Add your Tips!

[Speedois]

I'm just going to write these ideas down as because I often walk through my normal life and I find myself coming up with 'Eureka!' moments in relation to this game and I often forget if I don't write it down. These are just a few that I have thought of, ran home, confirmed as much as I can and here they are;

1) Base layout and design may be the most important aspect of this game, you could screw yourself without knowing within the first few cycles.

2) All of these following tips hinder on you having a 'tower' Base with a shaft at the bottom right for the Co2 and a top left shaft for contaminated o2. Avoid 'popping' open areas.

2) Try not to open your living/working area too much. The more space their is, the harder it is to maintain pressure. Therefore don't dig unnecessarily and close off open cave's.

3) Until you have airlocks in place, 'funnel' systems using the natural world or placed tiles to maintain pressure. Single tile openings are beneficial. Pressure is paramount.

4) Co2 tries to travel to the bottom right, contaminated O2 tries to get to the top left. O2 will occupy the middle. The other gases need to be enclosed in their own areas.

5) On the subject of pressure and atmosphere. Their should be 3 distinct areas/layers of atmosphere in your Base. A Contaminated O2 area (top left, toilet, compost). The area below will be 02 (middle, beds, power etc) and only accessible from the top and lower areas by single tile opening's, maintaining the pressure. The lowest area will be Co2 (bottom right, algae terrariums)

6) Mealworm grows in high pressure areas, be it O2 or contaminated O2, so having a farm top left will be advantageous (although heat rises, mealworm no likey heat ......)

7) As a general rule, try not to use 'steps' (as in, stagger your foundations) for a few reasons, gas will get trapped in little gaps, and your dupes take an age traversing them. Use clear cut corners and not have any little pockets of gas around.

8) However, stepped foundations can be advantageous when used in the construction of a support gas tunnel that will filter your gases to the right location without the need for pipes. Eg. Your regular access tunnel has a identical one below it (or above dependant on the gas). The tunnels will need to be free flowing, but blocked off to dupes as they may judge the route to be better in one of your support tunnels. This is achieved with gas permeable tiles. This is not needed when using the 'Tower' Base method, but may still be needed when exploring.

I know some of these tips sounds quite abstract but their are some very abstract ideas that work in this game, aswell as some defined truths. Please add some more tips as you please. Try to keep them concise and understandable.

 

[Speedois]

Utilise natural vacuums with double airlock doors and use this area to do your heating/cooling tasks. No air pressure means temperature will fluctuate and rise/lower easier. Double airlocks mean that the natural vaccum will be sustained. (Maybe even triple?)

*Just an idea. Not confirmed*

[LuckyMarineGames]

Put your electrolyser in its own room with a gas pump.

Pump out the oxygen/hydrogen mix and split with a filter, chuck your hydrogen in a hydrogen generator, and pump the oxygen to where you need it the most.

No more pesky Hydrogen collecting in the top left of your base.

[Speedois]

Animals:

Puft consumes 1kg of contaminated o2 and output 2kg of slime but don't produce oxygen. Temperature requirements needs to be around and above 30 degrees.

Morbs produce 200g contaminated 02 by eating 200g of any gas. Morbs dont like to be warmer than 35 degree's.

Hatches eat dropped minerals or even straight out of storage. They produce coal and dont like to be warmer than 19ish degrees. They are dangerous and come out at night.

[DuraLex]

1 hour ago, Speedois said:

Puft consumes 1kg of contaminated o2 and output 2kg of slime but don't produce oxygen. Temperature requirements needs to be around and above 30 degrees.

Pufts will create a vacuum if they are in a room with only contaminated O2, freezing to death afterward they finish their stinky meal due to the vacuum temperature. So is advised to have a sack of some other gas in the same room (afaik they dont eat hydrogen).

 

1 hour ago, Speedois said:

Hatches eat dropped minerals or even straight out of storage. They produce coal and dont like to be warmer than 19ish degrees. They are dangerous and come out at night.

They produce muckroot if fed with abyssalyte, even if it will be tricky to make them reach the mineral.

They are dangerous only once you destroy their nest, so best option (for me) was  enclosing him in a dedicated area with a container dedicated to useless minerals (without water pools, since as it has been reported in the bug section, they drown without thinking so much about their safety, but this might be fixed) and destroy their nest at night pressing the emergency button. This will guarantee a 24/7 coal production at no risk.

Care about putting your hatch (hatches, if you are lucky) in the planting zone, since harvesting with a rectangle command will make the Dupes harvest the hatch as well.

