Removing fluid temperature - thoughts?

[Honktown]

I like having temperature. I could support pipes being frictionless turbulentless fluids, but fluid not having temperature? Disgusting. Some of the little things in Factorio really draw me into it, and if the game was like ERR-ERR SORRY CAN'T MIX STEAM AND STEAM I'd think the devs went beyond fully retarded.

Edit: It'd also screw up mods that need "steam" as an ingredient, because they'd have to specify which steam, or support every different temperature. The game does not support variable ingredients, so it'd be a mess or limit mod flexibility

[Cribbit]

What even happens right now in game if you mix two different temperature steams?

[PyroFire]

What even happens right now in game if you mix two different temperature steams?

What even happened to reading the thread before posting?

TEMPERATURE HOW?????








Or in other words, even if i wanted to make a mod... yeah, no circuit conditions? Erm... how is such a mod going to work considering potentially unreliable temperature throughput, which probably needs to be measured on pumps?
Down with temperature!

[Cribbit]

What even happens right now in game if you mix two different temperature steams?

What even happened to reading the thread before posting?

It wasn't on the first three pages

EDIT: Your post doesn't even answer the question, and I have now read the entire thread and no one answers the question?

[PyroFire]

It wasn't on the first three pages

And now i have to post it again because no one reads the thread responses that happen to be at the bottom of the previous page (literally 2 posts prior to yours proving you didn't read the latest responses)?

EDIT: Your post doesn't even answer the question, and I have now read the entire thread and no one answers the question?

Actually it did check the screenshots.
Mixing temperatures is how i got the tank to be ~520 odd degrees, and my question was how do you read this via circuit?
You can replicate this situation fairly simply using /editor.

[Cribbit]

It wasn't on the first three pages

And now i have to post it again because no one reads the thread responses that happen to be at the bottom of the previous page (literally 2 posts prior to yours proving you didn't read the latest responses)?

EDIT: Your post doesn't even answer the question, and I have now read the entire thread and no one answers the question?

Actually it did check the screenshots.
Mixing temperatures is how i got the tank to be ~520 odd degrees, and my question was how do you read this via circuit?
You can replicate this situation fairly simply using /editor.

It's the sort of information you would think would be early in the thread, not at the end.

I see it now in the screenshots, but you didn't really explain that at all. Just some screenshots of a tank. I thought you were talking purely about the fact that you can't read temp from circuit network.

[PyroFire]

It's the sort of information you would think would be early in the thread, not at the end.

I know, particularly about how no one mentioned circuits until now.

I thought you were talking purely about the fact that you can't read temp from circuit network.

Well, yes and no.

It ties back into OP.
Part of the issue is that temperature is confusing.
There was a need for you to have asked what happens when the temperatures mixed, because this is not readily understandable/apparent/intuitive.

We have an idea, that it might worthwhile to remove the temperature concept from fluidboxes.
There are a few problems with temperature:

• It is hard to know how much energy is in a given volume of hot fluid, without knowing some internal hidden values.
• Mixing of fluids of different temperatures can cause the same problems as mixing different fluids.
• The temperature filters are not shown or intuitive.
• There is not much support, usage or interactions for temperature in the game.
• We could make some reasonably large performance gains by removing the temperature.

We can also add to that list:

• Fluid Temperature cannot be measured by circuit networks for automation, so even if you Wanted to make a temperature based anything, it wouldn't work well because no circuits for advanced automation. See mixing fluids of different temperatures causing same problems as mixing different fluids problem.

For its replacement, we already have the prototype defined 'fuel value', which can intuitively show how much energy it has per unit.

Down with temperature!
It just makes math harder for no good reason.

[mrvn]

Totally agree. If fluids have a temp and the temp is relevant then one should be able to manage the temp. E.g. enable pumps for hot and cold fluid to get a mix at the right temperature. Without that the temperature is just annoying. Let me give an example:

The Industrial Revolution mod has steam at 175° from boilers and 60°as waste product (not sure of the exact numbers but something like that). If you accidentally mix the two then your steam engines stop working because the steam falls below the minimum required. On the other hand other buildings require steam and aren't picky about the temperature. So feeding them 60° steam is fine. But you need more steam than you have 60° steam. You have to mix. Just don't mix the part going to steam engines. If you ever do then it's time to remove all pipes and put them back again. ANNOYING.

So I'm all for removing the temp and have a steam and cold steam liquid that don't mix in IR.

