Are all colonies doomed?

[minespatch]

On 2/26/2017 at 7:58 PM, FlexibleGames said:

My thoughts were more toward my dupes upgrading to the point of finding other asteroids to colonize/harvest. A sort of goal where you'd have to manage oxygen in space suits, dig into another asteroid and start to farm it.

Just trying to find the accomplishment in a system that will, inevitably, die. 

Or an even bigger goal of not being on an asteroid, but a planet, digging to the surface, terraforming, and finally having a sustainable colony.

Totally this! As someone who loves unlocking things out of curiosity, this is one of my major interests in gaming.

[Rukola]

On 2/27/2017 at 1:58 AM, FlexibleGames said:

My thoughts were more toward my dupes upgrading to the point of finding other asteroids to colonize/harvest. A sort of goal where you'd have to manage oxygen in space suits, dig into another asteroid and start to farm it.

Just trying to find the accomplishment in a system that will, inevitably, die. 

Or an even bigger goal of not being on an asteroid, but a planet, digging to the surface, terraforming, and finally having a sustainable colony.

If I had my way, this would also include meteor showers and gas planets. Perhaps a sun which would heat up the asteroid. Oxygen helmets and tubes! Violent attacks by guys like this squid. All these ideas make me very excited..

[minespatch]

3 minutes ago, Rukola said:

 

Did you make that?

[Rukola]

Just now, minespatch said:

Did you make that?

Nah, I found it online, for sale on a shirt

[Ecu]

8 hours ago, Aru3 said:

Is this seriously a thing in the game? I had no idea! This doesn't let the bases last forever however, because CO2 buildup is still the limiting factor and you still need sand (or bug exploit) to remove it. But, I did not know you could distill and freeze contamination out of fluids.

CO2 can be cleaned out of the air via using water (forget the exact name of the machine), creating contaminated water.  This can be heated into steam and cooled back into clean water.  So actually CO2 buildup can be cleaned forever.

[Aru3]

On 2/28/2017 at 2:54 PM, Ecu said:

CO2 can be cleaned out of the air via using water (forget the exact name of the machine), creating contaminated water.  This can be heated into steam and cooled back into clean water.  So actually CO2 buildup can be cleaned forever.

But it also consumes sand, to scrub the CO2, which can only be dug from the environment and never created or recycled. (edit: No it doesn't, no sand.)

[chromiumboy]

CO2 can be (currently) removed by pumping it into a hydrogen generator; it can't use it, but it will destroy the gas

 

 

[Octyabr]

On 27/2/2017 at 1:12 AM, Stack_of_Pancakes said:

There doesn't always have to be a point, sometimes you can do something for the sake of doing it.  Or in this case just play a game for the sake of playing it.

Also it will ridiculously increase its temperature (I destroyed mine because it was at +800ºC) that you can use to boil water and make some tea.

[MicroJackson]

5 hours ago, Aru3 said:

But it also consumes sand, to scrub the CO2, which can only be dug from the environment and never created or recycled.

thats true! atm i'm running out of sand much more faster than out of water.

i think the only way to get sustainable is to find magma as fast as u can before u run out sand or water.

i'm also planing to trap some pufts and morbs in a small chlorine room so they can produce clean oxygen as well (chlorine -> morbs -> cont. oxygen -> pufts -> slime + oxygen). but i think there are just a few pufts on the map so this is just for addition.. i'll see

 

 

5 hours ago, chromiumboy said:

CO2 can be (currently) removed by pumping it into a hydrogen generator; it can't use it, but it will destroy the gas

 

 

really?!?! if this is true u dont need an air scrubber at all, right? i have to test this...

 

and last but not least some words for the topic:

i think it would be really (really!) disappointing if u can't get some sort of sustainability. 
i really dont want to play something when i know that no matter what i'll do it will fail at the end. i mean what should i play for?

metaphorical it's like there's a "big hole" (= no sustainability) and you cant "jump over" it but you try and try and fail over and over again (= playing the game at the current state). you can try to build a "bridge" (= sustainability), which have to be very expensive for sure, but at least you can say: i've done it! and then go and find another hole ^^

but when u cant build that brige why should i try jumping over that big hole over and over again just to see myself die? its senseless imho

[Ecu]

12 hours ago, Aru3 said:

But it also consumes sand, to scrub the CO2, which can only be dug from the environment and never created or recycled.

