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[Bowler_Hat]

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[ChocoParrot]

44 minutes ago, Bowler_Hat said:

1. Even with collecting all seeds inside the 'crater', food is scarce within 12 days, duplicants starve within 25 cycles due to the inability to perpetuate edible plant life (3 harvest max on meal worm)

Have you ever tried rationing the calories consumed by your duplicants at the start? I think you'll be able to allow the food to last a bit longer if you don't bring in any new duplicants. Also, having a microbe musher should solve your food shortage for the first 20 days or so - have the musher fabricate mush bars - though remember to turn it off when you have sufficient food from your crops or you'll watch your water supply drain faster than a gaping hole in your reservoirs.

From my experience mealwood is not the best option for food in the long term. As you said, there are only 3 harvests per plant, and the seeds are non-renewable, which makes using mealwood as a permanent and primary source of food in the long term absurd. This is why I introduce to you the long-term solution to food: the Bristle Blossom plant. To quote from the wiki:

it may be harvested up to 5 times before it requires re-planting. Initial grow: 10 cycles, 2 cycle after harvest, 1000 calories each. Very sensitive to heat/low pressure.

The fruit that it produces also comes with seeds, meaning that once your duplicants consume the fruit, the seed can easily be replanted.

The downside though, is that this plant is sensitive to low pressure and heat, and stated above. This is why a good ventilation system in your base would significantly help (more on this later).

Also, I do recommend that you start off with at least 10-20 planter boxes - as your base grows, the more the merrier. When you first get the planter boxes, have 90% of them grow mealwood - this is for the short-term. Have the remainder grow Bristle Blossoms. When you have a more sustainable source of food, slowly replace the mealwood with Bristle Blossoms. Eventually you should have more than enough food for your colony.

As for refrigeration, I recommend 1 refrigerator for every 2-3 duplicants. If you have excess food that is refrigerated (like I do), just let it rot and you'll end up with contaminated dirt, which is also pretty useful.

 

1 hour ago, Bowler_Hat said:

2. Oxygen consumption / production is not sustainable in the least.  I've watched over and over, a single spacious map of only three duplicants not choke on carbon dioxide, but instead choke because there wasn't enough oxygen.

Indeed, oxygen is one of the major problems in this game. After all, isn't this game called "Oxygen Not Included"? There are currently multiple ways to produce oxygen - I've experimented with a couple of them, and to be frank, the best way to produce oxygen currently is via electrolysis.

Of course, you wouldn't be able to have electrolysers set up right from the start. So, I recommend starting off using algae deoxidisers, not the terrariums as they use far too much water. When you have the resources and the research knowledge to build an electrolyser, you should.

@CrypticFox (I hope that's you on here) made an amazing tutorial showcasting an impeccable electrolyser ventilation system. Do watch it here, as I found this video insanely helpful:

As CrypticFox did, he vented the oxygen into different parts of his base and had the hydrogen removed by pumping it through a hydrogen generator. The generator is pretty important here, as it removes both the hydrogen and allows for more power conversation on your electrolyser grid. His system maintains both ideal levels of oxygen and pressure in his base.

 

As for the pestering carbon dioxide situation, have a few gas permeable tiles built on the floors of your building. Carbon dioxide is generally a denser gas - and hence it sinks to the bottom. Have a few carbon dioxide scrubbers at the bottom scrub up the carbon dioxide to remove it.

Pressure is a rather persistent problem too. You see, when pressure in your base gets too low, the carbon dioxide and other potentially unwanted gases would have more room and would be able to diffuse into the core of your base, making it real annoying. On the other hand, if you have an ideal pressure in your base, the carbon dioxide would be 'squeezed' to the bottom, where your scrubber would be able to remove them effectively. This is why getting sufficient oxygen produced to maintain an ideal pressure to prevent the gas from diffusing to the centre is vital - not to mention the fact that your sensitive Bristle Blossoms would stifle if the pressure gets too low.

 

Overall, I do completely understand your frustration. When I first started with this game, I was in the same position as you are. I certainly hope these tips would help you. Thanks for reading!

[Duvinn]

1. Food is a HUGE problem in the beginning, especially if you're unlucky and start off with barely any. ChocoParrot gives a good tip that I use myself by planting a bunch of Mealwood and then slowly phasing it out with Bristle Blossoms. I currently have 14 planter boxes, 3 of them Mealwood and the rest are Bristles and with 1 refrigerator it is enough to keep my 6 duplicates fed, but I also have them rationing at 1,500kcals instead of the base amount. I now have 536 Blossom seeds and only 17 Mealwood Seeds. So Blossoms are the way to go, they're just temperature sensitive so make sure their environment is slightly cooler. As long as you keep up with harvesting, you won't have an issue with starvation.

 

2. Oxygen consumption is another problem I always had when starting a new game. Algae Deoxidyzers are a great way to start, but if you can't get the algae it really sucks, as I'm sure everyone knows. I mainly use Electrolyzers and distribute it throughout the base. I recommend putting the Gas Vents near the top of your base so that it pushes the other gasses down such as CO2. Also, make sure you're not putting your coal generator in the middle or same level where your Dupes usually hang around. I placed mine below my base. CO2 moves down and to the right so plant your Scrubber there so it eats it all up. Having some Gas permeable tiles helps the O2 move around easier along with pushing out the gasses you don't want. There will always be some bits of CO2 or Contaminated O2 floating around, but they're easily ignored. You can see how I have mine placed below. They go into a Termo Regulator to cool the air for my Bristle Blossoms.

[Bowler_Hat]

.r bristles produced seeds while growing? Mine have only produced 4 and then die.

