Thoughts on the forest start biome after a bunch of Verdante games

[Greybear]

I like the forest biome - it's a nice change of pace, and oxyferns provide an easy but limited alternative to algae, forcing me to either play aggressively (breaking into the slime biomes which are plentiful on Verdante) or play carefully with few duplicants.

I do think the pips are awesome - but they don't feel like a start biome creature... They are too hard to naturally control, and I find them a bit tedious in the start - I think they should be moved out of the starting biome. Adding trees and moving pips to another biome would be interesting.

Having a single hatch feels weird. I think they're too important to be missing, especially since there isn't a lot of coal on the asteroid - and coal is a hard requirement for many important things. An even better fix would be to allow lumber to be converted into charcoal and replace coal that way. Semmes obvious since trees are always present on the maps missing hatches (and this is probably already a part of the plan for lumber).

I miss the wheezeworts and feel like there should be a few in the rust biome. I would rather see a trait determine the number of wheezeworts on a map than it being determined by the asteroid type. But cooling isn't a problem for me yet.

Otherwise having lots of fun, and havnøt run into any hard problems so far.

[Sasza22]

I like that a different start has different critters. I almost feel there shouldn`t be any hatches in the starting biome but instead there should be a small sandstone biome somewhwere away with shinebugs and hatches.

As for coal i think maybe the wood burners could create a small amont of coal (like 10% of mass burned) but instead you should be able to use sage hatches to get a 100% conversion. Those things are made for this. They eat organics but most organics are low mass and high value. Lumber is perfect food for them.

[Greybear]

 

 

1

8 minutes ago, Sasza22 said:

I like that a different start has different critters. I almost feel there shouldn`t be any hatches in the starting biome..

I agree - I think I should be able to burn lumber to charcoal in the kiln, rather than having access to hatches.

[Nebbie]

I like the idea of bases not being initially reliant on algae deoxidizers a lot. In my opinion, they're too automated compared to plant-based solutions that involve more dupe labor, and the way they directly replace mined material with oxygen without any waste products is rather silly, so the game would be better with them removed. Rust deoxidizer's waste product of chlorine is an extra challenge that I think is a bit more in line with how the game should be.

Of course, I'd also like it if algae terrariums required CO2 and produced algae for mush bars, and I have a feeling Klei won't go that far unless they really decide to switch things over from dirt/algae to focusing on water use.

[Greybear]

1 hour ago, Nebbie said:

I like the idea of bases not being initially reliant on algae deoxidizers a lot. In my opinion, they're too automated compared to plant-based solutions that involve more dupe labor, and the way they directly replace mined material with oxygen without any waste products is rather silly, so the game would be better with them removed. Rust deoxidizer's waste product of chlorine is an extra challenge that I think is a bit more in line with how the game should be.

Of course, I'd also like it if algae terrariums required CO2 and produced algae for mush bars, and I have a feeling Klei won't go that far unless they really decide to switch things over from dirt/algae to focusing on water use.

I agree - the algae terrariums feels too similar to the diffusers. Having them produce algae and require Co2 would be interesting. I like the diffusers are there for a simple solution  - especially since they require a lot of algae and are hardly a viable long term strategy.

[Nebbie]

12 minutes ago, Greybear said:

I agree - the algae terrariums feels too similar to the diffusers. Having them produce more algae and require Co2 would be interesting. I like the diffusers are there for a simple solution  - especially since they require a lot of algae and are hardly a viable long term strategy.

They're viable for an awful long time, which is a bit silly in a game called "Oxygen Not Included". By the way, right now terrariums don't produce algae, they just use it at a very slow rate, which is completely counterintuitive, especially since they already involve so much dupe labor and create a resource problem (eating up water into polluted water).

Oxyferns are interesting because they throw out all the dupe labor and just plain counteract dupe breathing 1 for 1 while requiring water piped in to do it efficiently; they kind of make algae terrariums a joke as far as plant-based starting ways to deal with dupe breathing. I'm somewhat hopeful this is a sign Klei rethought algae terrariums and may actually justify their dupe labor and resource issues with them being a food source instead of an algae sink.

The forest biome overall feels much better designed for how bases start:

• Pips assist in wild-planting, so newer players figure out seeds and bases get initial help, and unlike hatches don't go around eating your resources - them climbing walls might be the real trouble
• Wood makes power much more straightforward than coal or staying on dupe power a long time, while pumping out oodles of CO2 to help on pressure, and it allows for a smooth escalation with wood distilling for ethanol into petroleum generators
• Oxyferns are really straightforward, but don't add pressure like everything else (each domestic one perfectly counters dupe breathing, so pressure stays equal), so you need something as a supplement to be able to go exploring, and still make water an issue
• Food is less abundant early on so it's one of the first problems you encounter, and it's hard to outright skip the microbe musher
• Rust deoxidizers provide an answer to pressure aside of flooding with wood-burning CO2, but leave unwanted chlorine around, making you want to think of ways to contain and use it
• The bad game designweirdness of algae is generally further afield, and there's a bit more reason to break into slime biomes

[Greybear]

 

 

 

4 minutes ago, Nebbie said:

They're viable for an awful long time, which is a bit silly in a game called "Oxygen Not Included". By the way, right now terrariums don't produce algae...

Sorry mistype - forget the "more".

