Fluid Purity : an Item-Quality-like mechanic for Fluids

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BlueTemplar
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Fluid Purity : an Item-Quality-like mechanic for Fluids

Post by BlueTemplar »

TL;DR
Quality implemented for Fluids in a freely-mixing, less-processing-blocking way.
What?
Fluids would now have a Purity value.
It would be treated mostly (but not exactly like) as Item Quality in most recipes.

With values of
90% Purity ~ Normal Quality
99% ~ Uncommon
99.9% ~ Rare
99.99% ~ Epic
99.999% ~ Legendary

EDIT : 0.) fluid Purity would be colour-coded too, on a non-linear gradient, for instance : 98%, 99.8%

But, unlike for Item Quality :
1.) lower Quality Recipes would still accept higher Purity fluids as ingredient :
a Normal Quality recipe would still consume a 99.46% Purity fluid.

2.) The same fluid of different Purities could be freely mixed, just like the same fluid of different temperatures can be freely mixed :
100L of 90% Purity fluid A mixed with 100L of 99% purity fluid A would result in 200L of 94.5% Purity fluid.

3.) Quality modules would work like this on Purity :
a +100% quality processing of 90% purity of fluid B into fluid C would always result in a fluid C of 99% purity :
(+100% <=> impurity (= 100% - purity) divided by 10)
90% +50% quality => 95% purity
90% +10% quality => 91% purity
95% +100% quality => 99.5% purity
95% +10% quality => 95.5% purity
(+X% <=> impurity divided by X/100×10)

4.) Quality (better than normal) recipes using fluids as ingredients would now require a minimum purity :
for instance you would now be able to make directly Uncommon quality Holmium plates (without quality modules), but they would require at least 99% Purity Holmium solution
but then you would also need to provide enough of at least 99.999% Purity both molten Iron and molten Copper to (directly, with no quality modules) make Legendary Low Density Structures from legendary Plastic bars.

5.) You would now be able to get back fluids (of potentially higher purity, with quality modules) from Recycling.
However, this would require a new "super-recycler" building :
higher tech / potentially higher tech ingredients than the basic recycler
bigger footprint (so that there is space for one input and multiple output pipes)
Basic recycler would probably still use the old recycling recipes.
(Implementing a way for the basic recycler to also use barrels for fluid output, without recycling them, seems unrealistic ?)

6.) This probably ought to be implemented as an optional modmod requiring the Quality mod.

7.) As an experiment : Speed modules would actually be allowed to lower the Quality effect for fluids into negative values, worsening Purity.
(Probably not below the "Normal Purity" 90% though ?)
Why?
This has the potential to make fluids more interesting for those playing with Quality,
would allow to experiment with an alternate way of doing 'quality',
might even help with various issues, including balance ones, that Quality currently has !

Related :
Higher Fluid Consumption for Quality Recipes
Cannot make Holmium solution with quality Holmium ore
Output more fluid when using higher quality recipes (i.e. for Holmium Solution)
Have excess quality act like a durability bonus
Remove quality from items that don't benefit from it or allow "any" quality when crafting fluids
[boskid][2.0.11] Recipes with only liquid output allow Quality modules
[2.0.60] Recipes with no item ingredients do not produce quality items
Ignore Fluid signals at "Quality Transfer"
BobDiggity (mod-scenario-pack)
eugenekay
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Re: Fluid Purity : an Item-Quality-like mechanic for Fluids

Post by eugenekay »

Adding another mix-able property to Fluids seems like a lot of Effort, would take extra calculations each tick that the Fluid system is active, and it is not clear what the "impurity" would even be? Water or something? And another Recycler building too?

I think that re-purposing the Temperature mechanic is something that a Mod could actually implement.
waterBear
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Re: Fluid Purity : an Item-Quality-like mechanic for Fluids

Post by waterBear »

Do you need a special recycler for this? Once something's been made with the fluid (eg. iron plate) it already recycles into itself, as does Holmium plate, for the very reason that it can come from ore or a liquid. AFAIK all such items do. By your own rules, the creation of pure fluids is deterministic so there's no "upcycling" concept here. If anything it gives you one more roll when you cast-to-plate (or use a recipe like LDS) which is already superior to recycling anyway.

Seems like a neat idea, if done right. In the same way that a heat exchanger is "low temperature" when below 500 C and won't do anything, an uncommon plate casting foundry won't do anything unless the purity is at least 99%. Might match existing code, or so it would seem from the outside, as long as you don't complicate it.
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Re: Fluid Purity : an Item-Quality-like mechanic for Fluids

Post by mmmPI »

Sounds very complicated to use for me and to implement ( like a major change of philosophy).

I understand the similarities with temperature, in the way you describe the mixing, it also reminded of chemistry particularly dilutions.

I think you also need to adress how in practice players could make setup, if the recycler output fluids, it will force onto most players that want to recycle "sulfur" ( made out of 2 fluids ) some pretty hard setups, the way fluid could "freely mix" works only if it's the same fluid. Maybe item made of several fluid should always recycle in themselves ? That would work for vanilla+space age i think, but it would not fully be "quality for fluid", if player use other mods with their recipes.

Overall i don't expect this to happens, but i would really like to be surprised :)
Check out my latest mod ! It's noisy !
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