve of the items in a huge way.
I don't think that the recipes are very important because you don't need to mass produce boilers or heat exchangers. A one-time investment of a large amount of steel and copper shouldn't mean nothing to any self-respecting factory, and the rest of nuclear equipment is even costlier.

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Re: Heat Exchanger Sprites

Post by JohnyDL »

You need a boiler to get your first science before you have steel, and not having the price of steel and copper for the heat exchanger makes the whole nuclear set-up cheaper and in effect power creeps the price to performance ratio of nuclear reactors. Maybe not by a lot but over all it would make a difference to maximal players, and they may then skip the investment in any solar because investing in steam isn't a dead end throwing resources away because they're usable with no cost in nuclear.

You're right to a self respecting factory, or even a mediocre one that can research nukes and probably has launched a rocket, it makes no difference but what the suggestion might be akin to is regular ammo and piercing ammo should be the same thing I mean they're both ammo and do pretty much the same thing anyway and they look practically identical but don't increase the price on regular ammo because I need it early game and it shouldn't be expensive and don't make piercing ammo any less effective because I need the stopping power when the biters ramp up

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Re: Heat Exchanger Sprites

Post by teemu »

I don't think that you can compare boilers to ammo. Heat exchangers aren't a direct upgrade to boilers because they lack the coal burning function. Instead, it's a niche machine only useful in nuclear plants. In Factorio you'd typically get "necessities" like heating water with heat pipe tacked onto existing tools, like how ordinary electric mining drills get the fluid input box when you mine uranium. You don't need a special "nuclear" drill for uranium so why would you need a special "nuclear" boiler? The difference between the two is quite minor, the basic function is still the same. If the recipe cost really is a concern, and I really doubt that it is, the rest of nuclear equipment could be made costlier to balance it out a little.

I even find centrifuges dubious in this regard and hope that they get some new recipes in the future. Rocket fuel, maybe? But that is off-topic.

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Re: Heat Exchanger Sprites

Post by JohnyDL »

Pump jacks are a niche machine only useful in obtaining oil while Off shore pumps are a niche machine only useful for getting water. Both pump liquids and crude oil doesn't seem to me that different to water, not really, why not have them be one item just depending on where they're placed you get water or oil... why? because they're different pieces of kit with different purposes and different ways of making them realistic within the confines of the game. Why not have steam turbines and steam engines just be the same thing too? they're the same size basically do the same thing give or take, they're the same size with inputs in the same places, they're basically the same machine just make the sprites and stats change depending on the heat and pressure of the steam pipe. And what's the point of all these inserter options?...

Do you get the point? they are supposed to be different they're useful at different stages in the game, they are real world analogues and the price and way you use them is one way to represent that. I agree they need to be made more useful, maybe higher temperature steam could be used in more recipes or have an effect on existing recipes so the decision to nuclear heat water is one you might have to make, or add a mid level steam set up with the ability to use 'excess' heat from steel furnaces through heat pipes to boil water to some level. But I still think straight up merging them is out of the question, the Devs probably considered it before making them the Devs might have more plans for them in the future and the Devs probably have some internal balance system mapped out and making 1 heat exchanger cost 50x 1 boiler probably was at least partly deliberate, as was the choice not to use the boiler in the recipe for the heat exchanger etc..

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Re: Heat Exchanger Sprites

Post by teemu »

Unlike your examples, boilers and heat exchangers are almost identical machines by appearance and size and interface. There's very little difference between them. The steam turbine can be considered a direct upgrade to the steam engine.

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Re: Heat Exchanger Sprites

Post by teemu »

I just found out that heat exchangers are boilers, which just use heat energy. I wonder if I can make a mod that does this combining.

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Re: Heat Exchanger Sprites

Post by JohnyDL »

Both heat water but the difference is one is a pressure cooker full of water on a wood/coal stove relatively slowly boiling water into steam, and the other is a honeycomb of copper at 500-1000C with water being pushed through it and vapourizing almost instantly at tens of times more pressure than a pressure cooker can take.

One is like heating a bucket of water with a birthday candle and the other is pouring an equal mass of molten glass or lead into it

One has the power to heat run an IRL factory, the other has the power to run a small city.

They are different scales of tech even if they look the same and appear to do the same thing.

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