Some game related questions from a noob

[AliVaja]

So, have been backer of the game since alpha, and have returned to the game a couple of times during early access. Still a massive noob though.

I have couple of questions that arose from me playing Launch Preview.

1. There is this annoying thing with Refinery (one that makes steel). When you put hot water in (50C), the immediate pipe on output always bursts. It is the only pipe that bursts. Everything else is fine. Even the ceramic pipe breaks immediately. Why is this? Is this a bug or is there some sort of explanation to this?

2. I'm 300+ cycles in and the amount dupes spend on travel time is between 50%-55%. What sort of travel time is acceptable at this point? What are your best ways to reduce travel time?

3. At what cycle do you normally launch your first space rocket?

[SamLogan]

12 minutes ago, AliVaja said:

So, have been backer of the game since alpha, and have returned to the game a couple of times during early access. Still a massive noob though.

I have couple of questions that arose from me playing Launch Preview.

1. There is this annoying thing with Refinery (one that makes steel). When you put hot water in (50C), the immediate pipe on output always bursts. It is the only pipe that bursts. Everything else is fine. Even the ceramic pipe breaks immediately. Why is this? Is this a bug or is there some sort of explanation to this?

2. I'm 300+ cycles in and the amount dupes spend on travel time is between 50%-55%. What sort of travel time is acceptable at this point? What are your best ways to reduce travel time?

3. At what cycle do you normally launch your first space rocket?

1. Your pipe breaks because the water has turned to steam and when a fluid have a state change (liquid -> gas) in the pipe, it breaks it. Notes, the refinery add some heat to the coolant so use polluted water or crude oil that have higher temperature state change. And don't loop the coolant until you don't have more experience with the game.

2. To reduce travel time, you have to use the tubes and maybe optimize your tasks to avoid too much round trip.

3. Shorter I did was cycle 100, but normally, I would say arount cycle 500-700 anyway it's not an emergency. Take your time to develop your surface first with the solar pannel and the bunker door before.

 

[Saturnus]

6 minutes ago, AliVaja said:

So, have been backer of the game since alpha, and have returned to the game a couple of times during early access. Still a massive noob though.

I have couple of questions that arose from me playing Launch Preview.

1. There is this annoying thing with Refinery (one that makes steel). When you put hot water in (50C), the immediate pipe on output always bursts. It is the only pipe that bursts. Everything else is fine. Even the ceramic pipe breaks immediately. Why is this? Is this a bug or is there some sort of explanation to this?

2. I'm 300+ cycles in and the amount dupes spend on travel time is between 50%-55%. What sort of travel time is acceptable at this point? What are your best ways to reduce travel time?

3. At what cycle do you normally launch your first space rocket?

1) Pipes break if the element in them gets hot enough to state change. In this case you output water is above 100C so the output is effectively a gas (steam), not a liquid (water).

2) Metal tiles, fire poles (for going down), plastic ladders, and transport tubes (for going up) reduces travel time. Other than that you just have to optimize your set up so long journeys are avoided as much as possible.

3) Typically I don't bother with rocketry as I find it boring but if I do then before cycle 300.

[SamLogan]

14 minutes ago, AliVaja said:

At what cycle do you normally launch your first space rocket?

In fact, it's not about a cycle but rather when you're in a stance that your base is perfectly stable (electricity, food, oxygen, cooling, etc.) because when you will be on the surface, you will focus on it and you need a base self-governing.

[SakuraKoi]

30 minutes ago, AliVaja said:

What are your best ways to reduce travel time?

Avoid having too many dupes doing the same task, especially in terms of building, build supply and digging. They take each others jobs away and end up darting all over the place since they do their 2nd possible task when the 1st is not available (because somebody else wants to do it) and when it is available, they walk back, making the other unable to fulfill the task and do something else meanwhile.

One can see how long it takes to build a free hanging row of tiles and one just above ground. The prior gets built two at a time (supply, then built, after that back to supply) while the latter gets built as it is supplied, often 4 tiles at a time and no one getting into each others way/having to wait for anyone for they also tend to supply themselves. 

