How to decontaminate water (and get away with it)

[Yunru]

Follow these easy steps and you too can enjoy the benefits of germ-free water, even polluted water.

Step 1: Build 3 liquid reservoirs (you can get away with 2 for most cases, but 3 will cover all cases that can naturally occur).

Step 2: Fill them with 15 tonnes of polluted water. This might sound daunting, but you can just do it over time by feeding toilet water into it.

Step 3: Add a feedback loop and an exit. Do not connect the last tank's output to anything yet (the picture here is inaccurate). Note how the bridges give priority to incoming water, and outgoing water prioritises the feedback loop.

Step 4: Add chlorine and seal.

Step 5: Once the reservoirs are full of germ free water, connect the final tank's output.

 

Voila! Because of the feedback loop, the only time water leaves your reservoirs is when new water comes in, which means you now shall always have germ-free water.

[Lutzkhie]

is this intended? or an exploit?

[Yunru]

1 minute ago, Lutzkhie said:

is this intended? or an exploit?

Completely intended afaik.

What happens is the chlorine kills it faster than it can propagate due to the chlorine affecting the whole 5t, while only 10kg moves on.

[PhailRaptor]

The stronger factor here, I think, is the averaging nature of the Reservoirs.  Any input is averaged across the contents.  So if you only have 5 kg of water coming in with ~100,000 germs, but you've got 5 t already there with <100 germs, those values will be averaged.  The simple fact is that with the pipe flow maximum of 10 kg per packet, the averaging works out so that by the third Reservoir you've been averaged to a negligible value of germs.

The contents of the Reservoir getting the "Chlorine Exposure" buff is clearly intended, if a strange and wonky decision.

[MeesterButts]

24 minutes ago, PhailRaptor said:

The stronger factor here, I think, is the averaging nature of the Reservoirs.  Any input is averaged across the contents.  So if you only have 5 kg of water coming in with ~100,000 germs, but you've got 5 t already there with <100 germs, those values will be averaged.  The simple fact is that with the pipe flow maximum of 10 kg per packet, the averaging works out so that by the third Reservoir you've been averaged to a negligible value of germs.

The contents of the Reservoir getting the "Chlorine Exposure" buff is clearly intended, if a strange and wonky decision.

What makes you call it "strange and wonky"?

[M.C.]

I am still confused about why you need to decontaminate polluted water in the first place. There's literally no need for it in the game as it exists today.

[Yunru]

1 minute ago, M.C. said:

I am still confused about why you need to decontaminate polluted water in the first place. There's literally no need for it in the game as it exists today.

Because germs actively grow in polluted water, so if it can decontaminate polluted water it can decontaminate anything.

Also because the germs can spread to polluted dirt from sieves.

[M.C.]

Just now, Yunru said:

Because germs actively grow in polluted water, so if it can decontaminate polluted water it can decontaminate anything.

Also because the germs can spread to polluted dirt from sieves.

Okay. Why is germ contamination of polluted dirt a problem?

[bobucles]

12 minutes ago, M.C. said:

Why is germ contamination of polluted dirt a problem?

If you ever choose to compost it, the final dirt usually stays contaminated. Dupes will then immediately smear it all over their faces, farms and food.

[M.C.]

Just now, bobucles said:

If you ever choose to compost it, the final dirt usually stays contaminated. Dupes will then immediately smear it all over their faces, farms and food.

Sure, but how is this a problem?

Store your food in a chlorine-filled room and you don't have to worry about food contamination, ever. Place a few sinks in front of your food storage room and dupes will always touch food with clean hands, which will prevent all and any food poisoning infections. Do these two simple things and you can completely ignore food poisoning germs in your water, dirt, polluted dirt, farms and everywhere else.

I mean... I am all for coming up with solutions for various problems, I just can't understand why this particular problem needs to be solved in the first place when it's trivial to avoid completely.

[PhailRaptor]

42 minutes ago, MeesterButts said:

What makes you call it "strange and wonky"?

The contents of a sealed container of fluid is treated as if it is exposed to the gas outside the sealed container?

[Lilalaunekuh]

My current colony uses a similar, but let´s call it primitive approach to decontamination:

 

=> If you know the thruput, you just need to daisy chain reservoirs.

[No chlorine or temperature gradients involved.]

[LucidFugue]

I usually leave the top open with airflow tiles and deodorizers and a ladder down so dupes can deposit slimelung-infested materials into containers. Set the containers to sweep only at high priority and restrict slime biome materials before you dig in. Sweep away the contaminated materials and after a cycle you can eject the now germ-free contents to keep it free for the future.