[MEOWMI]

Main issue I see is steam engines vs turbines. You need to make the difference obvious somehow. I found it to be relatively straightforward to figure out that steam is different from nuclear reactors since all the machines are different, but that would've been far from obvious if it weren't for the temperature display to confirm the fact.

Also, some mods use the temperature feature I suppose, so I'm not sure how that would play out.

[mmmPI]

P.S.
Steamtorio: Factorio but everything is powered with steam.
I could change electricity to steam fluidboxes no problem, just for fun. Each requiring some temperature mix. ... but how to measure/automate????

Using this : https://mods.factorio.com/mod/FactorIO !
There is a sensor for fluid temperature.

I searched for mods that would require temperature mixing automation, or based on that, i wanted to fiddle with such contraption as those in the screen shot, this kind of puzzle is not very present in vanilla but it seems like the engine is made for it , we can read temperature on tooltip, it somewhat inform players that energy is consumed, it can make player think temperature is something to manage carefully while you can't and don't need to.

Apart from my desire to play around with this mechanic more than what is available in vanilla Factorio ( look but don't touch effect ), i was only but very receptive to the performance improvement in the list.

I'd rather have a fast black-box that output plausible physics than a slow physic-simulation to play games with.

The example of cooling liquid being different fluid for each temperature and having only certain fixed value is gameplay wise not using the full potential of the fluid mechanic (those can't be mixed); but still a fun experience/puzzle that convey the meaning and idea of what you are doing.

Having thoughts doesn't mean having an opinion, I still wish the game supports the more complex use of temperature mixing, those (niche) cases can feels like the pinnacle of automation, but the most difficult and edgy puzzle are also in this case the most consuming, involving a more 'realistic' physic simulation.

Lighter games benefits are for (almost) everyone, enabling cheaper hardware to run it, less energy consumption, bigger base.

As long as the game is still the game.

Which is very subjective , if artist were to ask everyone beforehand what should be done and how, there would only be average standardized things. In this case it is easier for me to form an opinion afterwards, wether i like or dislike the change given the consequences.

It would end my hopes for more support around the mechanic, it is on same topic as fluid mechanic; it would go from " bouu i miss those" to " waoow the game is so smooth on this save now ". consumers are crual humans

The effort you do to communicate with the community beforehand are appreciated and helps a lot understanding the choices afterwards.

[Honktown]

...

I hadn't considered steam as a mechanic in itself. For temperature mixing it's easy enough: use a timer with two intervals, the hot and cold. Only enable if steam in a tank is less than 1 or even = 0, excess steam in the tank can be pumped out to a turbine, since those have highest priority. This does require external knowledge of steam temperatures.

Steam itself could be heated and cooled, though not by relative amounts. I think you could set a powered machine with pass-through like a steam engine to consume electrical energy and not eat the steam? Should also be possible to do the opposite, since it'd just be a negative energy differential, the typical way steam is consumed.

[Adamo]

I played around a lot with temperatures while making my physics mod. My ultimate conclusion is that, as things are, the *only* real dependency for temperature is the "max temp" value of the consumer (most of the time energy, but there's also the case of using steam to make things, where clearly the lowest temperature is best since that was produced with the least amount of energy). It's a robust system for a bland use case. I'd like to do more with it, but factorio just doesn't really have heat handling at all. If we were still on the drawing board, I might suggest some sort of heat management mechanic for the entire base, similar or in lieu of the pollution system, that requires you to pump heat out of the base (and possibly use some for energy) as it becomes more dense.

[Honktown]

I played around a lot with temperatures while making my physics mod. My ultimate conclusion is that, as things are, the *only* real dependency for temperature is the "max temp" value of the consumer (most of the time energy, but there's also the case of using steam to make things, where clearly the lowest temperature is best since that was produced with the least amount of energy). It's a robust system for a bland use case. I'd like to do more with it, but factorio just doesn't really have heat handling at all. If we were still on the drawing board, I might suggest some sort of heat management mechanic for the entire base, similar or in lieu of the pollution system, that requires you to pump heat out of the base (and possibly use some for energy) as it becomes more dense.

Reactors output heat using a standard definition. If a craft completes you could check the heat of machinery, and if it's too high, damage the entity (is there an event flag for that?). Or get heat pipes around the player every few seconds, and if the average temperature is "too high" the player could take damage. Heat could be calculated on a per-chunk basis every so often, and if it's too high, damage all entities contained within it, even de-activating them first (heat would have to transfer in from outside and push it even higher).

To "discharge" the heat, you could have a negative water-pump power by heat, or turbine (with water connections) that consumed the heat and produced no energy.