I don't agree with the forest betting a better start biome design-wise, and I still think it needs work, but it definitely gives a different feel than the sandstone one. And after 700 hours in the sandstone one it' a really nice change... Especially since I have a tendency to start new colonies again and again.

[Greybear]

Another note on verdante - I don't like how three of the biomes contain bleach stone. It's great for the waterweeds, but I just feel like there are too many bleachstones scattered all over the place, and would prefer fewer but bigger patches of it.

[metallichydra]

i've recently started a oasisse colony, i kinda like, and kinda dislike the pressure problem / whatever its called. in sandstone, algae diffusiers make pressure go up, but oxyferns dont, which means pressure will go down as you explore. makes breathing hard for your dupes.

[nakomaru]

19 hours ago, Nebbie said:

Terrariums... involve so much dupe labor and create a resource problem (eating up water into polluted water).

Oxyferns are interesting because they throw out all the dupe labor and just plain counteract dupe breathing 1 for 1 while requiring water piped in to do it efficiently; they kind of make algae terrariums a joke as far as plant-based starting ways to deal with dupe breathing.

Domestic Oxyferns basically convert most of the 19kg/cycle of water to oxygen, and destroys 4kg/cycle of dirt. Dirt is plentiful with pips and trees so this is not really an issue especially on forests. Of course wild are essentially free.

Terraria lose no mass (in fact gain under light), and the polluted water can be offgassed on the spot for enormous oxygen production. They are both viable, but terraria are no joke and I prefer them out of the early game options.

[Nebbie]

3 hours ago, nakomaru said:

Domestic Oxyferns basically convert most of the 19kg/cycle of water to oxygen, and destroys 4kg/cycle of dirt. Dirt is plentiful with pips and trees so this is not really an issue especially on forests. Of course wild are essentially free.

Terraria lose no mass (in fact gain under light), and the polluted water can be offgassed on the spot for enormous oxygen production. They are both viable, but terraria are no joke and I prefer them out of the early game options.

Oxyferns are definitely a bit harder to scale, and that's a good thing, but I think it doesn't make much sense to start with terraria when you can just burn algae directly automatically; I only switch some of my oxygen production to them ever, to stretch out algae a little bit, and with how starved my bases can end up for dupe labor, I'm not sure it's even a good idea.

[beowulf2010]

2 minutes ago, Nebbie said:

Oxyferns are definitely a bit harder to scale, and that's a good thing, but I think it doesn't make much sense to start with terraria when you can just burn algae directly automatically; I only switch some of my oxygen production to them ever, to stretch out algae a little bit, and with how starved my bases can end up for dupe labor, I'm not sure it's even a good idea.

The main difference between terrariums and algae diffusers is what end product you are actually going for. 

With diffusers, your end product is the 500g/s of oxygen. 

With terrariums, you end product is polluted water.

If you use terrariums as Neotuck and others do, you are going to leave the polluted water bottles in place and let them offgas through deodorizers for your actual oxygen. Once a system like this has been running for a few cycles, it starts overpressuring your base and eleminates most of the dupe labor you see in the beginning. 

[KittenIsAGeek]

9 hours ago, metallichydra said:

i've recently started a oasisse colony, i kinda like, and kinda dislike the pressure problem / whatever its called. in sandstone, algae diffusiers make pressure go up, but oxyferns dont, which means pressure will go down as you explore. makes breathing hard for your dupes.

Pressure goes down because the oxyferns remove CO2 in order to produce O2.  Then your dupes breath O2 and release a much smaller amount of CO2.  If you balance the right number of ferns to your dupes, you'll have equilibrium and your pressure won't change.  HOWEVER.. that's very tricky.  In almost all cases, you'll end up losing pressure over time because the ferns aren't keeping up with the dupe's breathing in the O2, and the amount of CO2 returned is far smaller than the amount of O2 taken away.  If you have an additional source of CO2, and your ferns are in optimal locations, AND you have enough ferns to produce more oxygen than your dupes will breathe, ... then you'll gain pressure.

With algae terrariums, some CO2 is removed, but its not a requirement to the production of O2.  Which means that even if your terrarium isn't in the right location, if it has water and algae, it'll produce oxygen.  The ferns MUST remove CO2.  If there is no CO2 to remove, no oxygen gets produced.

[Xuhybrid]

With the ability to reroll certain jobs, i tend to start with a Researcher, Farmer and now a Rancher. I usually wanted a Rancher asap but never rolled one at the start. With Pips it's no longer something i can put off until later.

[Wintersdark]

Every Arboreal start I do, I have huge problems with pressure.  I don't even run wood burners (short of maybe very briefly very early when you can run into initial low pressure issues and I want to push up air pressure), but between them, coal, petro generators...  There's so much CO2 generation and limited O2 generation, I end up struggling to produce enough O2 but always producing CO2 in large volume, so base pressures quickly reach over 3000kg/tile, and I feel I have to keep strip-mining down to produce storage space for CO2.  

 

My current playthrough has 7 Carbon Skimmers going 24/7 and I can't get pressure down, while 2/3rds of my base is CO2 over 3k/tile.  I can't say I've ever had an issue with pressure being too *low* with Arboreal starts outside of right at the very start... but a wood burner is an instant solution to pressure being too low for farms and such right from the start.  

[nakomaru]

9 minutes ago, Wintersdark said:

<CO2 issues>

You can pump all of your problems into a room until you are ready to deal with them. Give it a try