Heat energy source lacking detail

[MrSmoothieHuman]

Hello! i was just tinkering with heat exchangers and the prototype functions that come along with it, and i decided to check the wiki docs/API docs for some help. Unfortunately, a lot of them have very little to no descriptions (barring them being mandatory or optional) which makes it a lot harder to actually figure out what to do with brute forcing the numbers to get what you need.



Specifically, i am talking about specific_heat, and max_transfer - obviously, if you've done atleast one physics class you can understand what these words are, but making them work the way you want to can get confusing, plus the Type/Energy doesn't elaborate on them at all, if you thought that would explain more (like i did)
Overall, just a description on how these things work/how they affect heat transfer would do wonders to help newer modders like myself wrap their heads around new topic, like heat. :]

[curiosity]

While I can guess what those two are supposed to mean, min_temperature_gradient completely baffles me.

[MrSmoothieHuman]

While I can guess what those two are supposed to mean, min_temperature_gradient completely baffles me.

that too honestly, should have mentioned it aswell - i've just been trying and failing with using the equation given in the heat exchangers wiki page to get the results i want

[Sylen]

(edit: had some sleep and decided to write some more)
Currently, most fields still do not have any descriptions given.
Those fields (except type and the ones inherited from EnergySource) are shared between HeatBuffer and HeatEnergySource (maybe HeatEnergySource could just contain a HeatBuffer field? idk).
Below I'm posting my best guesses (fueled by experience) on what each field means to provide some example descriptions:

max_temperature :: double Must be >= default_temperature.
this one is self explanatory, max temperature in degrees C

specific_heat :: Energy
The amount of energy (in joules) stored in a single degree C in the heat buffer

max_transfer :: Energy
Maximum amount of energy that can be moved to a different heat buffer (probably in a single tick, is it per connection or total?)

default_temperature - optional :: double
The temperature of the entity when built/placed

min_temperature_gradient - optional :: double
Minimum difference in degrees between this and another heat buffer required in order to transfer energy

min_working_temperature optional :: double Must be >= default_temperature and <= max_temperature.
Minimum temperature needed for this entity to operate

minimum_glow_temperature optional :: float
The temperature needed to show that the entity is hot using: heat_pipe_covers, heat_picture, heat_glow

pipe_covers optional :: Sprite4Way
when Sprite4Way contains an array of sprites, each will be mapped to a single HeatConnection in order
heat pipe connections rendered when not connected to another entity

heat_pipe_covers optional :: Sprite4Way
when Sprite4Way contains an array of sprites, each will be mapped to a single HeatConnection in order
rendered when the temperature is higher than minimum_glow_temperature, to show that the heat connections are hot

heat_picture optional :: Sprite4Way
rendered on top of the entity sprite to showcase any elements that should glow when hot

heat_glow optional :: Sprite4Way
(not sure about this) The light glow rendered when the entity is hot

connections optional :: array[HeatConnection]
An array of all heat connections present in this entity

This is pulled from the reactor description, the same should probably be applied to pipe_covers and heat_pipe_covers.
(Also, would it be possible to get a Sprite4Way which is shown when the pipes are connected, similarly to the reactor prototype and the FluidBox contained by fluid energy source?)

connection_patches_connected :: SpriteVariations - optional
If defined, number of variations must be at least equal to count of connections defined in heat_buffer. Each variation represents connected heat buffer connection of corresponding index.