Friday Facts #305 - The Oil Changes

[lacika2000]

Another nice solution avoided the elimination of the 3-output problem, but...didn't fully remove the complexity wall (since it requires cracking), despite also succeeding at enabling non-blocking chemical science until the player figures out advanced oil--and leaving the current chemical science recipe.

Only produce light oil in the first receipe?

That is actually a SUPER elegant solution. It allows you get started with a LITTLE bit of cracking without having to balance (but a new player could just mind-map this like a normal processing step like any other simple in->out receipe), while he later realizes what cracking is actually used for (balancing the outputs from advanced receipes). Since he already has done a little bit of cracking (only light to petro), it won't overwhelm him then (and he will understand heavy to light).

I think the reason this approach resonates with me is related to the concept of sequential product making and the fact that it teaches right away the idea of transforming one oil refinery product into another one that will be necessary for late game anyway and which will come with AOP.

It also preps the novice player to the idea that considerable amount of “land area” will be needed for oil refining in general, unless you like to rebuild your production several times (which I believe is a major frustration for a new player in refining, especially that there is no storage for fluids in your inventory when you break things down).

[V453000]

you'd need lots of sulfur, you'd end up with excess petroleum if you use AOP or BOP or even Coal Liquefaction.

EDIT: the other risk is if you want to produce a lot of accumulator, you'd need to consume the PG somehow.

This is a big deal, and the response I gave to why there are so many things in PG. With the way cracking works everything else can reach this issue.

Also, you can see how quickly a "seemingly nice solution" crashes on details.

[nafira]

I like the idea of changing how oil is produced : I always thought that Advanced Oil was not mandatory at all, since the gain is pretty thin and you can transform coal into whatever you need (and there's a lot of unused Coal in every map).

Removing all of other input is ok. But you need to add significant petroleum (like previously suggested). A good 60 seems well-balanced (75 is too high).
So the player would be : "Hey, that's a nice recipe, but I need to make changes, let's prepare this !"
And not : "I need to get Advanced Oil as fast as possible because I don't have enough oil".

Let's face it : you nearly double the output of petroleum between basic and advanced. And you don't have all fluids.


I understand your approach saying that it's too hard, but seeing the difference, the player will hassle to get to Advanced because Basic is so damn shitty.
It's good for the first 2 or 3 maps, but after that, you don't need that kind of assistance and everyone is going to complain for a rebalance of Basic oil.

[Nefrums]

you'd need lots of sulfur, you'd end up with excess petroleum if you use AOP or BOP or even Coal Liquefaction.

EDIT: the other risk is if you want to produce a lot of accumulator, you'd need to consume the PG somehow.

This is a big deal, and the response I gave to why there are so many things in PG. With the way cracking works everything else can reach this issue.

If you just removed light oil from coal liquefaction this would mean that you could always get all the heavy oil you need.

[V453000]

you'd need lots of sulfur, you'd end up with excess petroleum if you use AOP or BOP or even Coal Liquefaction.

EDIT: the other risk is if you want to produce a lot of accumulator, you'd need to consume the PG somehow.

This is a big deal, and the response I gave to why there are so many things in PG. With the way cracking works everything else can reach this issue.

If you just removed light oil from coal liquefaction this would mean that you could always get all the heavy oil you need.

You could still get deadlocked by having too much petroleum gas though, simply because you aren't consuming enough plastic and your solid fuel is backed up.

[lacika2000]

Would there be any harm in having an intermediate oil recipe with the ratios more like the previous basic one?
Obviously, this would add one more recipe, possibly without any further use.
On the other hand infelxibility with the ratios is the only major issue I have with the currently planned oil change.

Maybe you are on to something the community can agree on...

