Incubator. What is the automation port for?

[Guest aresd]

I don’t quite understand the useful role of the automation port. If you turn off the building through automation, duplicates still continue to put eggs there. What's the point?
Why in the game is an animal sensor that works completely uncomfortable? Why was all this introduced into the game if it does not fulfill the role for which it was created?

Thermosensor bug.sav

[Grimgaw]

1 minute ago, aresd said:

What's the point?

Incubator is only useful for that 5s when your rancher hugs it. Rest of the time it only uses up power to produce heat. You can use automation port to disable it outside of those useful 5s.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Grimgaw said:

Incubator is only useful for that 5s when your rancher hugs it. Rest of the time it only uses up power to produce heat. You can use automation port to disable it outside of those useful 5s.

complete nonsense

[ONIfreak]

4 minutes ago, aresd said:

complete nonsense

Rather than nonsense it is complete saving energy trick. Building has it power requirement and for most ppl connecting it to power is job done. For those who want or need save energy is automation port - to play with it a bit and turn off/on machine on specific situations. 

For the critter sensor - it is not in use for most of the time but (again in specific situations) it really helps - for example for some egg farms or to save your farm ( to open horizontal door preventing drecko going to farm, or to open door just for hatches). 

[SkunkMaster]

motion sensor -> filter (5 secs) -> 3x buffer at 200s -> filter (10 sec) -> not gate -> automation port... enjoy 

 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, ONIfreak said:

Rather than nonsense it is complete saving energy trick. Building has it power requirement and for most ppl connecting it to power is job done. For those who want or need save energy is automation port - to play with it a bit and turn off/on machine on specific situations. 

For the critter sensor - it is not in use for most of the time but (again in specific situations) it really helps - for example for some egg farms or to save your farm ( to open horizontal door preventing drecko going to farm, or to open door just for hatches). 

To save the farm, all this can be done manually if the situation is really critical. As I do now. The automation port is useless, except to create some convenience.

[Grimgaw]

Just now, aresd said:

The automation port is useless, except to create some convenience.

You nailed it.

[Guest]

Just now, SkunkMaster said:

motion sensor -> filter (5 secs) -> 3x buffer at 200s -> filter (10 sec) -> not gate -> automation port... enjoy 

 

I just wanted to automate this by linking to the animal sensor. That is, lay eggs when the population has declined. But it is useless. It's easier to lay eggs on the floor

[SkunkMaster]

Just now, aresd said:

I just wanted to automate this by linking to the animal sensor. That is, lay eggs when the population has declined. But it is useless. It's easier to lay eggs on the floor

using incubators is currently done to increase husbandry, since that's the ONLY way to increase the skill currently.

[cblack]

1 hour ago, Grimgaw said:

Incubator is only useful for that 5s when your rancher hugs it. Rest of the time it only uses up power to produce heat. You can use automation port to disable it outside of those useful 5s.

Uhh, I believe it still needs to be powered for well after they hug it, or you don't get the buff.  I could be wrong though.

I just leave mine powered 24/7.

[Grimgaw]

46 minutes ago, cblack said:

I could be wrong though.

You are.

[Lafara]

question : Do any rancher goes to ,automaton:OFF, incubator to lullaby egg in the first place ?

 

same goes to Electrical engineer never do engine tune up in ,automaton:OFF, power plant.

[Rhogar]

1 hour ago, Lafara said:

question : Do any rancher goes to ,automaton:OFF, incubator to lullaby egg in the first place ?

 

same goes to Electrical engineer never do engine tune up in ,automaton:OFF, power plant.

I'll give this a shot, but your question isn't clear; if the incubator is off due to automation, ranchers will still deliver eggs and remove hatchlings.  They will be unable to lullaby the eggs for faster faster growth.  I'd the egg has already received a lullaby it will stay until it naturally ends.

