Oxygen generation?

[GoHereDoThis]

I started playing during beta and when I started, terrariums weren't a good idea..... then they were.  Are they still the best way to generate oxygen?  I know there's a plant now that converts CO2 to O2 in exchange for H20, whereas a terrarium takes algae and H20, so I just wonder if it's still the best to be making a terrarium setup?

Thanks!

[Chthonicone]

3 minutes ago, GoHereDoThis said:

I started playing during beta and when I started, terrariums weren't a good idea..... then they were.  Are they still the best way to generate oxygen?  I know there's a plant now that converts CO2 to O2 in exchange for H20, whereas a terrarium takes algae and H20, so I just wonder if it's still the best to be making a terrarium setup?

Thanks!

They've never been a good way to create O2. What they are is a power free way to deal with CO2 that produces some O2 on the side. They require a ton of algae though to do so and shouldn't be relied upon for long.

The problem is if you don't store away, vent, or otherwise deal with CO2, is it builds up and chokes out the base making it impossible to create O2 to breathe, as O2 production systems stop when the pressure goes above 2 kg.

[PhailRaptor]

31 minutes ago, Chthonicone said:

What they are is a power free way to deal with CO2 that produces some O2 on the side. They require a ton of algae though to do so and shouldn't be relied upon for long.

This statement is backwards.  They produce O2, and then if it is present will negate a bit of CO2.

And for the record, they are the strongest of the low tech oxygen production methods, but not in isolation.  It is the P-H2O bottles they produce that are the winner, through the Deodorizer, that makes tremendous volumes of O2.  They can easily over-pressurize your base.

[suicide commando]

36 minutes ago, PhailRaptor said:

This statement is backwards.  They produce O2, and then if it is present will negate a bit of CO2.

And for the record, they are the strongest of the low tech oxygen production methods, but not in isolation.  It is the P-H2O bottles they produce that are the winner, through the Deodorizer, that makes tremendous volumes of O2.  They can easily over-pressurize your base.

Actually, they're more efficient than the Algae deoxidizer when it comes to howmuch O2 they produce in relation to howmuch algae they consume.
They just require more dupe labor than the deoxidizer. The fact that the pH2O offgassing is actually the main kicker is true though. in the beginning, 3 terrariums will not produce a lot of O2, but once a few cycles have passed and the bottles start piling up that's when the real O2 production begins.

And it's all more or less power free ( 10W for a lamp to produce a little more O2 is worth it )
 

[Chthonicone]

2 hours ago, suicide commando said:

Actually, they're more efficient than the Algae deoxidizer when it comes to howmuch O2 they produce in relation to howmuch algae they consume.
They just require more dupe labor than the deoxidizer. The fact that the pH2O offgassing is actually the main kicker is true though. in the beginning, 3 terrariums will not produce a lot of O2, but once a few cycles have passed and the bottles start piling up that's when the real O2 production begins.

And it's all more or less power free ( 10W for a lamp to produce a little more O2 is worth it )
 

Have the numbers been tweaked a bit since I last really used algae? I swear it used to cost more algae than O2 in grams than it produced.

Anyways, it actually requires a lot of dupe labor to plumb them for that polluted water, close to 30 seconds each, similar to latrines, and since they produce 44 g/s O2 instead of 550, you'd need ~13 for the same effect, and that's about 6.5 minutes of plumbing every so often. Since they make 290.33 g/s of polluted water, I'm not exactly sure how often they need to be plumbed. Having your O2 get shut down because you need to perform a life support/tidying task is not very nice.

Also, the fact that they require less power is overruled if you want your water back. There are some asteroids where you wouldn't want to spend all your water on O2.

[beowulf2010]

If you are looking at the Terrarium in isolation, yeah, they kind of suck. 

The key to using Terrariums correctly is that they exist to convert bottles of clean water into bottled polluted water, just like the low tech sinks. Making oxygen and eliminating CO2 are side effects.