[V453000]

I can't help but think the FFF-305 proposal seems to have most benefit and least severe disadvantages from all the things I've read in the last 9 days.
The biggest downsides are "new player might have to rebuild" which I think is highly questionnable; a new player might only have a few refineries (very likely) so it is not much of a problem to adjust, or can just build a separate new setup elsewhere. This is mainly a problem if you want to rush robots, you would be doing the two refineries in a rather quick succession. However only an experienced player would rush robots and set up the first refinery to be AOP-compatible.
It also seems unrealistic and robots are later, both of which are debatable issues.
AOP would be completely mandatory and the challenge of multiple outputs introduced exactly at the same time as a solution to it, which I find to be a big plus.
BOP refinery feels like a furnace but you do have other things to do and learn at that point, and you still get the second step being more interesting and complicated.

BOP producing gas + heavy or light has issues and isn't really helping as it's just removing 1 output. It's not nothing but the improvement is marginal for other big downsides. PG + Light means the only reason you need AOP is Lubricant - that's a really weak non-high-tech motivator. PG + Heavy has the issue that you're making Solid Fuel inefficiently, or would need to make use of heavy somehow. Not having cracking and multiple outputs is also problematic because that oil processing is not long-term self-sustainable, and thus rushing AOP is necessary.

The idea of Heavy only and adding cracking is nice, quite functional and quite sensible, but a double-step cracking just to get the gas seems to be wtf tedious as you need to put vast majority of heavy into gas that way.
Furthermore, for everybody who waves the "dumbing down flag", heavy only->crack->crack->PG is a completely functional setup able to output anything on-demand. If one thing has backed up, it will completely automatically do the rest. The need for AOP is completely optional ("finishing the game" would be dumbed down in the minimum possible effort), and would only end up being more voluntary complexity for (presumably much more) efficiency per crude oil spent. The optionality of AOP does not necessarily have to be an issue and if the efficiency difference is significant enough, it could work. It wouldn't matter whether there is solid fuel or sulfur in the science pack for this, the system would always automatically work. I don't completely hate this, but the mandatory double-cracking if you only want petroleum gas sounds like a big pain.

Light only again makes AOP mandatory only because of seemingly low-tech lubricant, and require single-step cracking at the start.

Not doing any changes and adding cracking turns the WTF levels of oil even further and keeps it deadlocking without something like circuit network. AOP would only be a number upgrade, questionnable if AOP should even exist at that point.

Not doing any changes at all of course still has the old problems, like not being able to have self-sufficient long-term BOP and unnecessary tedium/confusion.

Flare stacks are absolutely out of the question for the ultimate dumbing down reasons, just take FFF-305 version and image a flare stack next to the refinery / the one integrated in the refinery to be burning the heavy and light oil.

[Engimage]

Just add gas liquification recipe which would make light oil from PG.

I am too burnt out to make complex posts now as I see V is not in the mood to change his opinion.

I want to point out several things.
* Proposed changes do not address the main issue of handling multiple outputs. They do postpone it but a player does not learn anything new during BOP setup - still 1 liquid input 1 output on all entities. Yes Blue science will progress easier but the player will still reach the same stopping point after AOP. And the player will most likely need to completely remake oil facility as he did not expect 2 new outputs and 1 new input

* Player will most likely be encouraged to place refineries next to each other and place pipes adjacent to refineries. This will effectively teach the player the worst design possible.

To prevent this I would suggest introducing a new oil processing tier called Primitive Oil Processing which would be done in chemical lab and would do simple stuff like this.

At the point of BOP I would suggest making at least 2 products in the refinery and give 2 clear purposes for them. For example make it LO and PG and change Sulfur to be made from LO only.

This way blue science requiring sulfur from LO and plastic from PG will make clear hint for a player regarding processing.

With this a recipe of PG liquification should be introduced with AOP to let player focus on either sulfur or plastic.

This will also clear the way to removing solid fuel from PG recipe completely as one being conceptually flawed.

[V453000]

At the point of BOP I would suggest making at least 2 products in the refinery and give 2 clear purposes for them. For example make it LO and PG and change Sulfur to be made from LO only.

