Auto-flushing Algae Terrarium

[N00bieMeap]

Since the new Steam turbine bring a new build method, I hope this Auto-flushing Algae Terrarium will appear officially ingame soon

[goatt]

I guess you must like to use Algae Terrarium. But I think the fact that it requires manual cleaning indicates that it's an early game building.

The game philosophy is that every building will do its main job as well as produce a (most of the time unwanted) side effect.

For example, electrolyzer produce oxygen with side effect of high output temperature. Water seive produce clean water with side effect of polluted dirt emitting gas. A lot of buildings require operators. A lot of buildings produce heat which can sustain in vacuum. Some buildings release gases to surroundings not thru pipes. And Algae Terrarium needs manual cleaning.

[Coolthulhu]

47 minutes ago, goatt said:

I guess you must like to use Algae Terrarium. But I think the fact that it requires manual cleaning indicates that it's an early game building.

Or just that Klei didn't have a solid idea on how to combine "drinking" water feature with the fact that polluted water is heavier than clean.

Terrarium is actually pretty terrible as a main oxygen source. It's only an early game building because later on you have suits, it's never a good idea to have an array of terrariums in one spot.

Making terrariums not require manual cleaning would be very unlikely to unbalance them because they still eat algae, which is really inefficient to renew. It's not like their ability to pollute water is THAT good. And their meager oxygen production certainly wouldn't overshadow electrolyzers.

[Yunru]

Terrariums are the second best source of oxygen, indirectly.

Before I decided to just cut them out, they were my main way of collection large bottles of pwater to provide oxygen to my base.

 

EDIT: Since I managed to get off-topic before I got to even typing my post:

My former setup would use the fact that they had to be manually emptied to trigger the doors they sat on to be opened momentarily afterwards to collect the pwater bottles.

[Zarquan]

7 hours ago, Coolthulhu said:

Terrarium is actually pretty terrible as a main oxygen source. It's only an early game building because later on you have suits, it's never a good idea to have an array of terrariums in one spot.

Terrariums are the most resource efficient oxygen makers.  You get significantly more oxygen for the water and algae combined, especially if you are using a light.  I would use them if they didn't require so much dupe work.

[Coolthulhu]

1 hour ago, Zarquan said:

Terrariums are the most resource efficient oxygen makers.  You get significantly more oxygen for the water and algae combined

Direct mass equivalency is terrible comparison. It's like saying that steel is more resource-efficient than plastic. Algae is worth much more than water because there are no "algae geysers". It's only available in small quantities past very early game.

With automatic terrariums, the main appeal post early game would be the polluted water "by"product, which unlike oxygen, is hard to renew. It would be a situation similar to "fertilizer synthesizer", which for many versions, was actually a natural gas producer with a fertilizer byproduct.

[Zarquan]

46 minutes ago, Coolthulhu said:

Direct mass equivalency is terrible comparison. It's like saying that steel is more resource-efficient than plastic. Algae is worth much more than water because there are no "algae geysers". It's only available in small quantities past very early game.

With automatic terrariums, the main appeal post early game would be the polluted water "by"product, which unlike oxygen, is hard to renew. It would be a situation similar to "fertilizer synthesizer", which for many versions, was actually a natural gas producer with a fertilizer byproduct.

Except that algae has no other use unless you go the fish route.  If you do not intend to go for fish, then algae's only purpose is oxygen generation.  And you want as much oxygen as you can get for your algae, therefore algae terrariums would be the best option to use the algae if they didn't require so much dupe work. 

Terrariums give more oxygen than if you were to put the algae in deoxidizers and the water in electrolyzers (assuming you clean the polluted water).  Plus, you also get a lot of dirt out of it through the polluted water.

Also, what are you talking about with steel and plastic?  They are not interchangable.  The argument would make more sense with iron and steel, but it is still a not a comparable argument because iron is useful on its own whereas algae is otherwise useless (unless you breed fish).

[Ngc2403]

Having read these comments I think you all have good points but just to mix it up a little I had a thought. 

What if the terrariums produced small amounts of algae? I mean that makes sense right? You are growing algae to produce oxygen, not killing it. 

Also the building should act correctly when not in CO2 like the farming tiles. Currently they don't seem to care if they are in CO2 or not. I like slickers but having a CO2 sink that produced algae and oxygen for some manual labour and water, sounds more like a late game option than early game only building.

Thoughts?

[natanstarke]

On 02/04/2019 at 6:55 AM, goatt said:

I guess you must like to use Algae Terrarium. But I think the fact that it requires manual cleaning indicates that it's an early game building.

The game philosophy is that every building will do its main job as well as produce a (most of the time unwanted) side effect.

For example, electrolyzer produce oxygen with side effect of high output temperature. Water seive produce clean water with side effect of polluted dirt emitting gas. A lot of buildings require operators. A lot of buildings produce heat which can sustain in vacuum. Some buildings release gases to surroundings not thru pipes. And Algae Terrarium needs manual cleaning.

yeah i also agree on that, i just think auto sweepers should be able to deliver bottled water to them and we should also be able to auto bottle water in some way. Changing the cleaning inst necessary.

 

[goatt]

39 minutes ago, natanstarke said:

auto sweepers should be able to deliver bottled water

why not, physically it's sucking the bottle not water. however, if it really can suck water / gas bottles, then its functionality is very much like pipes. I think that might be the reason why they didn't allow it.

[Eleyvie]

On 4/9/2019 at 3:01 AM, goatt said:

why not, physically it's sucking the bottle not water. however, if it really can suck water / gas bottles, then its functionality is very much like pipes. I think that might be the reason why they didn't allow it.

It's not duplicating pipes if it's only auto-sweeper that can handle bottles but not conveyors. Bottles would have to be delivered to emptiers and them pumped into the liquid pipe system. Thus, no functionality duplication, just sweepers doing what they're supposed to do: automating some of dupe's manual labor.