Super Simple Airlock

[kkirkfield]

Here's a super simple vacuum airlock I made to keep really hot and cold areas insulated.

1. Dupe steps on plate triggering the automation.
2. First filter gate is the delay before the automation continues. This can be used to wait before closing the door if the dupe will be entering and then leaving quickly. I use 5 seconds here, but anything will work.
3. The door starts closing and the second filter gate waits for the door to close. This time depends on whether the doors are powered or not. I'm using 5 seconds on unpowered doors.
4. The door starts opening to create a vacuum and the third filter gate waits for the door to open. Similar to the above 5 seconds. The timing of this one matters the most, if it is too short then the weight of the door will still be activating the set port when the reset port gets activated. 5 seconds for unpowered doors is working good for me.
5. Standby signal resets the system keeping the door open for the next dupe to pass.

 

Because of the gas deletion it probably isn't that great for the main base because it will delete your oxygen, but for temperature critical areas that aren't visited much it seems to be working good.

 

[Kipchak]

 

What will happen if the doll drops something on the button?

[srvs]

Cool but can't you do it much simpler with pressure plates below door 1 and 3 and an AND gate with its output to door 2?

[abud]

Thank you for sharing your build, better than me who didn't have the courage (or just lazy to think about words) to "publish" most of my build. But you might want to know how to improve it even better, don't you? An old conversation about this comes into mind

Here is the pic

 

The main issue for these kinds of airlock is break pathing. Once middle door closed, any errand of other dupes that via that doors (other than the one that crossing) will be invalidated. No matter how fast close and open again.

[kkirkfield]

5 hours ago, Kipchak said:

 

What will happen if the doll drops something on the button?

I haven't tested that, but I would think it would cycle 1 extra time and push any material out similar to door conveyors.

 

4 hours ago, abud said:

Thank you for sharing your build, better than me who didn't have the courage (or just lazy to think about words) to "publish" most of my build. But you might want to know how to improve it even better, don't you? An old conversation about this comes into mind

Here is the pic

 

The main issue for these kinds of airlock is break pathing. Once middle door closed, any errand of other dupes that via that doors (other than the one that crossing) will be invalidated. No matter how fast close and open again.

Wow, now that's simple. I thought it would have issues with one door not opening before the other door closed, causing the middle door to never close. Seems to work perfectly though. There is a split second where both are open and cause the middle to close.

The only downside to that build compared to the one I showed is that once the dupe gets into the room they have to wait for the middle door to cycle before they can leave. I'm using a filter in mine to wait before closing the middle door so that they can enter and leave multiple times without waiting.

I'll definitely consider using that build

 

[Yunru]

I'm afraid it doesn't actually work as an airlock, as gas will flow through with the dupe (unless maybe pressure is high on both sides).

It does make an effective thermal lock though.

[nakomaru]

Here's my take. Make sure bottom is >2kg naphtha so it is immune to off-gassing. (Center will not be, you can make it a door like the OP if it is likely to happen.)

[isendel11]

3 hours ago, nakomaru said:

Here's my take. Make sure bottom is >2kg naphtha so it is immune to off-gassing. (Center will not be, you can make it a door like the OP if it is likely to happen.)

Noob question, how do you make those 2x1 columns of liquid? Do you need something that you remove after to build them, e.g. airflow tiles, or is it a property of the specific material used? So far I've only used the standard liquid locks, the ones with the V shape.

[nakomaru]

I use bottle emptiers. Drop the denser liquid first with mesh tiles in the spots where you don't want liquid. Then drop the next one. You can keep stacking them as long as you have different liquids.

If you build them next to normal tiles and want to remove the tiles later, the surface tension will disrupt their order. Instead, build airflow tiles in their place, then deconstruct the airflow tiles.

[Heister]

I can't avoid thinking that there's something wrong with the game when, in a game about environment control, the best way to prevent gas flow is using a "feature" where liquid functions in a completely unrealistic way...

All the other airlocks come with disadvantages and are much worse to build.

Klei should really just add an airlock building/door.

[mathmanican]

5 minutes ago, nakomaru said:

surface tension will disrupt their order

If you remove the neighboring tiles starting at the top and working down, this issue resolves itself without liquid disruption. If you remove the bottom tile first, then you definitely see the liquids displace themselves . I haven't done this with naptha (I loved your screenshot), but with all other liquids my experience shows me that regular tiles work just fine, provided you remove neighboring tiles top first. 

4 minutes ago, Heister said:

in a game about environment control,

In a game about environmental control, where only one element is allowed to occupy each tile, really bizarre things can and do happen. Remove the one element per tile rule, and ONI will be a very different game. Maybe we'll see this as a DLC some day. 

[nakomaru]

Nice, that does work.

One element per tile is unintuitive and weird. Quantum mechanics is kind of like this. Why should glass be transparent to the visible spectrum? Because the glass needs too much energy to absorb one photon. So all the photons get through. Same idea with superconductors.

In ONI, our space is quantized.

[abud]

2 hours ago, nakomaru said:

One element per tile is unintuitive and weird.

I would say it is a simulation game limitation by design. One element per tile is intended because no one can imitate the real world without limitation. And making good use of the intended game mechanics is... creative. I use common V-type waterlock in most places, some standing waterlock, and rarely using door type (only on very specific build).

However, we completely aware that we just making good use of current game mechanics. Which can easily broken if they change that mechanic, or adding a new one that can interfere with our technique. For example, making gas can push liquid horizontally when they have twice bigger mass. But, fear not. Because we (probably @mathmanican among the first) will come-up with good use of it, something like new thread "MagmaBlower - moving magma by gas pressure".

Nothing wrong with asking Klei to make full airlock building, and I support it. But, if we asking with the argument because we can make waterlock, that's a bit off. Similiar thing with we can regulate pool of water to 20C by dropping bunch of critter eggs on it, so Klei should make this less tedious by making tepidizer can be set value to 20C and cool/warm it accordingly? I don't think so.

[Yunru]

1 hour ago, abud said:

Nothing wrong with asking Klei to make full airlock building, and I support it.

We already have one. It's 11x6 (you can make it smaller, but that actually makes it take longer to empty) and takes 2 mechanised doors, 2 mechanical doors, 4 duplicant checkpoints, 10 small air pumps, 2 atmo sensors, 1 AND gate, and some wiring.

[nakomaru]

Great points as always abud. I can't wait to see that magma blower. I hope it was clear I wasn't suggesting we shouldn't use tile physics. I meant tile physics is weird just like real physics.