So your max possibe sulfur is limited by plastic consumption?

A similar effect can occur with other solutions but only with lubricant and rocket fuel. You probably don't need to be producing only rocket fuel at any stage. Lubricant maybe. But sulfur is quite likely in case of solar upgrades/uranium mining/laser turrets.

[Serenity]

This will also clear the way to removing solid fuel from PG recipe completely as one being conceptually flawed.

I don't think it's completely flawed. There are uses for it. Especially in a dedicated solid fuel factory. You try to make most out of LO, but you can still turn the PG into SF so it doesn't back up. I've used something like this a few times to produce SF for vehicles:
viewtopic.php?t=7052 (minus the power plant, and maybe using 2 LO -> SF plants)

Or having some PG -> SF factories on standby in case PG backs up.

[Engimage]

Flare stacks are absolutely out of the question for the ultimate dumbing down reasons, just take FFF-305 version and image a flare stack next to the refinery / the one integrated in the refinery to be burning the heavy and light oil.

Flare stack is much better than you solution because:
* Result is the same
* Player gets familiarized with all oils and knows he has to deal with them. Burning using Flare is a bandaid losing resources and producing much extra pollution.

Yes I agree that is is bad for later game where a player should be forced into dealing with oils properly.

But current solution is just too much.

[Engimage]

This will also clear the way to removing solid fuel from PG recipe completely as one being conceptually flawed.

I don't think it's completely flawed. There are uses for it. Especially in a dedicated solid fuel factory. You try to make most out of LO, but you can still turn the PG into SF so it doesn't back up. I've used something like this a few times to produce SF for vehicles:
viewtopic.php?t=7052 (minus the power plant, and maybe using 2 LO -> SF plants)

Or having some PG -> SF factories on standby in case PG backs up.

By flawed I meant that production of SOLID fuel from gas does not make much sense. Same for sulfur.

[lacika2000]

Correct me if I’m wrong but petroleum gas would only go into plastic?
Maybe I could find a new place that would consume petroleum gas in addition to the existing recipe... Explosives? Batteries? Lubricant?
The science pack could easily be balanced in a way where the ratio of heavy:gas produced is the same as consumed when only making science. The rest of your consumption could either be smaller than a storage tank’s worth, or you would need additional storage until you could get AOP.

So far petroleum is only transformed into Sulfur / Plastic / Solid Fuel. I don't think it would be too much of a problem to use Petroleum for plastic and solid fuel. The risk i see is if you want to mine lots of uranium, you'd need lots of sulfur, you'd end up with excess petroleum if you use AOP or BOP or even Coal Liquefaction.
...
the ability to transform 100% of BOP in sulfur is nice, so maybe petroleum gas could be use to make sulfur, but at a terrible ratio, just as an almost flare stack.

I really like this idea! So, to recap: BOP yields HO and PG. HO can go to lubricant, HO to sulfur at high yield, PG to plastic, PG to sulfur at very low yield, HO or PG to solid fuel at lower yield than LO unlocked later in AOP.

V453000: great to hear you are thinking with us, appreciated!

[Nefrums]

you'd need lots of sulfur, you'd end up with excess petroleum if you use AOP or BOP or even Coal Liquefaction.

EDIT: the other risk is if you want to produce a lot of accumulator, you'd need to consume the PG somehow.

This is a big deal, and the response I gave to why there are so many things in PG. With the way cracking works everything else can reach this issue.

If you just removed light oil from coal liquefaction this would mean that you could always get all the heavy oil you need.

You could still get deadlocked by having too much petroleum gas though, simply because you aren't consuming enough plastic and your solid fuel is backed up.

What I meant, but failed to write, was to make coal liquefaction output only heavy oil. No light or petroleum.

But I agree that what is in fff305 is the best solution.

[Engimage]

At the point of BOP I would suggest making at least 2 products in the refinery and give 2 clear purposes for them. For example make it LO and PG and change Sulfur to be made from LO only.

