Maximizing Electrolyser (SPOM) oxygen production

[riwenna]

So... I know this is a bit of an old design, but I found that the ceramic holds in the heat sufficiently well, so I went and built a SPOM.

Now, I also patiently rolled 12 duplicants with Diver's Lungs, and got one set of Deeper Diver's Lungs from the Neural Vascilator. My calculations before taking that last dupe were that a single SPOM with 1 Electrolyser provides oxygen at 888g/s, and 12 times Diver's Lungs + 1 time Deeper Diver's Lungs is 12 * (100 - 25) - 1 * 50 = 850g/s of oxygen consumed.

I waited long for that last, perfect, 12th duplicant, and still, when I finally chose Meep 3-4 cycles ago, I started getting "Insufficient Oxygen Generation" messages. But hovering over the Electrolyser, I notice it still has very occasional and short downtime due to Max Gas Pressure. Now, I really didn't plan to build another SPOM just yet, since I would feel like it was underused if I don't take in more dupes, and I'm just not ready for that commitment yet.

Can anybody suggest why Meep suddenly took me over the edge, and if anything can be done to my current setup to make it provide for my 12 shallow breathing dupes?

The SPOM is almost identical to the original design linked in the post, except I squished it for 1 tile, using 3 Weezeworts instead of 4 (the original temperature of 11*c sounded a bit too cold, this is now leveling around 19-20). The materials are all as originally suggested, except the insulation is ceramic, tempshift plates granite, and I used the radiant pipes in the cooling chamber. The top atmo sensor is set to 1000, and bottom to 500, tho it seems setting the top one to 1200 instead helps a bit (I've been trying it out by rewinding a day several times over).

I am currently considering rewinding the game to pre-Meep times, which makes me really sad. I'm also not sure if it's a false alarm due to them using surplus oxygen in the atmo suits or somewhere else when going out - but I doubt it as the first two suits have started running out of air. I only have about 5 cycles before Meep becomes a permanent decision (and that autosave gets deleted), so some help and suggestions about if the design can be made to support 850g/s needs of oxygen (or if it already is and I'm panicking for nothing) would be great. I can open it and repair it through that waterlock if needed.

[MorsDux]

dude just build another spom you stress on this way too much

[Neotuck]

1 hour ago, MorsDux said:

dude just build another spom you stress on this way too much

some people just don't want the easy answer 

[fishoutofwater]

for better electrolyzer and pump layout

https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/100796-electrolyzer-and-pump-layouts/

if you don't mind exploit

https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/101672-100-uptime-electrolyzer-no-gas-filter-no-gas-element-sensor/

 

[DemainaNyx]

My guess would be there is hydrogen in that upper left corner of the electrolyzer that is causing the system to over pressurizes.  Before it had two tiles to vent to, but your design only has one so it might suffer because of that.  

As far as I know, the only way to get it to work 100% of the time is to partially submerge it in 1 or 2 Kgs of two different liquids.  It can't overpressurize then and you'll get your perfect flow.  Exploitive, but it should satisfy what you want. 

Honestly though, it might not be a problem.  I currently have 1.8Kg of oxygen filling my base and another 8Kg of oxygen filling the random dig paths around my map and I still occasionally get the "Insufficient Oxygen Generation" warning despite all this.  Yeah, you're generating too little, but it might be like 1Kg too little.  So over the course of a thousand cycles, you may eventually start suffocating.  But it doesn't mean you're going to lose immediately.

[ONIfreak]

One of the reason is that gas pipes are constantly full so pumps doesn't work full time causing to overpressieruse is. Try to build additional line for oxygen and split the flow using bridge split also check if it is not that your base is full of oxygen so produced one does not have anywhere to go. 

spom works full time only if whole design from power input to air output is free of any blockades. Not just spom "machine itself". 

Also check your bas air overlay - if it is light blue you have nothing to worry about - insufficient oxygen generation alert count just oxygen produces, and most of the time this is not a case since there is additional air from deodorizers for example. I would love to get this message from time to time to low down air pressure not just get rid of extra air which sounds like waste. 