[Nebbie]

What I do is the following:

1. Critter sensor set to below some number of critters (generally the ranch's max amount).
2. Clock set to some time works best for the rancher and 5% duration.
3. And gate taking those as input.
4. Incubator taking the and gate as input set to priority 9 with the egg for that ranch.
5. Egg cracker somewhere set below priority 9 with cracking that egg forever.

This saves on both power and dupe labor using minimal automation and makes the ranch run itself without having extra rooms to starve or drown things (not necessarily ideal, but simple to setup). You used to need a not gate on the critter sensor, but the most recent update has given them better settings, just note they'll be a little noisy due to a bug. Also, 5% might be too little if your dupes have a lot to do, especially because of how long grooming takes, but even 50% is effectively halving the crazy power usage of an incubator (which also puts out tons of heat btw).

[Lilalaunekuh]

7 hours ago, SkunkMaster said:

motion sensor -> filter (5 secs) -> 3x buffer at 200s -> filter (10 sec) -> not gate -> automation port... enjoy 

I prefer a weight plate [1] under the left incubator tile and just 2x (buffer gates set to 200s) [2].

 

[1] => If I don´t have a use for the egg shells anymore, the incubator will turn off aswell.

[2] => I value the husbandry skill increase over power saving so to handle eggs which already have some incubation.

 

[If you want to go real fancy:

- A motion sensor to detect duplicants and turn off the incubator after the lullaby.

- A weight plate under the left tile of the incubator to reactivate the incubator after a egg shell dropped. ]

[cblack]

On 8/22/2019 at 1:08 PM, Grimgaw said:

You are.

Heh, it doesn't really matter though.  By the time I even consider building an incubator I have epic thermal control and power production, so the power 'wasted' and heat generated are irrelevant.  The time it takes a dupe to hug it is the only thing one should really consider, and only if you play with low dupe counts as I do.

While it's not one of those buildings I literally never build, it's just on the cusp.  And even then, I usually build one for a little bit and then get rid of it later on.

[ruhrohraggy]

Oddly, this is one of those things that actually reflect real life incubators.

The game mechanic of allowing the dupe to hug the egg and then automating the incubator off seems unintended and kinda lame, but I feel there's some room for creativity with it.

However, I don't like the power on = egg bonus. It seems really boring...

I know the "but in IRL" argument is asinine...but have you ever incubated anything IRL? (I used to raise bearded dragons before their price tanked)

Incubators are well insulated devices that strictly maintain an ideal temperature. Usually an incubator is not powered 24/7 once an ideal temp has been reached, as the insulation does a good job of regulating temps.

What would be fun, and fix this glaring oversight...is if each egg in ONI had an ideal incubation temperature, and you had to set up your incubator accordingly.

The power supplied to the incubator would either refrigerate, or heat the specified egg to it's ideal temperature, and the temperature on the outside of the incubator including what the incubator was made from, would dictate how often it had to run.

I.E. : You setup a molten slickster incubator in a normal room, it's gonna take some power and generate some heat to get the eggs up to happy molten slickster temps. But if you stick the incubator in a hot room, then it takes less power to manage it, while still giving a dupe the opportunity to lullaby the egg.

If an egg is at it's ideal temperature range, then it receives it's incubation bonus. This means you could incubate eggs outside of an incubator in a controlled room, but they would not receive a "lullaby" buff. Makes the whole "Incubator needs power for bonus" thing a little less gamey, and a little more natural.

The game already keeps track of egg temperatures and wildness, I don't see this being hard thing to implement either. As soon as temp is outside the eggs preferred temp range, viability begins dropping to 0. For balance sake, could probably curb this effect for eggs with wildness 100%, and only apply it to eggs with wildness 0%.

As far as current incubators are concerned, I only really find them useful when kick-starting a critter population. Once you have a healthy critter population going, they feel pretty much useless. 

They are quite useful for speeding up shine-bug breeding...But I don't really like shinebugs. I know they can be neat...I just don't like them.