[ChocoParrot]

44 minutes ago, Bowler_Hat said:

Thank you for taking the time to respond. From the last photo I'm greatly confused how you're able to have two coal generators in house while still maintaining an oxygen saturation.

(I do hope actually strong air currents will come about...as well as a 'atmospheric pressure' over lay so I can see where things want to blow).

My builds have all been with exclusive gas permeable tiles (other than the border).

The unaddressed concern here is I can scrub all the CO2 out of the air (and have done so excessively) this removal of CO2 doesn't produce O2, or even replenish what was used before.|

Creating airtight chambers filled with co2 and only containing a air scrubber results in no CO2 and a few mg of O2.

Lastly, how have your bristles produced seeds while growing? Mine have only produced 4 and then die.

The CO2 Scrubber uses clean water to remove carbon dioxide, producing polluted water. It dosen't produce any oxygen, so you'll have to pipe oxygen in since diffusion of gases is really slow as of the moment, and apparently winds/air currents haven't been implemented. If you create an airtight seal around the scrubber and leave carbon dioxide only inside, the scrubber would eventually remove all of the CO2 and create a vacuum. What I recommend you do is that you have air vents pumping oxygen above the scrubber. This pushes the carbon dioxide downwards and also maintains some sort of air flow in the system.

As for Bristle Blossoms, have your duplicants eat the fruit that they produce (Bristle Berries). Once eaten, a Bristle seed is produced and you can use that to plant more blossoms.

Good luck and happy colonising!

[DeCiBel]

I'm on day 130 and going strong.

What worked for me:

Stay at a population of 5 for the first... like 60-80 cycles. 

 

Have 1 dedicated miner, and 1 dedicated researcher. Have the other 3 focus on building, sweeping, collecting food etc. 

Build a diamond/circular base, as its easier to manage gas.

Avoid the electrolyzers IMO. They eat up your water, and they create the extra hassle of dealing with hydrogen. 

 

Your endgame is to have a sealed off base with algae oxidisers providing the main structure with oxygen.

personally, I put 4 coal engines with 6 large batteries outside of the base with gas permeable tiles beneath them, so the CO2 falls onto algea planters (the ones that eat CO2) - these 4 coal engines are connected to my base's main power grid.

On the opposite side of the base, have 5-6 algae refineries (attached to the main power grid).

 

As long as you can maintain 2 dedicated miners, and have 3 people in charge of supplying coal to the engines and slime to the refineries, you can last for ages.

Don't make any of the microbe mushers - they also eat through your water like crazy. 

Save water for algae plantations, showers, lavatory... stuff like that. 
 

If you mine smart, you can produce material faster than you burn through it and you'll end up with a surplus.

This works for food as well - you find more seeds and access more territory by mining. 

 

Currently I have a surplus of... 200,000 calories? (I'll post pics tomorrow. I'm sleepy)

1300ish algae

1100ish coal

 

something like that. 

 

basically your miners are in charge of harvesting materials faster than your colony can produce it. 

eventually i'll mine out the map, but so far things are looking good.

 

 

other random tricks: take advantage of contaminated oxygen. The air filters pretty much convert sand into oxygen, which is always a good exchange - also, diseases are pretty mild.

 

Don't neglect stress - getting to a point where you've essentially got 2 dupes duking it out over a battery will kill your colony. Set up an area of the base that has 140+ appeal and set down 3 massage tables. Give your dupes days off and try to keep stress below 20% if possible. 

 

That's what's been working for me, at least. 

 

TLDR: Digging is the solution for all your woes. 

[Bowler_Hat]

22 hours ago, ChocoParrot said:

 

[Yokhen]

15 hours ago, DeCiBel said:

Avoid the electrolyzers IMO. They eat up your water, and they create the extra hassle of dealing with hydrogen. 

They are huge hassle early game, but in late game it's a must.

[ChocoParrot]

3 hours ago, Bowler_Hat said:

Thanks for writing:

42 Hours in 5 days of playing. I'm good to go. I have enjoyed Fox's video's and their answering of question on the live streams.

Issue is, the seemingly inconsistent nature of the game. What works for one does not for another. I can't begin to count the number of times a air pump and gas separator decided not to function. (Just changing between speeds of the game bugged this out).

That's the issue, sure great, grand, all the personal accounts of 'it's not a problem for me' are not quite...helpful or informative.

Case and point: User DeCiBel ended their response stating "Digging is the solution for all your woes." when in fact, that's is the fastest CO2 production of all actions. 

 

Thank you all for sharing your stories of "100+ days no problem".... glad to know the success you've had. Sadly, reproducing the posted strategies DON"T change the numbers.

Cheers!

Glad stuff is finally going in your direction, friend!

Some of the most common issues that people face when their gas pumps aren't working are:

1. Power grid's gone awry - circuits are overloaded and wires are broken;
2. Gas pump submerged in water;
3. Insufficient power generation for gas pumps and gas separators

Do troubleshoot with the above criteria - those are some of the most common issues I experience anyway. The normal electrical wiring can only hold 1kW of electricity before it gets overloaded, and that's a hint to upgrade your wiring to the heavi-watt variety (which can hold 2kW). Above that there's literally no fix as of the moment.

I'm currently nearing round 300 and I'm getting power problems - waiting for the developers to add an even heavier-watt wire or implement Ohm's law since I hate the idea of using wire bridges or implementing multiple grids.

As always, happy colonising!

[alcurad90]

I think , you'd batter post a picture of your colony

 

At least we can check which verson you are playing

[Bowler_Hat]

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[ATOM7K]

Not sure but I think Bowler_Hat just gave up on the forum and perhaps the game as he seems to have deleted all of his posts and replies.