[Craigjw]

If each dupe is in their own little self contained box with metered air flow, then you may find that the consumption rate of all the dupes fits well within your O2 production quota, however, in game the conditions aren't perfect, you will find that dupes spend more time in some areas than others.  While you have very little room for deviance you will find that dupes in areas that are used a lot will run out of oxygen.  If you are using the same O2 supply for exo-suit docks, then you'll have periods when O2 gets diverted to resupplying the docks, causing insufficient O2 to your base ventilation.

The best solution I found was to build excess O2 and use an gas blockage sensor, when a gas storage is full, it will trigger the sensor, which in turn switches off the backup SPOM for some time.  This prevents the SPOM from backing up, preventing gas valve sensor from malfunctioning.  I have 1 SPOM for airsupply, a second for supplying Exosuit docks and a 3rd to ensure each SPOM's O2 output is at 1kg/s to maximise the pipe volume.  Each SPOM has a backup sensor, which disables the electrolyzer when the O2 storage buffer is full.

another thing to note is there is maybe a message informing you of insufficient O2 production, I found that this is always there, despite my base being fully ventilated to maximum vent pressure.

[ONIfreak]

The warning calculate number ls of what you priduce and what your dupe use. Not if is enough oxygen in the area. If you have base fully ventilated on 1700g per tile and you oxygen consumption is lower by 0.1g per cucle it will take thousands of cycles to make 1500g per tile. Therr should be info but warning shpuld be where you air pressure drop below certain point - not how much you produce. 1 deodrizer on top of above setup will produce additipnal 0.1 plus extra so your air pressure will be raising even if this message appear. Just keep liveable areas light blue and you are fine. Yplou can set algea terrarium on the corner of the map to even out those numbers - this message is really annoying 

[MorsDux]

8 minutes ago, ONIfreak said:

The warning calculate number ls of what you priduce and what your dupe use. Not if is enough oxygen in the area. If you have base fully ventilated on 1700g per tile and you oxygen consumption is lower by 0.1g per cucle it will take thousands of cycles to make 1500g per tile. Therr should be info but warning shpuld be where you air pressure drop below certain point - not how much you produce. 1 deodrizer on top of above setup will produce additipnal 0.1 plus extra so your air pressure will be raising even if this message appear. Just keep liveable areas light blue and you are fine. Yplou can set algea terrarium on the corner of the map to even out those numbers - this message is really annoying 

Once i get some plastic i set high pressure vents up and atmo sensor with shutoff at 4000g

[ONIfreak]

1 hour ago, MorsDux said:

Once i get some plastic i set high pressure vents up and atmo sensor with shutoff at 4000g

Be carefull not to pop dups eardrums. I changed the other day vents to high presdure and within few seconds all 22 dups had popped eardrums XD.  I just vent extra air outside of base. I built base with 1 exosuit entrance and now slowly make part habitatable and join it to my base. Got almost all right side with clean air and 20-30 degree with few exo stations in front of chlorine room or drecko farm. I use extra air for that 

[MorsDux]

55 minutes ago, ONIfreak said:

Be carefull not to pop dups eardrums. I changed the other day vents to high presdure and within few seconds all 22 dups had popped eardrums XD.  I just vent extra air outside of base. I built base with 1 exosuit entrance and now slowly make part habitatable and join it to my base. Got almost all right side with clean air and 20-30 degree with few exo stations in front of chlorine room or drecko farm. I use extra air for that 

Popped eardrums are at 5k pressure, i set the atmo sensor to 4k. Never has issues. 

[ONIfreak]

26 minutes ago, MorsDux said:

Popped eardrums are at 5k pressure, i set the atmo sensor to 4k. Never has issues. 

Cool. Didn't know is 5k. I stopped changing vents after that accident XD, but it is actually quite interesting idea. 

[riwenna]

I might've gotten a bit discouraged by "just build another spom". Glad that there's so many suggestions after all.

