Coal liquification too expensive.

Daz3 · Post by **Daz3** » Sun Aug 13, 2017 9:30 pm

TL;DR

The research and process for coal liqufraction is very complex; I think it should be made far more easy to access.

What ?

Moving the research of coal liqufraction to be between oil processing and advanced oil, or as a side-branch from oil processing so you don't have to get it for advanced oil. It should also only cost red and green science to get.

Also removal of the heavy oil requirement, or having 'crude' coal liqufaction that doesn't need heavy oil.

Why ?

While oil wells are infinate, if slow at the end, it is possible to spawn in an area without oil. Thus making it impossible to progress. This change would prevent a map being 'unplayable' by allowing players to use coal, inefficently, instead. Either until they've managed to research enough to conquer territory to find some oil wells. (The tank requires blue science, as does the better armours.)

Having just spent the past two hours creeping around biter nests trying to find oil, with a large smelting area already set up and some trains running... I don't want to abandon the map but without oil it can progress, so... An alternative seems like a good suggestion!

Thank you for reading.

boolybooly · Post by **boolybooly** » Thu Aug 17, 2017 7:33 am

Its true you cannot advance in tech or survive long term without oil in the default game. There are mods which change this but I have not tried any of them.

There is definitely a potential for a lower frequency for oil than for other resources and it can cause trouble on low settings. I think it is very RND sensitive as some spawns there are lots and other restarts on the same settings there are no oil points.

I am playing a map now with low oil spawn rate and very low iron and copper but there is only one spawn of oil on the large explored region of the map, which contains several each of iron and copper, so oil is clearly set to a lower frequency than other resources and I would not want to play a very low oil map at all as it would be a bad experience.

The question is whether they should just tweak oil spawn so it is comparable to other key resources, or is the rarity a deliberate strategic challenge?

Hannu · Post by **Hannu** » Thu Aug 17, 2017 9:09 am

I somewhat disagree. It seem that you have intentionally selected very low oil settings. If you use normal settings there are always enough oil to get higher tiers science running and then you can choose liquefaction if you do not want to build large oilfields. Couple of pumpjacks and refineries is enough if you go straightforwardly to liquefaction. You can create few oil wells by a command if you have chosen impossible settings or find them with map editor (I had to find uranium patches with map editor because I chose very low frequency and could not find them in reasonable time).

In my opinion research is quite well balanced for normal resources and reasonable sized bases which is expected from beginners. I would not change them because someone feels extreme settings too hard. They are intended to be hard and if you set everything hard it may be impossible.

Daz3 · Post by **Daz3** » Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:17 pm

I had chosen low oil settings (Railworld settings) and could have changed that (and did!) For a new map. The question in some ways is probably more a case of 'must players abandon a map without accessable oil or should we give them a diffrent path for oil tech?'

The 'restart' option is already avaliable, obviously. Is the second option viable? Would it be balanced? I don't know. That's the reason for this thread.

And thankyou to whoever changed the title and moved the thread; it makes much more sense here.

Frightning · Post by **Frightning** » Fri Aug 18, 2017 3:48 am

I like this idea in concept, however, it's important to realize that Coal liquefaction requires you to already have some Heavy oil on hand, which means you have to have found some oil to exploit anyways in order to use it at all. It would be interesting to me, if coal liquefaction was balanced more towards producing lots of Heavy oil, right now, your net gain is 10 HO, 15 LO, and 20 PG, which is a 2-3-4 ratio. Advanced Oil is a 2-9-11 ratio, and Basic oil is a 3-3-4 (most Heavy oil rich option).

Nasabot · Post by **Nasabot** » Fri Aug 18, 2017 9:34 pm

I agree. Coal liquification, which is actually very complex and cost intensive in terms of infrastructure, should have an easier research.
Also maps do respawn in such a way that you actually dont have oil in the beginning. (or there are only 1-3 patches very bad positioned)

Coal liquification should be between the tier 1 and the tier 2 oil recipe. (just switch research cost with advanced oil production?)

Frightning · Post by **Frightning** » Fri Aug 18, 2017 9:42 pm

Nasabot wrote:I agree. Coal liquification, which is actually very complex and cost intensive in terms of infrastructure, should have an easier research.
Also maps do respawn in such a way that you actually dont have oil in the beginning. (or there are only 1-3 patches very bad positioned)

Coal liquification should be between the tier 1 and the tier 2 oil recipe. (just switch research cost with advanced oil production?)

I wouldn't want to see Adv. oil processing become so late game unless they made cracking unlocked by Coal liquefaction research instead of by Advanced oil processing research (being without cracking for too long is a problem).

Post by **Koub** » Sat Aug 19, 2017 9:22 am

I agree with Frightning : Advanced oil processing is very needed as early as possible : it's the only way you have to actually control your different oil products. TO be honest, I have never used my very first oil for anything else than researching advanced oil (which I craft semi-manually by handfeeding assembling machines most of the time)

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