If you leave the polluted water bottles and let them stack up, the amount of polluted oxygen you get from the bottles and subsequently cleaned with deodorizers is insanely awesome.

In fact, if you don't plan ahead and have a way to shut off the Terrariums (build them on horizontal airlock doors) you'll soon overpressure your entire base. I generally use 14 at the bottom of my sandstone base starts and that's more than enough oxygen for 8 dupes, 8 exosuits and will expand out into the rest of the asteroid giving at least a full screen worth of pure oxygen both above and below my base exits. 

[Chthonicone]

8 minutes ago, beowulf2010 said:

If you are looking at the Terrarium in isolation, yeah, they kind of suck. 

The key to using Terrariums correctly is that they exist to convert bottles of clean water into bottled polluted water, just like the low tech sinks. Making oxygen and eliminating CO2 are side effects.

If you leave the polluted water bottles and let them stack up, the amount of polluted oxygen you get from the bottles and subsequently cleaned with deodorizers is insanely awesome.

In fact, if you don't plan ahead and have a way to shut off the Terrariums (build them on horizontal airlock doors) you'll soon overpressure your entire base. I generally use 14 at the bottom of my sandstone base starts and that's more than enough oxygen for 8 dupes, 8 exosuits and will expand out into the rest of the asteroid giving at least a full screen worth of pure oxygen both above and below my base exits. 

I did mention that all of that is out of the window if you can't afford that amount of water to be wasted.

[mathmanican]

30 minutes ago, Chthonicone said:

if you can't afford that amount of water to be wasted.

This thread ought to get you started.

 

You'll find several more like it.

[suicide commando]

They haven't been tweaked, they've been this efficient for a long time now.
They use 30g/s of algae and produce 40(+4) g/s of O2. An oxygen diffuser uses 550g/s of algae and produces 500g/s of O2. So the terrariums are far more efficient in terms of algae consumption as well as not requiring as much power. ( 10W for 7 of them, vs 120W for 1 diffuser )
The only downside is their water consumption at 300g/s, but producing 290g/s of pH2O which you can offgas and deodorize for more O2 production that doesn't require power or cooling, and is very low tech as well as easy to construct.

If Algae isn't in short supply, and water is, the diffuser is better obviously, however, if you have access to a good water supply, some terrariums to supplement your diffuser and later on take over through the pO2 offgas is very useful.
 

[beowulf2010]

2 hours ago, Chthonicone said:

I did mention that all of that is out of the window if you can't afford that amount of water to be wasted.

Which is why I specifically stated sandstone starts. 

And the water isn't wasted. It's converted to oxygen at an even better ratio than the beloved electrolizer. 

[Chthonicone]

5 minutes ago, beowulf2010 said:

Which is why I specifically stated sandstone starts. 

And the water isn't wasted. It's converted to oxygen at an even better ratio than the beloved electrolizer. 

Wasted in my book if I got none left for tech. Arboria can get that strict where you hunt for water just for tech.

[nakomaru]

Yep, most players know that terraria have had the best conversion rates in the game since they were updated to produce pH2O. Even better than the diffuser when converting pure algae and reusing your water.

[avc15]

Terrariums also produce quite a lot of O2 per dupe errand. Something on the order of 80kg/errand in the long run, if you actually automate for PO2 offgassing and prevent bottles from being dumped out.  That's looking at all the errands it takes to maintain them. Also if you're setting up for offgassing, you get around 10kg of O2 per 1kg of algae. They make algae a resource that you can get by on for the first 3000 cycles or so.

Ferns are great, they don't take algae and are just about as water efficient, and, you can make them fully automated. But they're a limited resource.

 

 

[beowulf2010]

9 hours ago, Chthonicone said:

Wasted in my book if I got none left for tech. Arboria can get that strict where you hunt for water just for tech.

... Do I really need to repeat myself a third time about the sandstone start? Arboria is a forest start. Yes, terreraiums aren't great on forest starts because of the limited starting water. 