[Adamo]

I played around a lot with temperatures while making my physics mod. My ultimate conclusion is that, as things are, the *only* real dependency for temperature is the "max temp" value of the consumer (most of the time energy, but there's also the case of using steam to make things, where clearly the lowest temperature is best since that was produced with the least amount of energy). It's a robust system for a bland use case. I'd like to do more with it, but factorio just doesn't really have heat handling at all. If we were still on the drawing board, I might suggest some sort of heat management mechanic for the entire base, similar or in lieu of the pollution system, that requires you to pump heat out of the base (and possibly use some for energy) as it becomes more dense.

Reactors output heat using a standard definition. If a craft completes you could check the heat of machinery, and if it's too high, damage the entity (is there an event flag for that?). Or get heat pipes around the player every few seconds, and if the average temperature is "too high" the player could take damage. Heat could be calculated on a per-chunk basis every so often, and if it's too high, damage all entities contained within it, even de-activating them first (heat would have to transfer in from outside and push it even higher).

To "discharge" the heat, you could have a negative water-pump power by heat, or turbine (with water connections) that consumed the heat and produced no energy.

Sure. I think there are many ways we could handle it. Personally, I'm not interested in modding in a heat mechanic. But if we were back on the drawing board, I'd probably suggest something like an ambient heat produced by machinery where overheating either disallows buildings to function or causes them to become damaged if they do function. Then you could use heat sinks to remove heat, and send it out to be dispersed, or better, to make steam.

In my view, this was a missed opportunity for Factorio. But I only blame myself. I had applied to work with Factorio, and we talked about it in a few emails, but then I went to graduate school for physics instead.

[BlueTemplar]

Check out Fantario for more heat handling (through heat pipes) :
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Fantario

[...]
P.S.

Steamtorio: Factorio but everything is powered with steam.
I could change electricity to steam fluidboxes no problem, just for fun. Each requiring some temperature mix. ... but how to measure/automate????

[...] particularly about how no one mentioned circuits until now.

What do you mean, Klonan mentions (the lack of) temperature measuring on the very first page ?!

[...]
How would you control this? You would need to use pumps and measure the temperature of the fluid and only add hot/cold water when the temperature is out of the desired range,
But still, the temperature mixing isn't ideal, so you would get hotspots or cold spots in the middle of a system, which can't really be accounted for easily

Also, I thought I already had specifically asked in this thread about adding a temperature sensor to vanilla,
(now that an expansion for Factorio has been announced, we might hope for some new features using fluid temperature, for instance like those initially planned for 0.15 as part of the nuclear reactor design, rather than just the current heatpipe system ?)
but looks like it was so obvious that I didn't ??
(Or maybe I asked elsewhere ??)

[...]
We can also add to that list:

• Fluid Temperature cannot be measured by circuit networks for automation, so even if you Wanted to make a temperature based anything, it wouldn't work well because no circuits for advanced automation. See mixing fluids of different temperatures causing same problems as mixing different fluids problem.

[...]

You could never mix different Fluids in Factorio though. Well, I guess water and steam before 0.15ish, but only because steam was just >100°C water.
(Which is different from having them share the same fluidbox ; or fluidboxes with different fluids touching - which was actually possible before it was annoyingly forbidden in 0.17.)

Totally agree. If fluids have a temp and the temp is relevant then one should be able to manage the temp. E.g. enable pumps for hot and cold fluid to get a mix at the right temperature. Without that the temperature is just annoying. Let me give an example:

The Industrial Revolution mod has steam at 175° from boilers and 60°as waste product (not sure of the exact numbers but something like that). If you accidentally mix the two then your steam engines stop working because the steam falls below the minimum required. On the other hand other buildings require steam and aren't picky about the temperature. So feeding them 60° steam is fine. But you need more steam than you have 60° steam. You have to mix. Just don't mix the part going to steam engines. If you ever do then it's time to remove all pipes and put them back again. ANNOYING.

So I'm all for removing the temp and have a steam and cold steam liquid that don't mix in IR.

This popped up in mods even earlier than that (since that 0.15 change ??) : in 0.16 you already have these 60°C «waste» steam mixing issues in pYanodons. (You are supposed to use dedicated cooling towers to recycle it back into water and so make a closed loop.)
(Also why I'm following this thread !)

Using this : https://mods.factorio.com/mod/FactorIO !
There is a sensor for fluid temperature.
[...]

Holy $#!+, is this actually possible ?!
Why did it take until 2018 for someone to make a mod like this ?!?