I know a lot of folks just use atmo suits and sanitize the food supply, but you can get this setup running real quick and I like having the whole living and work areas germ free. 

[TLW]

That's a very nice approach.

I had assumed that it required many more chained reservoirs to ensure things being germ-free.

[DemainaNyx]

3 hours ago, TLW said:

That's a very nice approach.

I had assumed that it required many more chained reservoirs to ensure things being germ-free.

Only requires 3 from my experimenting.  I always have more but by the 3rd one it's all gone despite containing millions of germs upon entering.

 

5 hours ago, M.C. said:

I mean... I am all for coming up with solutions for various problems, I just can't understand why this particular problem needs to be solved in the first place when it's trivial to avoid completely.

It's trivial for you and me to avoid, but a new player wouldn't know that.  They would assume that sieved water is clean water, probably not knowing that it's full of germs still.  Then they'd use it to make food or fill their water coolers and wonder why they are suddenly overrun with food poisoning cases and probably eventually click the germ overlay and discover their water source is contaminated.

This provides them a simple, automation free and power free solution to their immediate reaction of "how do I clean germs out of water/polluted water".  Later on they can figure out how to avoid it after they've played the game more.

[Lutzkhie]

lemme ask you one last thing, which is being purified? water in the tank? or water in the pipes?

[PhailRaptor]

23 minutes ago, Lutzkhie said:

lemme ask you one last thing, which is being purified? water in the tank? or water in the pipes?

It's the water in the Reservoirs that is being decontaminated when surrounded by Chlorine.

[Lilalaunekuh]

23 minutes ago, Lutzkhie said:

lemme ask you one last thing, which is being purified? water in the tank? or water in the pipes?

It´s all the water that´s slowly decontaminating at it´s low die off rate (-3%).

The reservoirs act just like huge buffers, which result in a visible drop of germs for each one that the water passes through.

 

(But you can use reservoirs in combination with chlorine like this thread suggestes.)

[fredhp]

12 hours ago, M.C. said:

Sure, but how is this a problem?

Store your food in a chlorine-filled room and you don't have to worry about food contamination, ever. Place a few sinks in front of your food storage room and dupes will always touch food with clean hands, which will prevent all and any food poisoning infections. Do these two simple things and you can completely ignore food poisoning germs in your water, dirt, polluted dirt, farms and everywhere else.

I mean... I am all for coming up with solutions for various problems, I just can't understand why this particular problem needs to be solved in the first place when it's trivial to avoid completely.

This is my strategy: I produce and store all food in a chlorine filled room - the only moment food leaves this room is when it goes to the CO2 pit in the mess hall.
 

[isendel11]

Dumb question: does the pressure of the chlorine in the room have any effect on how fast the germs get killed in the water? Or vacuuming it and then dropping a tiny amount of bleach stone and sealing (resulting in very low pressure) would suffice?

[beowulf2010]

4 minutes ago, isendel11 said:

Dumb question: does the pressure of the chlorine in the room have any effect on how fast the germs get killed in the water? Or vacuuming it and then dropping a tiny amount of bleach stone and sealing (resulting in very low pressure) would suffice?

Any amount of chlorine will work, as long as it's pure chlorine. Most of us shoot for above 1.8kg pressure by habit as that will prevent anything else in the room from offgassing. 

[Lilalaunekuh]

6 hours ago, fredhp said:

This is my strategy: I produce and store all food in a chlorine filled room

That was one of my design goals aswell.

But since we got the oven which produces CO2, that isn´t optimal anymore.

[M.C.]

On 7/25/2019 at 2:35 PM, Lilalaunekuh said:

 

(deleted because reading comprehension is hard)

[Kats]

Mine!
Doors close at night which lets water go on to my "clean" polluted water tank, still has a few germs in it because this takes a few cycles to set up but getting to 100% germ free!
Water Pump pumps in water when doors are closed (and hopefully shuts off before tank gets full, otherwise more polluted enter the tanks contaminating it again so been some tinkering with the time sensor.  Though all the water from the first reservoir is still germ free so most water gets through anyway.

Shut off connected to a germ sensor to not let even a single germ out, if it has a few germs still its fed back into the pool.

 

There are numerous reasons why you'd want to decontaminate water, any water you have going to espresso machines or the water cooler will give your dupes a slight chance of food poisoning. Electrolyzer will also output germy oxygen if the water used is germy~