[Chthonicone]

2 minutes ago, beowulf2010 said:

... Do I really need to repeat myself a third time about the sandstone start? Arboria is a forest start. Yes, terreraiums aren't great on forest starts because of the limited starting water. 

You made 3 statements, I commented on one. You claimed it wasn't wasted. That part is what I commented on.

Are you really trying to start an argument over it? I wasn't, just pointing out my stance for other people to understand that water isn't always the best for O2 production.

[GoHereDoThis]

I probably should've stated I'm starting in the normal asteroid, none of those fancy-shmancy release-day asteroids.

So aside from schooling @Chthonicone on how useful terrariums are (yeah, I use NeoTuck's design!), is there a better way of generating O2?  For reference, in two of my bases, I could not produce enough CO2 for it to rise to the level of my terrariums.  Either that or the terrariums eat it right away before it could build up fast enough.  It's gotten to the point that I pump in CO2 from my power generator rooms into my main base with the vent right over the terrariums just to get more CO2 in my main base.

My biggest issue for now is that on both bases, I get distracted with other projects that I neglect digging out the map and eventually run out of sand, so I'm left with some dupes having to turn some rock into sand.  Not a big deal if terrariums are still the best way to generate O2.... again, considering I am talking about the normal asteroid (Terra).

Some follow up questions tho:

1.  What is over-pressure level?  I can set my atmo sensor to 4000 and sure enough the terraium can hit that pressure!  I tend to generate enough O2 to fill my entire main base, then turn off the terrariums for a while and let the pressure go down.

2.  At what pressure do dupes get the popped eardrums effect?

3.  How do I clear out the PO2 bottles that have accumulated but are no longer off-gassing, but still leaving the ones that do off-gas?

[zOldBulldog]

45 minutes ago, GoHereDoThis said:

I probably should've stated I'm starting in the normal asteroid, none of those fancy-shmancy release-day asteroids.

So aside from schooling @Chthonicone on how useful terrariums are (yeah, I use NeoTuck's design!), is there a better way of generating O2?  For reference, in two of my bases, I could not produce enough CO2 for it to rise to the level of my terrariums.  Either that or the terrariums eat it right away before it could build up fast enough.  It's gotten to the point that I pump in CO2 from my power generator rooms into my main base with the vent right over the terrariums just to get more CO2 in my main base.

My biggest issue for now is that on both bases, I get distracted with other projects that I neglect digging out the map and eventually run out of sand, so I'm left with some dupes having to turn some rock into sand.  Not a big deal if terrariums are still the best way to generate O2.... again, considering I am talking about the normal asteroid (Terra).

Some follow up questions tho:

1.  What is over-pressure level?  I can set my atmo sensor to 4000 and sure enough the terraium can hit that pressure!  I tend to generate enough O2 to fill my entire main base, then turn off the terrariums for a while and let the pressure go down.

2.  At what pressure do dupes get the popped eardrums effect?

3.  How do I clear out the PO2 bottles that have accumulated but are no longer off-gassing, but still leaving the ones that do off-gas?

My suggestions:

- Early on put 3 Oxygen diffusers in a small and sealed confined room, with 2 gas pumps to extract the generated O2.  Maybe put a storage unit dedicated to algae outside the room so that the dupes don't make a bunch of small trips to load the diffusers.  Will generate 1000g/s of O2 (the capacity of one pipe, and enough for about 10 dupes)

- Later on replace that room with a 2-electrolizer SPOM.  You can even feed it 60C water from a cool steam vent.  Again, it will generate 1000g/s of O2.

- For cooling the O2, for the first 100-300 cycles you can cool the O2 generated by either of the above methods in a tiny room with 3-5 wheezeworts radiant pipe and temp shift plate.  It will cool even the O2 from that electrolized 60C water to around 20-22C.  Be careful, depending on what you are feeding it your O2 can come out even as low as 10-15C, but if so just unplant some wheezeworts until it stabilizes at the temp you want.

