Bootstrap Oxygen Module

[zOldBulldog]

No rocket science here, just a simple an very low tech oxygen generation device for beginners.

WHAT:

• A self-contained module to generate oxygen before you transition to mid-game  oxygen generation methods.  Insulated, so you can place it anywhere inside or outside your base.  My two favorite places for it are either at the center-top of the base or near the place where the atmosuit docks are.
• Generates enough cool 16C Oxygen for about 9 duplicants and also fill atmosuits.  Aprox 1000g/s via a pipe.
• Relies on early tech and materials:  The materials are all copper (ore or refined), igneous rock and standstone.  For devices it relies on simple tech like the Oxygen Diffuser, wheezeworts, pumps, filters, tempshift plate, atmo sensor and sock crusher.  Cautious exploration should yield those materials even without atmo suits.  Consumes algae and phosphorite in small quantities.
• Half a standard 4x16 room, or place two back to back in a 4x16 room. 

WHY:

• To avoid heating up your base with hot oxygen production and to fill your exosuits when you first start using them. 
• Delivering the oxygen in pipes lets you place it wherever it is most needed.
• Buys you enough time to build proper oxygen generation "the right way" (maybe a full Rodriguez 3-full pipes SPOM for up to 30 dupes and cooling using a Steam Turbine and Thermo Aquatuner) instead of hopping between less efficient methods, especially while you are still learning how to do those things.
• If you use a gas shutoff and atmo sensor at the places you put your vents will let you avoid overpressurizing your base.  For example I will not feed oxygen into my base if the O2 pressure is already 1800g.

WHEN:

• Most likely you will build this once you need a 2nd oxygen diffuser or maybe when you are ready to start using exosuits.

And finally... HOW:

As you can see, nothing hard. 

• Pipes inside the module are copper radiant pipe.  Tempshift plate is also copper.  All of the wiring is copper.
• Pipes outside the module and the insulated tile is igneous rock from your nearest caustic biome.
• Wheezeworts are from the nearest cold biome (usually a short distance from the corners of your base).
• The atmo sensor is set to Above 1500, to ensure that the pumps grab full or nearly full packets of oxygen.
• The gas filter is needed to evacuate the initial gasses inside the module, and to evacuate the occasional CO2 left by your dupes as they come to refill the supply.  The selected gas is oxygen and the rest is vented (either locally as in the screenshot or anywhere convenient).

 

I hope you find this useful.

[BLACKBERREST3]

But who's gonna feed the fishes 

If you already have the gas pump, then just get the liquid pump and the electrolyzer too. You can get rid of the deoxidizer way before you get atmosuits or even refined metal for that matter. Cooling doesn't even seem to be an issue during this phase, which is usually around 10-20 cycles in the start. I haven't played on extremely hot maps yet, but I have seen people on youtube do it. There is enough time to get done with the basics of research first. francis john mentions in one of his vids starting with +7 dupes to speed up digging and researching.

I mentioned another way to cool your base early game without gas pumps in another your other thread. The filter in your design is unnecessary power being wasted, especially if you have shutoffs or valves already.

ah, realized you created another thread, Just post in that same thread @zOldBulldog

 

35 minutes ago, zOldBulldog said:

sock crusher

heh, sock crusher 

[Majestix]

In fact the pumps are also a waste of power. There is no functional difference between this setup and producing the oxygen right in your base and having 3 wheezeorts there. The only difference is that this way you waste 600W.
Edit: ..., not to mention precious dupe running time.

[zOldBulldog]

Yes, if you are dumping the O2 into the base you don't need the filter.

On the other hand if you are trying to feed an atmosuit dock or for some reason you are filling a pipe that you need to trust that it contains only O2 the you need a filter or you'll end up with broken equipment. 

Of course, if you set this module outside the base (with only access while wearing an exosuit) and purge all other gasses then you again don't need it.  But the design is intended to also be used by beginners and some of them will put it inside their base and enter it with algae without an exosuit.. and little by little that CO2 *will* break the atmosuit docks.

BTW, I made a separate thread because the two threads server very different purposes.  The previous thread was to ask a question (really about the design I'd use *after* this one).  This thread is to share a design for beginners fairly early design... there are very few threads and videos with reliable (not necessarily the best) designs for that type of player, hopefully this (and similar) threads help them.

[BLACKBERREST3]

Mechanical Filters are one example. Mullematsch also has one on gas/liquid shutoffs.

Spoiler

 

 

6 hours ago, zOldBulldog said:

there are very few threads and videos with reliable (not necessarily the best) designs for that type of player, hopefully this (and similar) threads help them.

Anything in the youtube/basics section will help new players.

Spoiler

 

 

[zOldBulldog]

@blackberrest3, thanks for the list on mechanical filters.  Yes, those are valuable and more advanced techniques.  Just remember this design is for beginners and needs to be trivially simple to duplicate (and still fit in a 4x8 chamber).  I will switch to a mechanical one if I can figure out how to use it within those constraints.

