The Reed Fiber Bottleneck

[Dracian]

Hi there,

I don't usually ask or beg for things but something must be done about Reed Fibers. Either Insulation requires too much of them, either Thimble Reeds and Dreckos don't give enough (or require too much time or too much ressources to grow). I'm at the point where I've destroyed every single painting in my base and everything is done to maximize Thimble Reed Production... Except I almost ran out of Dirt and I wasn't lucky enough to have PH²O volcano on my map.

So I'm just considering to abandon the base and start a new one or to go play another game. At cycle 812, it really makes me angry, but knowing I'll have to wait more than 100 cycles to complete my LOX setup is just killing me... Not to mention I'll have to wait another 100 cycles to complete my LH² setup.

In a way it reminds me of the Lime bottleneck back in the days (which also made me consider to take a break from the game... until things got fixed with the introduction of Fossil).

Anyway, sorry to bother you with that but I feel I can't be the only one in that case.

Cheers and sorry for the rant.

[Neotuck]

This is why I let them grow wild when I find them.  The wild ones grow fast enough to be worth it on the long run.

Also there should be plenty of PW pools and Polluted ice to supply most of your Reed fiber needs.

[tzionut]

For me this isn't an issue. I send all the polluted water on the map to my thimble reeds farm, then convert all the solid ans gaseous co2 intro polluted water using water and co2 scrubs. You also can convert slime to algae for extra polluted water, melting polluted ice, natural gas generator for polluted water... you get the idea. 

Paired whit free dreckos meat and reed fiber. I keep them wild.  

The only problem for me was 620 tones of abyssalite. It takes an insane amount of time to dispose by converting to insulation. I make the conversion of my wild shine bugs to abyss bugs but they eat 800 gr each... so to little...

The only solution i see is melting it... but didn't manage it for now

[Oozinator]

I end most times with excess pw and i never have a reed fiber bottleneck.
Hydrotiles and some slime pockets / pw are your friend.

 

[Coolthulhu]

You don't need insulation, just build your setup more robustly until you can afford to rebuild it from insulation. Let excess oxygen drop out of pipes to prevent breaking them, use two tile thick insulated walls.

This is nothing like lime bottleneck because you need steel to reach space, you don't need insulation for anything except renewable tungsten.

[tzionut]

Quote

you don't need insulation for anything except renewable tungsten.

I use it for insulated pipe for the liquid hydrogen... for preventing LH heating and change of faze. 

[mathmanican]

1 hour ago, Dracian said:

So I'm just considering to abandon the base and start a new one or to go play another game. At cycle 812, it really makes me angry, but knowing I'll have to wait more than 100 cycles to complete my LOX setup is just killing me... Not to mention I'll have to wait another 100 cycles to complete my LH² setup.

This is great feedback. @Ipsquiggle, this might be something to look at.  No need to lose players after 812 cycles because they are frustrated in this way. 

I think you're right that the devs introduced fossils to help with this issue and steel. I was pretty annoyed that I'd have to ranch critters like a banshee when steel first came out. Fossil introduction gives us enough to start farming steel from space. Is it possible to gather reed fiber, or lots of PW, from space in large quantities, to avoid 100 cycle waits.

Another option is to farm carbon dioxide in large quanties from meteors, and then convert your regular water to polluted water. @Zarquan's CO2 meteor collector (see the spoiler) can gather enough CO2 (5kg/s) that I bet you could produce reeds way faster than anyone needs.

Spoiler

 

 

[Gus Smedstad]

For the most part, you can do pretty much anything with ceramic. Space Insulation is nice stuff, but I've yet to run into an application where ceramic won't do the job, if less efficiently.

The problem is that you can run out of clay. I did, anyway. You can make clay from polluted water and deoderizers, but you need a significant polluted water surplus. I think to set up a late game clay farm, you either need to forget about sleet wheat farming, or you need a geyser that supplies polluted water.

1 hour ago, Oozinator said:

I end most times with excess pw and i never have a reed fiber bottleneck.
Hydrotiles and some slime pockets / pw are your friend.

You're clearly not running that late into the game if you're giving advice like this. The true late game is when you've used every bit of naturally occurring polluted water on the map, and you've completely dug out all the finite resources like slime and fossils.

[Neotuck]

12 minutes ago, tzionut said:

I use it for insulated pipe for the liquid hydrogen... for preventing LH heating and change of faze. 

If you produce you liquid hydrogen and oxygen in the surface near your rockets.  Then you can just use radiant pipes.  They will only leak at first while the temperature equalizeals and once they do the vacuum will maintain a perfect insulation.

3 minutes ago, Gus Smedstad said:

For the most part, you can do pretty much anything with ceramic. Space Insulation is nice stuff, but I've yet to run into an application where ceramic won't do the job, if less efficiently.

The problem is that you can run out of clay. I did, anyway. You can make clay from polluted water and deoderizers, but you need a significant polluted water surplus. I think to set up a late game clay farm, you either need to forget about sleet wheat farming, or you need a geyser that supplies polluted water.

Is that from experience? Because from my experience it doesn't take much PW in bottles to run some deodorizers to supply your colony with oxygen and more than enough clay for ceramics.