I guess this can be avoided disabling the attack command, which is basically useless once you "domesticate" your hatch as described before.

[Speedois]

4 minutes ago, DuraLex said:

Pufts will create a vacuum if they are in a room with only contaminated O2, freezing to death afterward they finish their stinky meal due to the vacuum temperature. So is advised to have a sack of some other gas in the same room (afaik they dont eat hydrogen).

 

They produce muckroot if fed with abyssalyte, even if it will be tricky to make them reach the mineral.

They are dangerous only once you destroy their nest, so best option (for me) was  enclosing him in a dedicated area with a container dedicated to useless minerals (without water pools, since as it has been reported in the bug section, they drown without thinking so much about their safety, but this might be fixed) and destroy their nest at night pressing the emergency button. This will guarantee a 24/7 coal production at no risk.

Care about putting your hatch (hatches, if you are lucky) in the planting zone, since harvesting with a rectangle command will make the Dupes harvest the hatch as well.

I guess this can be avoided disabling the attack command, which is basically useless once you "domesticate" your hatch as described before.

See, this is why I love you people, keep me truthful! I didn't know any of that. Thank you!

[DuraLex]

2 minutes ago, Speedois said:

See, this is why I love you people, keep me truthful! I didn't know any of that. Thank you!

Well i guess you deserve a pic too then

I put him in the same zone of the plants so i can cool them as I wish.

 

I forgot to mention that since the slime produced by Pufts will produce Contaminated O2 (decreasing the slime weight, which is you want to preserve to make water), having a 1 tile high layer of water at the bottom of your puft area will prevent the slime produced to emit Cont.O2.

I need to thank you as well tho, since i falsely believed that pufts would die in a high temperature. The next step will be enclose biodistillers in the same room of the pufts, and start working towards a "more blue" working zone.

 

Oh, and another missing information! Creatures do give +10 decor to the zone they are in. Even Morbs, which are utterly disgusting.

[Speedois]

The 10+ decor rating for animals is another little golden tip. This is unlike any other game iv come across (maybe DS and Prison Architect) they just throw you in the deep end and don't handhold you, reminds me of the good old days. It's people like you that find out this sort of information who make people's live's like mine so much easier. Thanks again.

(Edit: the puft info I got from a YouTuber called Hello lacy, she got a few good vids)

[Werekitty39501]

You can prioritize containers, and machines so the dupes will store items/use them before going on to other tasks.  For example you can set your ration boxes refrigerators and storage compactors to the higher priorities so your dupes will always store food or materials immediately, without you having to constantly use the sweep command. You can set your power generators, oxygen scrubbers, and other items to a high priority so your dupes will use/tend them first, before going to other tasks as well.

This cuts down on micromanagment, and makes your dupes do important survival tasks before going on to others.

Sorry if this seems redundant, or if you have discovered this before, but it is a useful tip, I discovered.

[Werekitty39501]

Be aware of sand when you are digging. Sand physics will bury your dupes, your machines, and your furniture.

Traits you don't want in your colony: Any that use your resources quicker, like Mouth Breather or Bottomless Stomach.

Also try to pick dupes with really low decor expectations. Sure, they'll want more decor when they level, but when you start you don't to waste building materials on stone blocks, and blank canvases.

Traits you really want in your colony: Any that reduce resource use, especially Diver's Lungs, or any that increase skills. Preferably a combination of the two.

Loud Sleepers make noise in a seven by seven square. When making a multi layer residence, do not put a loud sleeper on mesh tiles or gas permeable tiles. Putting them with other dupes, you should put three empty squares to the left of their cot between their cot and that of another dupe. To the right you only need to put a space of two empty squares. Otherwise your dupes will constantly have a !Disturbed Sleep debuff.

For dupes with bladder problems, be sure to build two toilets. It's a good idea to build two anyway, in early game, before you get plumbing, and try to have them NOT being cleaned at the same time.

[DNsingbanana]

When dupes use "stations" (cots, microbe mushers, etc...) only one square is taken into account for the decor influence (the bottom left tile for the cot for exemple), letting you do some precise decorating. To see which square it is for each station, just look where the white trajectory line ends when they go work/sleep there. 

[Jellyfer]

When you're making a designated sleeping area for your dupes, make sure to have them on the same level. If you have them above and below, the CO2 from the level above would deprive the sleeping dupes below and cause them to have "interrupted sleep".