So your max possibe sulfur is limited by plastic consumption?

A similar effect can occur with other solutions but only with lubricant and rocket fuel. You probably don't need to be producing only rocket fuel at any stage. Lubricant maybe. But sulfur is quite likely in case of solar upgrades/uranium mining/laser turrets.

I said that AOP would add PG to LO liquification.

At the BOP stage there will certainly be this issue and the player imo SHOULD face it just in smoother form compared to current 3 liquid task.

Also by having 2 solid materials as a result of oil processing will help visualize output blocking problem as the end result is on belts! This is one major difficulty with oil processing debugging as you do not see pipe contents.

This is also a reason why I dislike the idea with solid fuel from PG recipe. A player should be more hinted to produce it from LO

[Reika]

I’ve been considering two alternatives, one of which I have even implemented, but it does not work.

It was based off last week’s changes but adding a heavy+light only recipe unlockable in logistic science. This process had petroleum gas as an input which would make sure the most basic one has to be done first, and this process was completely optional - the player could skip it and go to AOP directly. There was no cracking available before AOP. This would require keeping solid fuel in chemical science pack as a use for light oil.

The main problem was that “there are too many refinery recipes”, though I’m not 100% sold on this argument. AOP would become entirely optional, though an at least 2 output recipe would still be mandatory.

Making heavy or light oil from PG? No, that definitely does not make sense.

The second thing that I have been considering recently would be to make BOP output heavy and gas only, no light. The point of “oil processing only feels like a complicated process if it has multiple outputs” is quite valid. This would allow to keep robots before chemical science. The argument of robots being a confusing trap that seems to be low tier, but requires many recipes can also be interpreted as a good thing, and a choice to discover.
The problem would be that heavy oil would need some use other than lubricant, as lubricant is entirely optional in this stage. Reverting the sulfur in science would help this for sure, but the point of “don’t make me produce SF out of anything else than light oil” has some value too, so I would keep sulfur in the chemical science pack.
Making sulfur from heavy oil instead of gas would work, and I can see it would make a lot more sense chemically, but heavy oil production would need a lot of number tweaks. Correct me if I’m wrong but petroleum gas would only go into plastic?
Maybe I could find a new place that would consume petroleum gas in addition to the existing recipe... Explosives? Batteries? Lubricant?
The science pack could easily be balanced in a way where the ratio of heavy:gas produced is the same as consumed when only making science. The rest of your consumption could either be smaller than a storage tank’s worth, or you would need additional storage until you could get AOP.

I’ll give it some more thought and try to implement the second option, and see where I get stuck or find issues.

I definitely like where this is going. It addresses most or all of the major concerns and seems interesting on top of it. One thing I will say is that none of those three suggestions make sense for PG consumption; what would ethylene even do in any of them? Do you really need another sink for PG at that point in the game? Plastic sucks down so much of it already.




.....Aaaaaaaand then you seemingly abandon it:

I can't help but think the FFF-305 proposal seems to have most benefit and least severe disadvantages from all the things I've read in the last 9 days.

[rhynex]

I hated the new blue science using sulfur. sulfur does not have a big sink if player is not going for solar energy (accumulator) and bots. new players might skip those and end up blocked. I can understand why wube is putting PG only on BOP but it is not the fix I believe.

in 0.17 purple science decided to use rail because you wanted people focus on rail network. now you are doing opposite. you are forcing people to create an entity which is not used much at blue science level.

petroleum always has a sink, plastic is a big sink and almost every entity beyond blue circuit has red circuit in it (cough in modules which are not even blue science required). people do not have any idea about modules' capabilities. no one taught them. hint tutorials!!

currently sulfur is a petroleum sink. this must change. HO/LO is an awesome candidate for sulfur ingredient.

power armor entities have awesome sulfur sink (batteries) but they are beyond blue science. danger here is it is limited. once a player has power armor and stuff, sink is gone. again new players might have no idea what these are.