- Deliver the cool O2 via pipes to several locations around your base (maybe near each of the 4 corners).

- Do remember that long pipes made of materials that are originally hot will take time to cool down, so if you are pumping the O2 to the opposite side of your base the 22C O2 can arrive at destination at around 26C easily.

- Of course, much later you will be using more sophisticated methods of cooling water and O2.

 

I hope that gives you some practical ideas.

[SpreadsheetGamr]

18 hours ago, suicide commando said:

They haven't been tweaked, they've been this efficient for a long time now.

The polluted water output was introduced somewhere mid 2018 I believe.  There were other changes late 2018.  Not saying this isn't a long time, but just for reference.

[avc15]

"better" all depends on design objectives.

Terrariums take errands, mostly emptying the terrariums is the only errand that can't be automated. Picking up clay & delivering filtration medium to deodorizers can be automated with sweepers, & watering is easy without a pitcher pump. So if plumbing out the pwater is the only errand, it's about 1 errand per 300 kg of pwater in the long run. In the long run, about 350 kg of PO2 per errand (though there's a substantial ramp time so when you start it up, it's much more). A bit less because your dupes will steal errands from sweepers.  That's 1 errand per 5 dupes per cycle, though dupe inefficiency will push that up a lot unless you're really careful about priorities.

Ferns - can be almost fully automated, but they're limited & use water.

Deoxidizers - produce precious iron ore, can be fully automated, don't use water, but require cooling & use a limited resource as input.

Electrolyzers - produce precious H2, can be fully automated, but require cooling & use water.

There is no best, it's all about design objectives & what tech/materials you have available.

(edit: edit: edit: edit: math is hard.)

[GoHereDoThis]

23 hours ago, zOldBulldog said:

My suggestions:

- Early on put 3 Oxygen diffusers in a small and sealed confined room, with 2 gas pumps to extract the generated O2.  Maybe put a storage unit dedicated to algae outside the room so that the dupes don't make a bunch of small trips to load the diffusers.  Will generate 1000g/s of O2 (the capacity of one pipe, and enough for about 10 dupes)

 

Can you explain this a bit more?  Why put in a small room and not just in the base itself?  I'd save power by not using pumps.

[zOldBulldog]

1 hour ago, GoHereDoThis said:

Can you explain this a bit more?  Why put in a small room and not just in the base itself?  I'd save power by not using pumps.

Three reasons:

- First, because an oxygen diffuser in the base generates heat.  You don't want to create (or import) heat in the base if you can avoid it.

- Second, because by having the output of the 3 diffusers in a pipe, it is easy to route it to the cooling unit (the box with wheezeworts, or much later in the game something aquatuner and steam turbine based).   That way the oxygen that goes to the base is already cool.

- Third, because you can reuse that cooling room when you replace your diffuser setup with a SPOM (self-powered oxygen module that basically converts water into o2 and even makes a little extra power... without consuming algie at all) you can simply reuse the cooling box.  In my case I built the diffuser setup over the cooling setup, then when I built the spom... it went under the cooling, with the gas generation portion to the side, and eventually I removed the diffuser setup.

 

Another advantage of pipes is that you can feed a lot of stuff.  For example, I routed it around the perimeter of my base, and setup gas shutoffs so that I only fed the corners when the atmo pressure was under 1800, that way the oxygen went everywhere and never overpressurized any area.  I was also able to feed it to my exosuit units directly.  All very convenient.

 

I found some screenshots I had saved.  The diffuser box is exactly the same width, with 3 diffusers on the left, 2 pumps (one over the other) on the right, and an atmo sensor so that the pumps run only when the pressure is over 800.  The two temp sensors and shutoffs in the screenshots are so that I could make the gas exit if the temperature dropped to my desired value (22C) early in the pipes... and it did, even with just 3 wheezeworts!!!  The tempshift plates and radiant pipe segments are all just copper or iron (I can't remember).