20 dupes do not get 2 times the work done as 10. Some jobs are not affected when there are enough stations available but builders and diggers? Nope. You can at the very most draft more builders for when you renovate a space and can dig everything but otherwise, one for each shift is enough while for digging more than two for each shift can and will reduce efficiency to the point where less would get done more.

[nakomaru]

Just getting ready for my first steam rocket this map.

[Oozinator]

5 minutes ago, nakomaru said:

Just getting ready for my first steam rocket this map.

Change your title to "addicted" ^^
@nakomarucan you share your kitchen / storage setup?
 

[nakomaru]

Ingredients on the right (many paths coming in from the outside), finished products in the middle (from loader on the right).

Chlorine in the kitchen is pointless once you use the range, unless you build a pump too.

[Junksteel]

12 minutes ago, nakomaru said:

Just getting ready for my first steam rocket this map.

12.000 cycles?

We, that's something else. What about that bug around cycle 8000 that stretches day/night cycle until dupes die from starvation even with plenty of food? Is it fixed?

Also, what you have to say about performance? I see you have only 3 dupes... Are you doing fine?

I'm currently playing with only 4 precisely because of performance in late game.

[avc15]

1 hour ago, SamLogan said:

Notes, the refinery add some heat to the coolant so use polluted water or crude oil that have higher temperature state change. And don't loop the coolant until you don't have more experience with the game.

FWIW it seems that the refinery is smart enough to increase its coolant volume for steel production now. The delta T with regular water is only about 60C, so just make sure you're using cool water.

A refinery full of Pwater at least used to off-gas like a big bottle of pwater on the deck, that always tickled my OCD the wrong way.

[nakomaru]

Never seen time dilation happen.

Three dupes is part of the long term plan to maintain performance. At 3x speed which is unbearably slow, I get 60fps. At 10x I get 35-50 depending on how idle my dupes are.

I cut off parts of the map that I'm not using and  fill in a little bit with solid tiles when I can.

Off gassing refineries was fixed. A few of us built oxygen production using refineries before it got fixed.

[Oozinator]

2 hours ago, nakomaru said:

Ingredients on the right (many paths coming in from the outside), finished products in the middle (from loader on the right).

Chlorine in the kitchen is pointless once you use the range, unless you build a pump too.

Ah nice i use similar sys, but my dining room is not filled with chlorine. TY for sharing

[AliVaja]

3 hours ago, SakuraKoi said:

20 dupes do not get 2 times the work done as 10. Some jobs are not affected when there are enough stations available but builders and diggers? Nope. You can at the very most draft more builders for when you renovate a space and can dig everything but otherwise, one for each shift is enough while for digging more than two for each shift can and will reduce efficiency to the point where less would get done more.

I have never messed with the different shifts. Didn't ever see the point of it. But is that something that I should look in to, to improve efficiency?

[SakuraKoi]

17 minutes ago, AliVaja said:

I have never messed with the different shifts. Didn't ever see the point of it. But is that something that I should look in to, to improve efficiency?

The less dupes vie over a task, the better and obviously, you will have something be worked on over the whole cycle instead of having it rest during break&sleep times of which the prior has to be extended later to achieve proper morale. Technically one could just double everything, it especially makes sense for metal refineries which have to resupply but one can reduce the number of lavatories and showers drastically.

Shifts primarily make sense for builders and diggers precisely because you can't just have a large amount of orders which will just make things get done slower (dig two at the right edge, dig two at the left edge, back to the right edge, two dupes are taking each others job). Especially when you want to surface, the team better not gets a sunburn and instead has break+sleep time.

[Lurve]

1 hour ago, AliVaja said:

I have never messed with the different shifts. Didn't ever see the point of it. But is that something that I should look in to, to improve efficiency?

Yes.

It is very useful to have someone awake and ready to respond to a critical task at any time of day. 

It also really simplifies bathrooms.  Even a three-shift schedule (day/swing/night) means each toilet can support three dupes instead of one.

Personally I use twelve shifts, each offset by two blocks.