Some suggestions for your list's section for beginners:

• Move the beginner section to the top, if beginners see stuff that is confusing to them at the top they will never make it to the section dedicated to them.  Or better yet, make a separate list/thread for "learning" including material that people need to see "for the first time" as they go from early to late game.
• Avoid almost everything from Brothgar and Francis John.  Some of their concepts are very good (I grabbed and use them myself) but are extremely hard to follow when you are trying to learn a topic for the first time.  For example, I am trying to grab a design from a "tutorial nugget" and have already had to rewatch the interesting segment 10-20 times while pausing every 1-5 seconds in order to identify materials and other critical details as his mouse flies over things.  Best to leave these two authors for sections on how to do things "after" you have a solid grounding in the concepts and techniques, and once you want to start perfecting your designs.

 

Some decent beginner guides and/or authors that you might want to add to your list (they don't always pop up in searches but are good).  They are fairly easy to understand, although some videos rely on obsolete concepts:

• Sky Storme's review of the new release is a decent "let's play" style series.  In it he does a very good job of explaining his thinking.  I recommend it for new players.
• Jahws' "Surviving the Early(or /Mid/Late) game" guides are for those who prefer to text and screenshots over video. 
• JD's "New player" guides are quite simple to follow and very topic-specific.
• Gearhead, JD and Tony Advanced ONI youtube playlists have very good guides/tutorials on how to do specific things.

 

Finally, the area that could use the most love from tutorial/guide writers is how to get over the mid-game hump, because of the many scattered, contradicting and inefficient designs and guides.  For example, it took me forever to realize that a single aquatuner/coolbox combination can cool most of your mid-game heat-producing builds and that a limited dig to both the surface and bottom of the map (and a little judicious exploring there) will yield you the needed steel, oil, diamond, lead to build it without intermediate steps... and yet, I never saw any *clear* mention of any of this except for a short reference in a Francis John video (the one I watched 10-20 times and counting, a very painful lesson but so worth it).

[ChickenMadness]

I think this is going to hurt beginners lol.

A beginner is better of just having the algae oxygen generator on it's own. Everything else there is waste of resources. I don't think the algae generators even produce enough heat that wheezeworts are needed. At the very least you will run out of algae before cooling them is ever a need.

No point building anything more complicated until you have electolyzers and need to seperate the oxygen from the hydrogen.

[Steve Raptor]

If you have access to wheezeworts, you might as well go for SPOM instead.

[StarSquid]

Yeah, the wheezeworts are the outlier here. The only way you’d end up with wheezeworts but not enough water for an electrolyzer is if you got them from the printing pod early on in a dry map

[FantasticMoose]

Wheezeworts?
If you have wheezeworts, you have access to a cold biome.
Even a new player will be able to route water to a cold biome and set up a SPOM.
I'd argue that it's even easier than managing the wheezes.

Cooling it seems like a waste of time and energy.
You'll run out of algae WAY before the heat becomes a problem and then you need to build the spom regardless.
I have a very hard time seeing how it wouldn't just be better to slap down 2 oxygen diffusers in different parts of your base instead of wasting time and materials piping it around.

[zOldBulldog]

A wheezewort cooled spom is definitely a viable stepping stone, although a little more advanced than what I presented and will normally require gold (from a slime biome) to build.  

Any beginner will be comfortable going into a caustic and then cold biome "naked" for the first time.   But they will be more hesitant with a slime biome.   This design lets you fill those exosuit easily and without stress.   Then you get all the gold you might want for a SPOM, or even a quick run to the top and bottom of the map to get the steel, oil and diamond to skip ahead and do the cooling with a turbine.

 

 

[StarSquid]

Again, I think the refinement to this design would be to remove the wheezeworts. Exosuits don’t care what temperature air they get, and early in the game it’s better to just cool the areas you need to be cooled directly.

[bobucles]

Low tech" setup

- Air pumps

- Filters

- Tempshifts

- Wort supply

Huh? Try this one for size:

Just scatter a handful of oxygen diffusers all over

It's simple, it's easy and it can be setup before your colony runs out of oxygen and dies. 

[BLACKBERREST3]

4 hours ago, ChickenMadness said:

I think this is going to hurt beginners

I have to agree with chick. It's better to provide them with a full understanding if possible with examples, videos, etc. In fact, the best way for some beginners to learn is through trial and error, reading tutorials/guides/concepts, or watching youtubers. Most of what I know has been exactly this. When I got a slowdown from my colony from lack of O2, Co2 build-up, poor dupe time management+limited food, limited food+heat, limited food in general, I just wasn't happy with the base, or when I thought I could get back to where I was faster than rebuilding everything, I'd restart and learn from it. Now if beginners decide they would rather read or ask questions, then that is exactly what the forum is for. If you post a build for other people, we will give you constructive criticism for it.

Back to early game cooling. This is more of a technique than a build. Ranching, Ranching, Ranching; It's useful for avoiding food death by heat as they have a much wider temperature range. Insulated tiles are used to prevent heat from getting in as a preventative measure. You start the game with livable temps (otherwise how would survive the first cycle) which makes farming mushrooms or even meal-wood a viable source of food for a while, on top of that using dupes to supply your farm with Co2 is your best bet because they naturally cool your farm and Co2 is an insulator. I did this before I got serious about ranching. If you try to use too much power, you will have a slowdown in your colony because stinky can't deliver and run on a wheel at the same time. All these little things and more that you can only know about if you read/watch more about the game. Usually people just want to blow past the early game as quick as possible. I believe there are threads and vids that give you guides on how to deal with early game for each map.