I might just stick a Algae Deoxidizer somewhere to make up for the difference, I went through all the suggestions, and followed the linked threads down the rabbit hole and it seems there is nothing I could change in my design on the spot that would make it produce enough. I don't see how I could modify the design in-game to pour liquids on it while allowing for the two gasses to vent where they should, and other suggestions don't seem to apply (my gas pumps aren't constantly full, the atmo sensors do switch them off occasionally when the pressure is too low, etc.)

My reason for not wanting to build another SPOM to support 0.1 duplicant are that, in the above setup with Weezeworts, the temperature in the cooling chamber drops waaay too low if I'm not using it at or near full capacity. I could make cooling through my water tank, which I did before, but it just sounds too much bother to build another one as I'm not planning on taking more dupes any time soon, so Deoxidizer which turns on every few cycles to make up for the loss sounds like the most reasonable thing.

[Angpaur]

27 minutes ago, riwenna said:

I went through all the suggestions, and followed the linked threads down the rabbit hole and it seems there is nothing I could change in my design on the spot that would make it produce enough

You can try to rebuild a bit your SPOM and use this pumps layout:

Spoiler

This works 100% up time producing 532.8kg of O2 per cycle.

[riwenna]

But... all the unused space... (it's squished tightly in so I can't expand it for many tiles).

However... if I don't find the liquid thing too exploity... where do the gasses actually spawn from around the electrolyser? As in, I notice I could in fact fill my electrolyser itself with the two liquids, I'm just wondering if the oxygen will exit through the airflow tiles below it then (and hydrogen above), or not?

[badgamer123]

if you just short for 50g oxygen per day you could use PO2 from PH2O off gas? since it off gas only at 1800g it would not over produce
either Nat gen and pet gen give a lot PH2O build some deodorixer(the clay maker) near the pool and .....profit!
 

[riwenna]

All my P-water is being cleaned and then fed straight into that SPOM for Oxygen

[riwenna]

So I played a bit with the liquid trick trying to build it all in-game, and I did it. I agree that it's exploit-y but it was still fun trying to figure out how to build it in and then actually modify my setup on the spot.

First, failed attempt (apparently the "exit" for both oxygen and hydrogen needs to be adjacent to the same half-submerged tile, which makes sense):

Spoiler

Oxygen gets trapped in the one tile above the Electrolyser and pushes the water to the right, everything overpressurises:

Second, succesful attempt:

Spoiler

I decided that the Hydrogen doesn't really need to circulate through the power chamber, the one that's already in there is enough and the metal tiles should (hopefully) help keep the temperature of the upper half behaving like before.

Very proud of actually being able to modify it in survival. Very, very painful as well, but hell. Let's see if this can support 12 Divers Lungs ( + 1 Deeper Divers Lungs) dupes in the long run

Thanks everybody for all the help

[Craigjw]

Why are people using high pressure vents for circulating air into the living quarters?  This is completely OTT, why bother over engineering something when normal vents work perfectly?  You don't need valves, you don't need atmo sensors, you don't need automation, you just dump a normal vent on a pipe and voila, you got O2 that never goes over pressure.

Or, we could place high pressure vents, lets see, we have to make refined materials, we have to make valves and build in extra automation, we have to supply wires to power the valves and then, that time when I accidentally did something to cause the atmo sensor that was set at 4k to be at 0 or 10k.  Ooops, my dupes are O2 deprived or now they all have popped eardrums and it's going to take forever to drop the pressure.

Let me see, which one's best, the simple vent on a stick solution that NEVER goes wrong or the over-engineered pretend it's fail-safe high pressure vent solution that can lead to popped eardrums and a world of pain solution?

[KittenIsAGeek]

On 1/16/2019 at 2:58 PM, riwenna said:

Now, I also patiently rolled 12 duplicants with Diver's Lungs, and got one set of Deeper Diver's Lungs from the Neural Vascilator. My calculations before taking that last dupe were that a single SPOM with 1 Electrolyser provides oxygen at 888g/s, and 12 times Diver's Lungs + 1 time Deeper Diver's Lungs is 12 * (100 - 25) - 1 * 50 = 850g/s of oxygen consumed.

I waited long for that last, perfect, 12th duplicant, and still, when I finally chose Meep 3-4 cycles ago, I started getting "Insufficient Oxygen Generation" messages.