[Gus Smedstad]

5 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

Is that from experience? 

Yes. I said as much.

We've had this discussion before, though you don't seem to remember that, or you'd know I was speaking from experience. I think you're haven't played a map without a slush geyser or other renewable source of polluted water, at least not far enough that you're relying entirely on renewable resources.

[Oozinator]

25 minutes ago, Gus Smedstad said:

You're clearly not running that late into the game if you're giving advice like this.

Mapseed..

[Neotuck]

11 minutes ago, Gus Smedstad said:

Yes. I said as much.

We've had this discussion before, though you don't seem to remember that, or you'd know I was speaking from experience. I think you're haven't played a map without a slush geyser or other renewable source of polluted water, at least not far enough that you're relying entirely on renewable resources.

I owe you an apology, I forgot our earlier conversation.  I'm pretty active in the forums and speak to a lot of people so sometime I forget who I spoke to.

To clarify most of my oxygen production come from algea terrariums combined with deodorizers so I get lots of clay and never need to use PW from slush geysers.

[tzionut]

Quote

Then you can just use radiant pipes

My problem whit this is when the rocket leaves and the pipes isn't empty yet. I have an automated launch automation so ...this solution isn't for me 

[Zarquan]

1 hour ago, tzionut said:

I use it for insulated pipe for the liquid hydrogen... for preventing LH heating and change of faze. 

Something useful I found is that if your pipe is in a vacuum, then you can use radiant pipe made out of tungsten.  It can't transfer heat if it is is already cold enough, and radiant pipes get down to temperature faster, though you will have to mo

Another trick is to use liquid bridges to cover distance.  Liquid bridges don't transfer heat, so they can be made out of regular rock.

You can cut the amount of insulation needed by a significant amount.

[tzionut]

  yes but is so ugly  i like my pipes to be pretty  I use ceramic until i have enough insulation  This work for me

[Gurgel]

3 hours ago, Neotuck said:

This is why I let them grow wild when I find them.  The wild ones grow fast enough to be worth it on the long run.

Same here. I even add temperature regulation to wild ones if enough are next to each other and they need it.

[Lilalaunekuh]

3 hours ago, Dracian said:

but knowing I'll have to wait more than 100 cycles to complete my LOX setup is just killing me...

For me there are just two solutions here:

A) Play the game and do something else in the meantime and build "your" LOX setup.

B) Adapt to what you got and build an other LOX setup.

If you really want to use just insulation, building as much (non insulation) bridges as possible should do the trick.

 

But for me I was able to build my LOX/H2 setups using insulated cermic pipes with a simple loop.

(Sure I lose some energy here, but I didn´t even bother to switch to insulation even considering I got enough xD)

[Neotuck]

21 minutes ago, tzionut said:

My problem whit this is when the rocket leaves and the pipes isn't empty yet. I have an automated launch automation so ...this solution isn't for me 

If the pipes are in range of rocket exhaust then yes insulated pipes are the best choice

[Gus Smedstad]

34 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

To clarify most of my oxygen production come from algea terrariums combined with deodorizers so I get lots of clay and never need to use PW from slush geysers.

I'm assuming you're not feeding your Dupes pepper bread, then. If you've devoted that much polluted water to oxygen. My late-game polluted water shortage was largely because I was sieving it for dirt for my sleet wheat. If I wasn't doing that I might have had enough for some meaningful clay production.

18 minutes ago, tzionut said:

My problem whit this is when the rocket leaves and the pipes isn't empty yet. 

It sounds like you're talking about standing liquid hydrogen in the pipes. The answer to that is to recirculate it. Send the slightly warmed liquid hydrogen back to your cooler, and the loop will never get warm enough to threaten a phase change, even with ceramic pipes.

Just now, Neotuck said:

If the pipes are in range of rocket exhaust then yes insulated pipes are the best choice

Rocket exhaust doesn't interact directly with pipes. It'll heat up tiles, but not pipes or debris.

Hot exhaust gasses (CO2 or steam) will interact with pipes, but in practice it's not enough to make a difference with ceramic insulated pipes. I had no trouble with either liquid oxygen or hydrogen changing phase in ceramic pipes, even though they were exposed to exhaust gasses.

I'm not sure if it's a problem if you are capturing the exhaust gas. My rocket pads were open to space. Which isn't by any means an immediate transition to vacuum, but it does dissipate rapidly.

[Neotuck]

20 minutes ago, Gus Smedstad said:

I'm assuming you're not feeding your Dupes pepper bread, then. If you've devoted that much polluted water to oxygen. My late-game polluted water shortage was largely because I was sieving it for dirt for my sleet wheat. If I wasn't doing that I might have had enough for some meaningful clay production.

It sounds like you're talking about standing liquid hydrogen in the pipes. The answer to that is to recirculate it. Send the slightly warmed liquid hydrogen back to your cooler, and the loop will never get warm enough to threaten a phase change, even with ceramic pipes.

Rocket exhaust doesn't interact directly with pipes. It'll heat up tiles, but not pipes or debris.