No, it does not.  Air Scrubbers use water to scrub out CO2, creating contaminated water.  Contaminated water can be then passed to a hot battery room and turned into steam, which can be cooled back into clean water.  No sand needed.

[Aru3]

On 3/1/2017 at 3:05 PM, Ecu said:

No, it does not.  Air Scrubbers use water to scrub out CO2, creating contaminated water.  Contaminated water can be then passed to a hot battery room and turned into steam, which can be cooled back into clean water.  No sand needed.

My mistake.

So, the methods I've found and/or read about so far for getting rid of CO2 which is required for indefinite sustainability:

1] Pump CO2 into a vent submerged in liquid in a sealed room.

2] Pump CO2 into hydrogen generator, which will destroy it but not fuel the generator.

3] Some weird thing with pumping CO2 into a winding hallway destroys it? I'm not sure about this one.

4] Scrubbing the CO2 and distill the contaminated water to clean it (I guess this does not leave any waste behind at all).

All of these are exploits I'm pretty sure. By the way how do you efficiently boil water? I thought heat did not transfer well from gas to standing water. (edit: The distillery is of course not an exploit, perhaps it would be better to comment on the peculiarity of the lack of trace byproduct such as slime, rather than the fact that boiling contaminated water produces clean vapor instead of "contaminated steam" as an analog to contaminated oxygen.)

[Ecu]

36 minutes ago, Aru3 said:

My mistake.

So, the methods I've found and/or read about so far for getting rid of CO2 which is required for indefinite sustainability:

Pump CO2 into a vent submerged in liquid in a sealed room.

Pump CO2 into hydrogen generator, which will destroy it but not fuel the generator.

Some weird thing with pumping CO2 into a winding hallway destroys it? I'm not sure about this one.

Scrubbing the CO2 and distill the contaminated water to clean it (I guess this does not leave any waste behind at all).

All of these are exploits I'm pretty sure. By the way how do you efficiently boil water? I thought heat did not transfer well from gas to standing water.

I highly doubt boiling contaminated water to steam to clean it is an exploit as they have contaminated ice, but not contaminated steam.  If it was an exploit, it would be trivial for them to stop this from working.  It also requires a reasonable infrastructure to set up, which would need to be expanded and/or duplicated if your demand became higher than your current production.

All in all, it is is more complex method of cleaning water utilizing the physics mechanics of the game.  Which seems to be very in line with what Klei talked about in the streams about the game.

 

As for how you boil water in the game, the easiest method I've found is a sealed room 20 tiles long with 10 medium batteries in it, an input for liquids and an output for gases.  This has worked very reliably for me.  However, currently there are bugs with cooling things (creating unmeltable ice), so careful consideration needs to be made when cooling stuff down.

[Octyabr]

59 minutes ago, Ecu said:

I highly doubt boiling contaminated water to steam to clean it is an exploit as they have contaminated ice, but not contaminated steam.

Indeed it's a valid method, it's called distillation, and I hope a proper structure for this get's added in the future.

[Saturnus]

I'm sure there will be a distiller in the final game, or even in beta. Still a lot to come, I think and hope but for an early alpha the game is remarkedly enjoyable. Even if it's still buggy, and especially really becomes laggy after a few hundred cycles. I feel they may have gone overboard with the physics simulation. Keeping it simple from the start and adding complexity later is often a wise course of action.

[Aru3]

I guess, I was more commenting on the fact that nothing precipitates from the distillery. You'd think it would produce maybe some trace slime, the same way hydrogen generator produces trace water (in entirely unrealistic proportions, but that's kind of a theme in this game I guess).

Does anyone want to add anything to my list? I'm very interested in it.

edit: I don't think the fluid physics is overboard. It's an essential part of the game, most likely it was one of the first aspects that was conceived of which the game was built around. So it makes sense that it would be among the first implemented. It is not great on CPU usage true, but deep optimization comes later, not at the beginning. For now they should be more interested in fixing the fluid physics engine itself, so it does not destroy liquids when one drips into another, for example.

