If a nuclear reactor is added to the Cyclops, it'll have to explode when the cyclops is destroyed, radiating nearby water and greatly increasing the distance the cyclops' explosion can hurt you
Why? How about an intelligent reactor design that can shutdown with passive cooling. It's one thing for a special reactor like the one in the bow of the Aurora to explode. However, the ones that get fixed sure didn't explode.
Casual_PlayerThat...is a really good questionJoin Date: 2016-08-30Member: 221875Members
I see why a recharge module works for the seamoth and the prawn ( the player needs to leave the vehicle and stay exposed to fauna and enviroment while he exchange the power cell), but for the Cyclops? I don't know how it would work for that sub.
If a nuclear reactor is added to the Cyclops, it'll have to explode when the cyclops is destroyed, radiating nearby water and greatly increasing the distance the cyclops' explosion can hurt you
Why? How about an intelligent reactor design that can shutdown with passive cooling. It's one thing for a special reactor like the one in the bow of the Aurora to explode. However, the ones that get fixed sure didn't explode.
But the Cyclops has a rather noteworthy explosion when destroyed, and that's just with the standard battery-powered engine - there's no passive cooling or shutdown on that thing if it overloads from the damage; the whole tail-section gets blown off, after all. In other words, it'd probably be a case of "severe damage compromises any such automatic systems" when the Cyclops blows.
That being said though, a nuclear reactor isn't the same as a nuclear bomb - it can make a noteworthy explosion if it melts down, but it's not going to outright go up in a huge mushroom cloud the way a warhead would. There's no guarantee the explosion of a reactor would be that much bigger than what we already get - and even if it were, said blast would only be larger at the tail section where the engine is. Radiation however would be a problem in that case if the engine's leaking.
I see why a recharge module works for the seamoth and the prawn ( the player needs to leave the vehicle and stay exposed to fauna and enviroment while he exchange the power cell), but for the Cyclops? I don't know how it would work for that sub.
It'd work much the same as it does for the Seamoth and Prawn, really; prevention of a limited sortie time due to energy constraints - plus, you'll naturally have to leave the Cyclops to repair damages to it's hull if those mount up too fast, or, if in the ILZ, pry lava larva off of it to stop battery drain.
They should just rename nuclear reactors coal boilers. It would make much more sense. The other thing that bugs me about how they deal with thermal energy is that it's a heat difference that generates energy, you can't generate useful work from just raw heat. To help explain the thermodynamics think of it like this:
If the rest state (lowest energy) of gravitational energy is being on the ground then the rest state of thermal energy is homogenous (same throughout) temperature. While high potential energy of gravitational energy is being up high and for thermal energy it's having separate areas with very hot and very cold. Energy can be extracted from a falling object like a waterwheel (while immersing a water wheel entirely under water doesn't give any energy) and energy can be extracted from hot (high pressure) fluid cooling down (flowing towards low pressure), like in a turbine. While a waterwheel submerged under water has water with potential energy on top of it, work can't be extracted since that water has nowhere to flow down to. So too is a thermoelectric generator or engine surrounded by uniform heat unable to extract work from the heat energy since that heat has nowhere to flow down to.
So a thermal vent with steam next to near freezing water is an excellent energy source while the giant hot water bath in the lava areas can't do anything for you unless you're pumping in cold water. I see the cables jutting out of the alien thermal plant as mostly being pipes supplying cold water to make the plant work.
This, or people found a way to extract kinetic energy directly from the particles. With all that sub-atomic 3d printing, gravity guns and other "magical" things, it would be "possible".
I see why a recharge module works for the seamoth and the prawn ( the player needs to leave the vehicle and stay exposed to fauna and enviroment while he exchange the power cell), but for the Cyclops? I don't know how it would work for that sub.
That's why I feel having slow power recharging while in Silent Running mode would be a great way to return power to the Cyclops - it's shutting off all the major power systems so to reduce noise, and your movement speed is drastically reduced to further prevent unwanted attention. If all of the lights are turned off and the major energy users are eliminated, then it should be able to focus that energy savings back into slowly recharging its Power Cells.
It also allows for a unique method to restore energy and make the vehicle in question much more efficient:
1. Seaglide + Swim Charge Fins (infinite travel and allows Battery charging on the go)
2. Seamoth + Solar Recharge Module (infinite travel along the surface, easy idle PC recharging during daytime)
3. Exosuit + Thermal Recharge Module (infinite travel below the surface, easy idle PC recharging near thermal sources)
4. Cyclops + Silent Running (infinite travel in areas where resources are scarce, can manage PC sources without relying on the Exosuit's Thermal Recharge Module to swap out PCs)
#4 obviously doesn't exist yet, but that's why I'd like to see it become a thing. That way each exploration vehicle has their own unique way to recharge energy sources and become energy efficient, and it would give the Silent Running mode more of a reason to be used aside from stealth. But seeing how #1 through #3 rely on an additional add-on feature available later in the game to become self-sufficient, maybe the Cyclops SR recharge mode should be limited to its on upgrade module. Either way, I'd love to see it become a thing.