Hot exhaust gasses (CO2 or steam) will interact with pipes, but in practice it's not enough to make a difference with ceramic insulated pipes. I had no trouble with either liquid oxygen or hydrogen changing phase in ceramic pipes, even though they were exposed to exhaust gasses.

I'm not sure if it's a problem if you are capturing the exhaust gas. My rocket pads were open to space. Which isn't by any means an immediate transition to vacuum, but it does dissipate rapidly.

My dirt farm doesn't rely on Pdirt from sieves unless I have sufficient PW geysers.

Before pepper bread I farm pakus and stuffed berries.  If there isn't enough PW geysers then I decompost the meat and berries.

As for the pipes I was referring to radiant pipes in a vacuum as an alternative to using insulated pipes.  However that won't work under the rockets.

Not a problem for early steam rockets though

[JohnFrancis]

7 hours ago, Dracian said:

knowing I'll have to wait more than 100 cycles to complete my LOX setup is just killing me... Not to mention I'll have to wait another 100 cycles to complete my LH² setup.

It can be done with ceramic and it actually not to bad to manage. I have linked a video tutorial below that shows you how to do it for hydrogen rockets, I never switched to insulation in the end, the ceramics were doing it perfectly maintenance free. Don't let anyone tell you to grow them yourself, if I recall it takes 6 tons of polluted water to get enough reed to make one insulated pipe out of insulation. Save all the wild ones you can they really help, if you have already ripped them up like I did then I see mass ceramic in your future.

Spoiler

 

@Gus Smedstad The way I avoid running out of clay is exo suits. I make a box base with an exo only exit, then I slice every biome to pieces and spam deodorizers. The slime of gasses and fills the map with oxygen, I did it for the gas pressure as it made the gasses on the map more organized but as a byproduct I was swimming in clay. There is so much slime, polluted water and sand on the map that ceramic should not be a problem to make. Now that I think about it seriously you must be using huge amounts of ceramic to run out, I only use it for rocket stuff and a few shot runs around refinery's.

[Gus Smedstad]

5 hours ago, Neotuck said:

As for the pipes I was referring to radiant pipes in a vacuum as an alternative to using insulated pipes.  However that won't work under the rockets.

Oh,  yeah, that would be bad. I've never gone the radiant pipe in vacuum route because I don't like stuff breaking. My immediate thought would be that it would break several times before reaching temperature, but I've no direct experience with it.

1 hour ago, JohnFrancis said:

The way I avoid running out of clay is exo suits. I make a box base with an exo only exit, then I slice every biome to pieces and spam deodorizers. The slime of gasses and fills the map with oxygen, I did it for the gas pressure as it made the gasses on the map more organized but as a byproduct I was swimming in clay.

I'm not sure how that's different from just exploiting the map normally and spamming deoderizers ever time you run into polluted oxygen pockets. Converting a lot of slime to polluted oxygen, I guess, instead of using it for something else.

Personally I distilled all my slime into algae and fed it to pacus for eggshells and polluted dirt. I think that's clearly going to produce a lot less clay than letting it sublime into P02, but it also produces a lot of lime and dirt which I found helpful. Including some dirt from sieving the polluted water you get from distillation.

It's possible I'm overusing ceramic. I tend to use it any place where the temperature differential is significant. For example, my oil boiler was completely enclosed by ceramic insulation. The internal bits were igneous, but between the 400 C petroleum and my base I wanted the best insulation I could get.

At the end I was setting up an oil -> sour gas -> natural gas converter. Not because I really needed it, but because I wanted the experience, and I felt the amount of polluted water I'd get as a byproduct of burning the natural gas would be helpful. I stalled out because I wanted ceramic to protect my base from the 600 C internal temperatures, I was out of clay, and the reed fiber for Space Insulation wasn't coming very fast.

That wraps around to the topic of this thread. I had two Dreko ranches, specializing in plastic and reed fiber respectively. The reed fiber one was a 3 level affair of around 350 tiles, with 2/3rd given over to hydrogen and 1/3rd for balm lilies in chlorine. Despite have a ton of Drekos - maybe 30, I never counted them - they produced reed fiber so slowly that I only got a tile's worth of Space Insulation a cycle. At least, that's how I remember it.

Part of the problem is that you want to use Space Insulation exclusively for insulated tiles and pipes,which is 400kg per tile.

[Neotuck]

I have used radiant pipes in a vacuum and the temperature equalizeals very quickly.

Yes they take a little damage and some leaks at first.  But never breaks all the way and you only need to repair once

I find transporting steam works best for this method when building steam rockets.

[Xuhybrid]

9 hours ago, Gus Smedstad said:

Yes. I said as much.

We've had this discussion before, though you don't seem to remember that, or you'd know I was speaking from experience. I think you're haven't played a map without a slush geyser or other renewable source of polluted water, at least not far enough that you're relying entirely on renewable resources.

I've never used a slush geyser despite having them and i have more ceramic than i know what to do with...

[0xFADE]

Has everyone forgot that normal drecko sheer fiber?  You can get a lot of it completely free from wild ones. 

Maybe your room design didn't have them stay in hydrogen long enough.  I have to redesign this since now it has to be a valid stable but I had quite a lot of fiber.