"We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%"

They say premature optimization is evil because it uses up a lot of time and attention, resources, and is most likely going to be completely irrelevant the next time something is improved. Or even worse, it will discourage you from improving it because you don't want to throw the optimization away. It's a distraction.

As for complexity, it's okay to keep adding more as long as you take breaks to make sure that what you've added is working.

[DreamApart]

On 2017/2/27 at 0:12 PM, Stack_of_Pancakes said:

You must HATE sim games then.  There are plenty of games without a victory condition.  There are plenty of games without a "You win and beat the game" screen.  This is one of them, and it FINE.  If you don't like that about the game then that is also FINE.  Not every game has to be the same, not every game has to have an end goal or some long term carrot on a stick incentive.  Even Pacman had no ending.

 

That being said, ONI is one of those games where you either create a victory condition for yourself or just enjoy the sandbox.  There doesn't always have to be a point, sometimes you can do something for the sake of doing it.  Or in this case just play a game for the sake of playing it.

Sorry, but I can't agree.

It's about the point of a game, not just victory condition.

People needs at least fake themselves a goal, such as building self-sustaining system, as you said "you create a victory condition for yourself".

So why?

Because one of the fun parts in a SIM game (at least to me) is that you liberate yourself from lower level work, so you can focus on higher level one. That's how human being developped. Or, like you satisfy your lower level needs (like feeding) before you seek for higher level ones (like creativity).

[Targa_X]

17 hours ago, Aru3 said:

So, the methods I've found and/or read about so far for getting rid of CO2 which is required for indefinite sustainability:

1] Pump CO2 into a vent submerged in liquid in a sealed room.

2] Pump CO2 into hydrogen generator, which will destroy it but not fuel the generator.

3] Some weird thing with pumping CO2 into a winding hallway destroys it? I'm not sure about this one.

4] Scrubbing the CO2 and distill the contaminated water to clean it (I guess this does not leave any waste behind at all).

5] Put airlocks where CO2 builds up and have your dupes walk through them once in a while.

6] Build a small room (3x3 for example). When CO2 pools at the bottom of it, build tile over it then deconstruct the tile.

[Itrme]

I've been playing this game since yesterday and I really like it but there are some things that REALLY bug me..... Especially when it comes to sustainability......

Loss of mass: Apparently you manage to use up resources but get nothing in return. A prime example of this is water... The way I see it we're in a closed environment that would mean the water can't escape and should be present somewhere. Instead because you are using it, recycling it, it just disapears completely. You'd at least expect it to be present in heavilly contaminated objects that are just too difficult to clean or maybe present in the air etc. (Don't even get me started on the amount of water you need to produce food....)

Algae: I like the idea of the algae aquariums, put some algae in, provide them with water (again the damn water) and they clean up some of that annoying CO2 for you, great right? Not really, what you end up doing is burning more water, more algae that you could have used for Oxygen generation. Again, in this process, the water disapears, the algae disapears for a small bit of CO2..... Now I don't know if any of you are familiar with basic biology..... but plants: Light(Energy) + xCO2 + xH2O = xO2 + CxHxOx whereas x is depending on what kind of sugar the plant makes etc etc. the = should actually be replaced with 2 way arrows since the process will reverse when there is an absence of light. Of course this would assume that the plants ingame would follow earth rules and use light (even though I have no idea where they'd get light from underground). Of course with this logic should get an increase in algae instead of having to supply new ones every time so there would only be need for some algae to jump start everything.

Hydrogen and the Hydrogen Generator: Jay more chemistry, making oxygen by taking water apart by electrolysis. It's great, honestly, great way to get some clean oxygen right away. You can even burn the Hydrogen again to get energy. My only question is... Why would you go through the hassle of creating Oxygen like this if you plan to chuck the Hydrogen in a generator to burn....  (At least, how else would you make energy with it .... right?) here is what you are doing  Energy -> 2 H2O -> 4H + O2   Burn that sucker  4H + O2 -> 2 H2O + energy .... Soooo what just happened there? Because I'm pretty sure this isn't a net gain. Unless you had some renewable energy source like thermal, solar or water energy lying around to feed this process. But using the oxygen again for a burning process (which curiously enough doesn't happen ingame) should make Hydrogen nothing more but a glorified gas battery.

