Making oxygen masks better

[werecat]

I really like that we now have a middle ground between "naked dupes" and "full atmosuits". It helps when building underwater or in a CO2 pit early game, or just exploring the rest of the map. But the way they are currently implemented is less than ideal.

Each mask will come with 75kg of O2. If a dupe comes back through an O2 mask station, they will then throw the mask and all its contained O2 on the ground. While the O2 from the mask does get released back into the environment (at a slow rate of about 100g/s), the mask station still needs to refill itself back to at least 75kg of O2 before another dupe can go through. Additionally every mask costs about 15kg metal ore, which doesn't seem like too much but when you account for dupes running past the station, building 1 block, then running back, it adds up quickly. I've easily seen 14 oxygen masks on the floor in front of mask stations. Plus right now metal ore is non-renewable as best I can tell.

The solution that makes the most sense to me is to create oxygen mask docks, in the same way we have atmosuit docks. Dupes would no longer empty out a station by running through it a few times as their mask and its oxygen would go back on the dock, ready for the next dupe. And masks would no longer eat through your ore because they aren't destroyed after every use.

There are also various balancing options that can be taken along with this

• If we didn't want to have separate docking stations for masks, the oxygen mask station itself could act as a dock that holds 3 or more masks
• If masks eating through ore is intended, each mask could degrade over time during use, and thus will need to be replaced from time to time, without using it all at once.
  • some care may need to be taken here that the mask doesn't disintegrate right after a dupe puts it on. Perhaps it would only update how degraded it was after the mask returns to the dock or is otherwise unequipped from the dupe.

[MiniDeathStar]

I agree that some balancing needs to be done, but these masks are supposed to be an inefficient early game thing. We just need to be more clever about it and fiddle with door access and maybe automation to avoid wasting resources.

I'm 100% against making masks reusable – you wouldn't put someone else's mask on your face, would you?

[Gurgel]

34 minutes ago, MiniDeathStar said:

I'm 100% against making masks reusable – you wouldn't put someone else's mask on your face, would you?

Dupes have no inhibitions eating food that some other dupe dropped there when interrupting their meal. So basically "pre-chewed"

[Eliijahh]

I think a good middle ground could be making the masks break after the become empty. So that for the metal ore expenditure you at least know that it will be used by a dupe until the oxygen runs out.

To do that, you would need to make sure that a dupes can re-use masks, but they cannot fill them up with oxygen. So definitely agree with @werecat. Only thing I would recommend is to have the "mask dock" be part of the building instead of making it a separate building, as the idea of the mask station is that it should be a cheap and easy way to get dupe out of the base.

[Cybeon]

I wouldn't call it cheap. It might be cheaper to build, but it's more expensive to use because it's eating through non-renewable resources. I would not use it unless I have no other choice.

[blakemw]

It would be interesting to see how masks perform if their capacity is reduced.

At the moment they supply enough oxygen for 1.25 cycles, which is quite a long time to be off doing something!

Say they only had 1/4 or 1/5th the oxygen, that would make them fill a lot faster and also empty a lot faster after being dropped. And even a quarter of a cycle of oxygen is a reasonable amount of work.

I'd like to see how masks with 25 or 15 kg of oxygen perform in general.

[M4ndatory]

I fell like there are 2 main issues:

1) The mask is dropped and you have to manage manually every single one.

2) They are filled waaaaay to slow with maybe too much O2 ( i bet this was intended for early rockets tho)

These 2 combined results in dupes working slower compared then just throwing them into the nasty gas holding their breath. On top on that lay my frustration after the 100th mask assignment.

 

I would not make mask reusable. I like their ineficciency, otherwise there would be no need for atmosuits despite magma.

I fell like the easiest way to balance is to have a ceckpoint, like atmosuit where the non-reusable mask is delivered, and this station must be assigned strictly to a dupe (that way you must at least plan the errands a bit instead of just throwing every dupe at it). When the dupe return he/it put the mask back to the station. The mask stay there until exausted.

The other way is to mantain masks exactly the way they are but make them carry way less O2 (maybe 1/5th of cycle) and make the fil lrate faster. With this solution i feel like the ore cost should be reduced too. Paying 150 metal ore just for build 10 tiles seems a bit too much for me.  

[TheMule]

Dups seems to pick up masks and put them back into the station.

[werecat]

5 minutes ago, TheMule said:

Dups seems to pick up masks and put them back into the station.

No they don't. Masks on the ground will just disappear after they have expelled all the oxygen they hold

[psusi]

The problem with trying to reuse them but also be not refillable is that then you end up with dupes putting on a mask with only 30 seconds of oxygen left, get to the job site, run out, and have to run back for a fresh mask anyhow.

 

[Rainbowdesign]

I think dupes should have masks as part of the inventory and carry them all the time and use them when needed. They should then recharge overnight.

[TheMule]

1 hour ago, werecat said:

No they don't. Masks on the ground will just disappear after they have expelled all the oxygen they hold

I've seen that happen here:

https://youtu.be/qtwR_AZoAh4?t=538

Catalina clearly picks up the mask. A few seconds later, the reserve of oxygen inside the station goes up. Maybe it's just a coincidence. She goes offscreen maybe the mask is stored in a bin or something.

I know they can be assigned manually, like suits.