OK, this 'Insufficient oxygen generation' "error" isn't always an error.  When your base is sufficiently pressurized, oxygen only enters the base as it is used by the dupes.  If the dupes breathe oxygen from another source -- say, polluted oxygen from off-gassing -- then they are no longer breathing air from your base that your SPOM is producing.  This shifts the input/output numbers just enough that the warning pops up to alert you.

Another way this pops up is if your dupes are using atmo suits.  While they're in the suit, they're breathing oxygen in the suit that was produced at an earlier time.  Meanwhile, no oxygen is delivered to the dock because the suit is out and active, so no oxygen is being produced to replace what is being used.  Later, when the dupe returns to the station and hangs the suit in its dock, oxygen flows into the suit, then oxygen flows into the dock, THEN your SPOM starts replacing the used oxygen.  The 'insufficient oxygen generation' error goes away, but returns the next time your dupe takes a suit out.

A better way to tell if there is really a problem is to look at the trend over several cycles.  In "reports" it shows you how much oxygen you produced, how much you used, and what the net difference is.  Pay attention to units.  A net of -200g will trigger your alert, but all it means is that two dupes took one breath each of air you didn't produce during that ENTIRE cycle.  Meanwhile, a net of -200Kg suggests there's a bit of a problem.

3 hours ago, Craigjw said:

Why are people using high pressure vents for circulating air into the living quarters?  This is completely OTT, why bother over engineering something when normal vents work perfectly?  You don't need valves, you don't need atmo sensors, you don't need automation, you just dump a normal vent on a pipe and voila, you got O2 that never goes over pressure.

If I'm distributing gas via pipes, I throw in automation because I dislike seeing the red 'over pressure' icons.  However, in my current base there are so many OTHER flashy red icons that I didn't bother with it.   You are right, that you don't need atmo sensors, automation, or high pressure vents...

However, for my base's air supply I won't ever use a high-pressure vent, as I would also have to include valves and automation to prevent pressure from getting too high and popping ear drums.  If I'm already using valves, atmo sensors, and automation, I might as well just use regular vents -- I'll get the same result.

[riwenna]

 

@KittenIsAGeek Tyvm for the detailed analysis of the suit-living-quarters thing I did look at the trend over several cycles (I was also thinking about the possible flickering warning from the atmo suit). It was a persistent negative of -30kg/cycle. Not much, but just enough that it's not enough.

I was in a bit of a hurry to diagnose it as I didn't want to lose the autosave of bringing in the last dupe, so I could un-roll him if I didn't find a way to "fix" my oxygen production (in hindsight, I could've made a separate save).

But, the persistent negative of ~-30kg/cycle presisted for 10+ cycles while I was building modifications to my SPOM. Finally fixed it with the liquid-exploit design I posted above to a persistent +~35kg/cycle (the real trick was figuring out a desing I could build in-game in survival mode from what I already had).

[KittenIsAGeek]

Just now, riwenna said:

But, the persistent negative of ~-30kg/cycle presisted for 10+ cycles while I was building modifications to my SPOM. Finally fixed it with the liquid-exploit design I posted above to a persistent +~35kg/cycle (the real trick was figuring out a desing I could build in-game in survival mode from what I already had):

There was a detailed analysis posted a while back about how the electrolyzers operate.  One factor I forgot about was that it is very difficult to get one electrolyzer to provide perfect results at the maximum rate.  I almost always use two electrolyzers paired up with three gas pumps, allowing me to guarantee a constant 1kg/s of oxygen into my base.  Neither electrolyzer is pushed close to its maximum rate, so the problem you were experiencing never became a problem for me.  Here's a link to a design I've used in the past that works pretty well:

In my example, I was using liquid to cool the system as a whole.  You can get better efficiency by only cooling the oxygen before it goes into your base.  Whatever method you like to use is just fine.

[riwenna]

I think I've seen your design before, looks neat The one I'm using is a bit of a habit by this point I guess, and I was just trying to see how many dupes I can squish into a base supplied by just one of those SPOM units. Apparently, the answer is 12