try to create new sinks for oil products (HO/LO) and everything can be progressively fixed. new players has nothing to use their new oil and they are blocked on various oil entities when they unlock blue science and oil. because there is no sink they are forced to deal with multi-output recipes (and store output). if they had sinks then problem would not exist.

again players should somehow learn what entities are for. they should learn these sinks and what benefit they shall have. nuclear is too complex so MANY players skip uranium (faint sulfur sink). circuit network is complex and people skip it (I know no oil). bots is also like that, new players may not go for bots in first run (awesome sink I would say but heavy oil dependant). people are afraid of beacons and modules even (only petroleum sink), they dont like it for some reason. I would still say tutorials/scenarios is the way to go. they should learn what these are for and they can go for sinks on their own. everyone rush for AOP because we know it is better. if players learn bots then they can rush for it. currently they have no idea what these are and have no chance of properly using them.
example: if a player wants to go for bot based map then they might not go for AOP with current version because of heavy oil consumption. just like electric furnaces instead of steel furnaces, AOP should be an option, not mandatory.

I always wanted tutorials for new players so that they can have a guidance. recipes are not a guidance!! they need to know what the game is about and what game shall present them at further steps. if they see AOP in a scenario as an example then they can design their first oil with awareness (they can leave space for water). it is a lot fun to design the system instead of looking at youtube. if they see bots in scenarios and like it then they can rush for bots and store heavy oil for future but with new BOP it is sent to far away. if they see what solar energy is, they might rush for sulfur and have separate production for solar+accumulator even. these tutorials/scenarios are not a must for players who can understand what game is about and learn by themselves but for new and confused/blocked players it is essential and very good source of creating their own game experience.

final words: we need more oil product sinks for any oil type, especially at blue science level OR when the oil is introduced. solid fuel is not a sink!! definitely not. maybe it is the root cause of problem that everyone skips it.
example: lubricant from heavy oil, sulfur from light oil or heavy oil or even both. efficiency can always change like solid fuel recipes.

[jodokus31]

you'd need lots of sulfur, you'd end up with excess petroleum if you use AOP or BOP or even Coal Liquefaction.

EDIT: the other risk is if you want to produce a lot of accumulator, you'd need to consume the PG somehow.

This is a big deal, and the response I gave to why there are so many things in PG. With the way cracking works everything else can reach this issue.

If you just removed light oil from coal liquefaction this would mean that you could always get all the heavy oil you need.

You could still get deadlocked by having too much petroleum gas though, simply because you aren't consuming enough plastic and your solid fuel is backed up.

It would be the same kind of deadlock as when you produce a lot of blue belts and nothing else. But of course more may encounter it, by only consuming sulfur and nothing else.
I think, there a several options to deal with it
- Allow the possible deadlock, which is an interesting puzzle itself
- Always use PG, when using sulfur. f.e. batteries could take plastic
- have an ultimate way to use up excess PG (f.e. refeed to oil processing)
- Scrap this idea, which I really would have loved.

[V453000]

Flare stacks are absolutely out of the question for the ultimate dumbing down reasons, just take FFF-305 version and image a flare stack next to the refinery / the one integrated in the refinery to be burning the heavy and light oil.

Flare stack is much better than you solution because:
* Result is the same
* Player gets familiarized with all oils and knows he has to deal with them. Burning using Flare is a bandaid losing resources and producing much extra pollution.

Yes I agree that is is bad for later game where a player should be forced into dealing with oils properly.

But current solution is just too much.

The result is the same for the BOP, but has big problems with AOP.
"it's just removing the puzzle completely, it's not worse"
is absolutely worse.

[Reika]

Also, I cannot help but notice, you even acknowledge this:

BOP refinery feels like a furnace but....

Is that not an enormous red flag for you? "This giant refinery which is complicated and expensive is operating topologically like the stone box you made at the beginning of the game"?