They should just rename nuclear reactors coal boilers. It would make much more sense. The other thing that bugs me about how they deal with thermal energy is that it's a heat difference that generates energy, you can't generate useful work from just raw heat. To help explain the thermodynamics think of it like this:
If the rest state (lowest energy) of gravitational energy is being on the ground then the rest state of thermal energy is homogenous (same throughout) temperature. While high potential energy of gravitational energy is being up high and for thermal energy it's having separate areas with very hot and very cold. Energy can be extracted from a falling object like a waterwheel (while immersing a water wheel entirely under water doesn't give any energy) and energy can be extracted from hot (high pressure) fluid cooling down (flowing towards low pressure), like in a turbine. While a waterwheel submerged under water has water with potential energy on top of it, work can't be extracted since that water has nowhere to flow down to. So too is a thermoelectric generator or engine surrounded by uniform heat unable to extract work from the heat energy since that heat has nowhere to flow down to.
So a thermal vent with steam next to near freezing water is an excellent energy source while the giant hot water bath in the lava areas can't do anything for you unless you're pumping in cold water. I see the cables jutting out of the alien thermal plant as mostly being pipes supplying cold water to make the plant work.
I wish more people understood this. As an aside, with the thermal inversion present between the LR and ILZ, we should have incredibly strong currents through the connecting passage and it would be a great location for a turbine.
Back on topic, one thought I had that could both improve realism and solve the problem of spamming thermal generators for infinite power is to make each thermal vent a snap point for a thermal plant, so only one thermal plant can be placed per vent. This would provide a finite amount of thermal power in the game world so it can't be exploited as an infinite power source. Even in the ILZ, there should be enough of a temperature difference between the water inside the vent and the surrounding water to generate some energy.
Considering the current nightmarish power problems and in the past... and lack of anything being done with it. Past oh snap you can now use better battery for sea glider...UW didn't really fix anything just made a better battery. Having limited amount of even renewable energy is just asking to get screwed.
1 thermal per 1 vent? I'm having trouble imagining you being able to power even one base that just has 1 of everything withe very single thermal vent on the map combined. Forget the lag that you would create by linking all that.
Also why thermal needs to be snapped to anything again? That makes no sense... then again half the things in the game don't make sense anymore.
They should just rename nuclear reactors coal boilers. It would make much more sense. The other thing that bugs me about how they deal with thermal energy is that it's a heat difference that generates energy, you can't generate useful work from just raw heat. To help explain the thermodynamics think of it like this:
If the rest state (lowest energy) of gravitational energy is being on the ground then the rest state of thermal energy is homogenous (same throughout) temperature. While high potential energy of gravitational energy is being up high and for thermal energy it's having separate areas with very hot and very cold. Energy can be extracted from a falling object like a waterwheel (while immersing a water wheel entirely under water doesn't give any energy) and energy can be extracted from hot (high pressure) fluid cooling down (flowing towards low pressure), like in a turbine. While a waterwheel submerged under water has water with potential energy on top of it, work can't be extracted since that water has nowhere to flow down to. So too is a thermoelectric generator or engine surrounded by uniform heat unable to extract work from the heat energy since that heat has nowhere to flow down to.
So a thermal vent with steam next to near freezing water is an excellent energy source while the giant hot water bath in the lava areas can't do anything for you unless you're pumping in cold water. I see the cables jutting out of the alien thermal plant as mostly being pipes supplying cold water to make the plant work.
I wish more people understood this. As an aside, with the thermal inversion present between the LR and ILZ, we should have incredibly strong currents through the connecting passage and it would be a great location for a turbine.
Back on topic, one thought I had that could both improve realism and solve the problem of spamming thermal generators for infinite power is to make each thermal vent a snap point for a thermal plant, so only one thermal plant can be placed per vent. This would provide a finite amount of thermal power in the game world so it can't be exploited as an infinite power source. Even in the ILZ, there should be enough of a temperature difference between the water inside the vent and the surrounding water to generate some energy.
Considering the current nightmarish power problems and in the past... and lack of anything being done with it. Past oh snap you can now use better battery for sea glider...UW didn't really fix anything just made a better battery. Having limited amount of even renewable energy is just asking to get screwed.
1 thermal per 1 vent? I'm having trouble imagining you being able to power even one base that just has 1 of everything withe very single thermal vent on the map combined. Forget the lag that you would create by linking all that.
Also why thermal needs to be snapped to anything again? That makes no sense... then again half the things in the game don't make sense anymore.
Power is definitely an issue, and the intent of my suggestion was not to make it more difficult to generate power, but rather make it more believable and to limit some of the exploits with the current system.
