Lithium Walls
MaxAstro
Join Date: 2005-07-07 Member: 55451Members
Join Date: 2005-07-07 Member: 55451Members
One thing I've noticed in my most recent playthrough of the game is that lithium walls kinda trivialize basebuilding constraints.
Once you know where to find it, lithium is easy to acquire in very large quantities, and lithium walls are fairly cheap. The bonus they give also feels rather out of line with the rest of the building system, especially considering you can easily spam them on multipurpose rooms. Why bother building foundations or worrying about base size when plating a single multipurpose room gives enough HP to support a massive, mostly glass base? Usually what I will do, since I like having glass walls on the rooms I actually visit, is to add an unused MPR above or below my main room and cover it in lithium; never really have to worry about HP limits again.
No idea if this is intended to work the way it does or if/how it should be changed - just thought I'd share a thing a noticed while building my latest superbase.
Once you know where to find it, lithium is easy to acquire in very large quantities, and lithium walls are fairly cheap. The bonus they give also feels rather out of line with the rest of the building system, especially considering you can easily spam them on multipurpose rooms. Why bother building foundations or worrying about base size when plating a single multipurpose room gives enough HP to support a massive, mostly glass base? Usually what I will do, since I like having glass walls on the rooms I actually visit, is to add an unused MPR above or below my main room and cover it in lithium; never really have to worry about HP limits again.
No idea if this is intended to work the way it does or if/how it should be changed - just thought I'd share a thing a noticed while building my latest superbase.
Comments
Say, a T-Corridor (1 wall) gives 4, a I-Corridor (2 walls) 7, a MP-Room (4 walls in x set) 14 and a Moonpool (4 walls) 7. Deep sea bases would need a lot more reinforcements to stay tight.
The main thing that feels out of whack is foundations. I get that they are slightly earlier game, but considering foundations are more expensive and bigger, there's never really any reason to use them unless you need somewhere to put a planter.
Heh...
I'm gonna have to give that a go, just to see if...
Same here! Nothing says "well maintained future seabase" like a moonpool covered in weeds.
Hey, hey, hey! What happens when you have a room full of oxygen, and you release hydrogen into it, and there is an ignition source present? A pretty violent reaction.
Ok, now what happens when we have Hydrogen and Oxygen in a stable configuration (H2O), and there is an ignition source present? Your ignition source fizzles out.
See? Same idea. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong in the analogy, anyone who knows about this stuff. @scifiwriterguy ?)
Another thought, steel is created from iron and carbon. Carbon in its common form isn't strong at all, but in diamond form is rather strong(as long as you don't strike it certain ways)
If the builder tool were possible, we could arrange the right metals into a very strong alloy. The only thing in doubt is whether it's going to be lithium with titanium, but science fiction takes certain liberties.
If this analogy were to have any validity, titanium and lithium would have to react chemically with each other to bond and form a new chemical compound, rather than just a mixture, and they don't.
I won't pretend to understand all of what was on that wikipedia page, although it looks like it could be interesting some other time. However, there is still no such thing as "Titanium lithide" or whatever such a compound might be called. Alloying it with titanium will not eliminate lithium's tendency to react with water.
I investigated Lithium trying to find out its reactivity in alloys, primarily with Aluminium (most commonly with no more than 4.2% Li, although other concentrations are being researched). In those, the Lithium fits into gaps in the crystaline structure of Aluminium when formed from the molten state. While there are cautions about needing to shield the molten alloy from water vapour and the finely divided powder alloy (like Aluminium powder) can be explosive, for the alloy at common temperatures I found it described as a lack of resistance to corrosion rather than anything worse.
I don't think it would be good to submerge Lithium alloys in salt water. It's not going to explode or burn, but it will corrode.
Maybe explains the rust on the Degasi bases?
All you would really need to prevent the alloy from corroding, is to leave a thin layer of pure titanium on the surface. With how fabricators and builders work in Subnautica, it should be rather easy. I'm not sure, if it would be neccesary - TiO2 layer could shield the alloy just fine. (I might be wrong here)
About the rust on Degasi bases, it could be explained by them using steel instead of titanium, since TiO2 looks totally different. Or the devs simply made a mistake
I don't think, there is pure lithium in those nodes, since this metal is highly reactive. (as mentioned above)
So instead of pure lithium, we seem to gather minerals containing Li bound in one of its many compounds. Having that in mind, our magigal plasteel contains maybe about 1% lithium, which should be enough to greatly affect microstructure of said alloy.