There are probably a lot more features in the game that tick me off but these were the first that sprung to mind.... Sorry

[Erasmus Crowley]

2 hours ago, Itrme said:

Now I don't know if any of you are familiar with basic biology..... but plants: Light(Energy) + xCO2 + xH2O = xO2 + CxHxOx whereas x is depending on what kind of sugar the plant makes etc etc. the = should actually be replaced with 2 way arrows since the process will reverse when there is an absence of light. Of course this would assume that the plants ingame would follow earth rules and use light (even though I have no idea where they'd get light from underground). Of course with this logic should get an increase in algae instead of having to supply new ones every time so there would only be need for some algae to jump start everything.

Two things I'd like to add.

First, about the plants emitting CO2 in the dark. This is true, BUT, they absorb far more CO2 during the day then they release at night. A large percentage of the carbon taken in is sequestered in the growth of the plant, and over time in a closed system with plants and light, there will be a net loss of CO2 and a matching gain of O2.

Second, there is a large functional difference between true plants and algaes. Most relevant here, is that plants require a rest period in the dark, but algaes do not. I'm fairly experienced in the saltwater aquarium hobby where algae turf scrubbers and macroalgae driven refugiums are frequently used to remove nutrient pollutants from the our water. Many people, myself included, light these systems 24 hours a day to maximize the effect of the algae. My personal refugium contains caulerpa floridana and gracilaria hayi and it hasn't been in the dark at all for over six months. Everything is still growing vigorously.

[minespatch]

"floridana", the state's a type of microbe?

[Erasmus Crowley]

3 minutes ago, minespatch said:

"floridana", the state's a type of microbe?

Whoever discovered that algae "caulerpa floridana" decided to name it after the state. Maybe it was discovered there?

[JamesFactory]

I found something interesting today after starting up a new game.  It seems that the things people run out of are:

Oxygen - Gained through water or Algae.

Sand - Finite, but ultimately unnecessary if you can heat up the water.

Algae - Found something extremely interesting in regards to Algae (which can be converted from slime):

Finally Water - The only way I have seen so far is the already mentioned trapping of stress vomiting colonists.

 

 

Perhaps the answers are indeed there, but require the usage of domesticated or perhaps even non domesticated alien fauna.  Similar to a certain beefy adorableness a la Don't Starve.

[Vilda]

Not to rain on your parade, but Puft usefulness is indeed known and old information.

[Itrme]

1 hour ago, Erasmus Crowley said:

Two things I'd like to add.

First, about the plants emitting CO2 in the dark. This is true, BUT, they absorb far more CO2 during the day then they release at night. A large percentage of the carbon taken in is sequestered in the growth of the plant, and over time in a closed system with plants and light, there will be a net loss of CO2 and a matching gain of O2.

Second, there is a large functional difference between true plants and algaes. Most relevant here, is that plants require a rest period in the dark, but algaes do not. I'm fairly experienced in the saltwater aquarium hobby where algae turf scrubbers and macroalgae driven refugiums are frequently used to remove nutrient pollutants from the our water. Many people, myself included, light these systems 24 hours a day to maximize the effect of the algae. My personal refugium contains caulerpa floridana and gracilaria hayi and it hasn't been in the dark at all for over six months. Everything is still growing vigorously.

That is why I specifically mentioned the "absence of light" the reversed process is just a way to release energy for the plant to use, in a permanently lit environment this would not happen of course. The reverse process will happen regardless of the type of plant when there is no light to feed it. The release of CO2 is lower at night compared to what is absorbed during they day, but I just meant it as a minor detail making it a more realistic process. I'm also bummed out that the plants you can grow in containers don't have the same function as the algae in game, in that aspect I'd love to see a CO2 -> O2 ratio  depending on the growth phase of the plant, but those are just details......

[JonathanSmith]

I dearly hope that steam distillation not only remains without a structure, but that more 'physics' based systems become available for making your habitat self-sustaining. Trying to design a better water distillation plant is currently the most fun I'm getting out of this game.

 

As for my air supply... Well. I designed an apparently limitless oxygen source... but it's not pretty. Only the oldest dupes know the horrors hidden in the basement...