I didn't specifically mention it, but in my mind I was thinking that the power output of the thermal plant would be scaled to a reasonable value so that a single thermal vent would be sufficient for a medium-small base. Outside of the one vent in the safe shallows where solar is abundant, I've noticed that vents occur in clusters. A cluster of thermal plants should easily be able to power just about anything a player could realistically build in survival mode.
The snapping idea is a bit of a throwback to various RTS games where you build an extractor on a resource deposit. Given that the energy would be extracted from the plume, it makes sense (to me at least) that a thermal plant would cover the full vent to maximize efficiency. If the output of one thermal plant was changed to be the equivalent to building a cluster of the plants we have now (this has been my thought all along), this will simplify base building and reduce the amount of clutter around vents.
Even nuclear can't power anything worth a damn, promises of increasing it by 5 times aren't worth anything if everything built will use power. Ah well... it's not a bad idea it's just I'm not having much faith in UW being able to balance it to any kind of believable level. It will most likely work for some folks tho.
Comments
Why? How about an intelligent reactor design that can shutdown with passive cooling. It's one thing for a special reactor like the one in the bow of the Aurora to explode. However, the ones that get fixed sure didn't explode.
But the Cyclops has a rather noteworthy explosion when destroyed, and that's just with the standard battery-powered engine - there's no passive cooling or shutdown on that thing if it overloads from the damage; the whole tail-section gets blown off, after all. In other words, it'd probably be a case of "severe damage compromises any such automatic systems" when the Cyclops blows.
That being said though, a nuclear reactor isn't the same as a nuclear bomb - it can make a noteworthy explosion if it melts down, but it's not going to outright go up in a huge mushroom cloud the way a warhead would. There's no guarantee the explosion of a reactor would be that much bigger than what we already get - and even if it were, said blast would only be larger at the tail section where the engine is. Radiation however would be a problem in that case if the engine's leaking.
It'd work much the same as it does for the Seamoth and Prawn, really; prevention of a limited sortie time due to energy constraints - plus, you'll naturally have to leave the Cyclops to repair damages to it's hull if those mount up too fast, or, if in the ILZ, pry lava larva off of it to stop battery drain.
This, or people found a way to extract kinetic energy directly from the particles. With all that sub-atomic 3d printing, gravity guns and other "magical" things, it would be "possible".
That's why I feel having slow power recharging while in Silent Running mode would be a great way to return power to the Cyclops - it's shutting off all the major power systems so to reduce noise, and your movement speed is drastically reduced to further prevent unwanted attention. If all of the lights are turned off and the major energy users are eliminated, then it should be able to focus that energy savings back into slowly recharging its Power Cells.
It also allows for a unique method to restore energy and make the vehicle in question much more efficient:
1. Seaglide + Swim Charge Fins (infinite travel and allows Battery charging on the go)
2. Seamoth + Solar Recharge Module (infinite travel along the surface, easy idle PC recharging during daytime)
3. Exosuit + Thermal Recharge Module (infinite travel below the surface, easy idle PC recharging near thermal sources)
4. Cyclops + Silent Running (infinite travel in areas where resources are scarce, can manage PC sources without relying on the Exosuit's Thermal Recharge Module to swap out PCs)
#4 obviously doesn't exist yet, but that's why I'd like to see it become a thing. That way each exploration vehicle has their own unique way to recharge energy sources and become energy efficient, and it would give the Silent Running mode more of a reason to be used aside from stealth. But seeing how #1 through #3 rely on an additional add-on feature available later in the game to become self-sufficient, maybe the Cyclops SR recharge mode should be limited to its on upgrade module. Either way, I'd love to see it become a thing.
1 thermal per 1 vent? I'm having trouble imagining you being able to power even one base that just has 1 of everything withe very single thermal vent on the map combined. Forget the lag that you would create by linking all that.
Also why thermal needs to be snapped to anything again? That makes no sense... then again half the things in the game don't make sense anymore.
Power is definitely an issue, and the intent of my suggestion was not to make it more difficult to generate power, but rather make it more believable and to limit some of the exploits with the current system.
I didn't specifically mention it, but in my mind I was thinking that the power output of the thermal plant would be scaled to a reasonable value so that a single thermal vent would be sufficient for a medium-small base. Outside of the one vent in the safe shallows where solar is abundant, I've noticed that vents occur in clusters. A cluster of thermal plants should easily be able to power just about anything a player could realistically build in survival mode.
The snapping idea is a bit of a throwback to various RTS games where you build an extractor on a resource deposit. Given that the energy would be extracted from the plume, it makes sense (to me at least) that a thermal plant would cover the full vent to maximize efficiency. If the output of one thermal plant was changed to be the equivalent to building a cluster of the plants we have now (this has been my thought all along), this will simplify base building and reduce the amount of clutter around vents.