Fixing Oxygen Masks

[Xenologist]

It looks like the oxygen mask station is responsible for dispensing and holding oxygen masks. One question, does the mask at the station leak oxygen or just give its oxygen back to the station? Also, could it be made that when a mask runs out, it turns into its metallic ore state, or better yet, the station has mask returns! It consumes the mask, gives back the 15 kilograms of metal ore, and all oxygen inside goes into the machine or out into the world.

[nakomaru]

AFAIK Right now when the mask is returned, it just drops to the ground, releases its oxygen to the atmosphere and then disappears. They know that this is a really bad design and are going to rework it.

[The Plum Gate]

Treat them like hats instead perhaps.

[TrayneRek]

The easiest solution for the mask station would be to make it more like atmo-suit/jet-suit docks. They already have the coding available, would just need to rework the mask station itself a tad.

[The Plum Gate]

I think it being personal equipment that can be refilled at any given time when it runs out would be nice - this is why I say treat it like a hat, or clothing. Dupes could wear it just about anywhere in that case - it could enable more use cases at least.

Ever since they started warning on breathability I have wondered about this mechanic.

[sakura_sk]

6 minutes ago, The Plum Gate said:

Dupes could wear it just about anywhere in that case

It could be interesting to have the oxygen mask station sucking air from environment but not as check point to allow/deny access when and if there are any masks available but as a check point to refill mask -if present- with oxygen from the station. Dupes equipped with masks (have masks in their inventory..?) could stay longer in inhospitable spaces, they will not gasp for air (e.g. digger or scientist analyzing geysers underwater) . Dupes not equipped with masks can still pass the mask station like a door. A "masks only" or "refill if mask present" could be toggled options in mask station for access. When a mask loses all oxygen it just un-equips itself until the dupe passes another "check point" mask station.

Letting dupes decide "when" to wear a mask without stations pointing a direction maybe is asking too much of them ...

[nakomaru]

57 minutes ago, The Plum Gate said:

I think it being personal equipment that can be refilled at any given time when it runs out would be nice

I see what you mean now. I really like this solution, with the concept that they would go to the refill station and have to spend some time there to recharge it.

[The Plum Gate]

23 minutes ago, sakura_sk said:

Letting dupes decide "when" to wear a mask without stations pointing a direction maybe is asking too much of them ...

I have a tendency to agree, it would relegate a task to them to put it on, so they would be stopping to do this.

I was thinking more in terms of being able to hold their breath longer - this whole disposable mask concept could be made a bit cheaper with the use of already-present gas bottles that are free, and a fixture that is not - this fixture would be the hat in my example. it would legitimately take the place of a hat.

Using checpkointisms, or checkpoint trigger it would simply prompt them to bottle up.

[kerosene]

The way oxygen masks should work: you manufacture them, assign them to duplicants like a vest. Duplicants refill them at oxygen mask checkpoints and put them on when they walk past.

There may need to be some downside or they could be better than atmo suits when protection from liquid and or temperature is not needed.

[ZanthraSW]

The big question is what role should the oxygen mask fill? Only if the oxygen mask station is meant to be used very sparingly early game does it not need any changes. Right now atmo suits are superior in almost every way, and as long as the oxygen masks consume resouces, they will always be used sparingly and replaced with atmo suits at the earliest opportunity.

I feel that in this case, the developers are making something different when they have a system in place already for atmo suits and jet suits and the new lead suits which works quite well. Perhaps there was problems with pulling in ambient atmosphere and accepting multiple gasses with the preexisting dock system, or perhaps they just wanted something different, but I think if they managed to make it work like the current docks, there would be a viable simpler alternative to full atmo suits even late game in areas that don't need the environmental protection.

[wachunga]

Oxygen mask as a piece of assignable clothing seems a good way forwards. Balancing downside could be a decor malus, stress penalty while wearing, carry weight reduction from lugging around an oxygen tank, job speed decrease, or something else. Refilling could be checkpoint based or more like a free standing station that dupes run to when their tank gets low. Opportunity for a cute animation of using a bicycle pump to refill their tank, which could also be a time cost balancing mechanism. Have a full face version that requires glass to add protection from eye irritants.

On the subject of clothing, how about waders made from plastic and/or fiber that protects the dupe from one cell high liquid. Could be incompatible with a snazzy suit or other balancing downsides. Sneakers that increase athletics but annoy other dupes with a squeaking noise. Exoskeleton that increases carry weight but consumes a power charge. The ideas are endless. Much like many other elements of the game, clothing is a very half-assed (sixteenth-assed?) mechanic that has tons of room for improvement.

[psusi]

On 12/25/2020 at 7:41 PM, wachunga said:

Much like many other elements of the game, clothing is a very half-assed (sixteenth-assed?) mechanic that has tons of room for improvement.

Indeed.  The main problem I see with standard clothing is that you have to manually assign them instead of having a checkpoint system like exosuits and they get dropped as soon as someone hits an exosuit checkpoint.

On 12/25/2020 at 5:30 AM, kerosene said:

There may need to be some downside or they could be better than atmo suits when protection from liquid and or temperature is not needed.

In what way would they be better than atmo suits?  They are available earlier in the tech tree, but once you can make atmo suits, they are better in every way.  Masks don't need to be single use wastes of metal and oxygen to discourage you from switching to atmo suits as soon as you can.  The lack of protection ( especially with irritation now being added ) and limited capacity ( and annoying habit of rapidly depressurizing an area ) are quite enough reasons to switch to atmo suits.

[kerosene]

12 hours ago, psusi said:

In what way would they be better than atmo suits?

Atmo suits reduce athletics by 6.

[psusi]

5 hours ago, kerosene said:

Atmo suits reduce athletics by 6.

I suppose but I've never been bothered by that and you can train the skill to negate that.  In all but the early game ( where you don't have a choice ) I can't see it being worth the reduced oxygen capacity to save a few skill points even if you are only sending dupes into areas that aren't hot, cold, or filled with chlorine.  Outside of extreme temperatures the only time I use atmo suits is for sending dupes into chlorine/hydrogen to ranch drakeos and using the mask would still give them irritation, and even without the skill, the athletics penalty for a short distance trip into a drakeo ranch doesn't matter.

[The Plum Gate]

Aren't duplicants already stopping to get a mask? Is this no different than the other checkpoints?

Duplicants have an assigned equipment section - imo, it doesn't need to be on, just needs to belong to them. This is how clothing works, the assigned equipment section ( atmo suits, exosuits, etc) gives you a link to check the status of the listed equipment. This is the only real difference between clothes and equipment - the clothes don't currently have dynamic attributes. Either one can be assigned - however, its the checkpoints that is doing the assigning for equipment.

So to disregard how clothing works, and how equipment supposedly functions - I originally suggested treating the masks like a hat,  or like clothing ( the way the game treats hats now versus how hats work and reality itself are different things ). The difference between the existing hat system and game mechanics is a moot point however. The primary goal is that there is no loss of the equipment. It would be like making an exosuit, except you make a mask.

Your checkpoint doesn't hold masks, it instead holds a measure of O2 like a port, or in a bottled form or what have you.

You would esentially be making a mask for every duplicant, but only once ( so the gating factors would be the quantity of masks or for the checkpoint to only allow those assigned a personal mask to pass ). Special equipment...I suppose.

So,

Right now the principle use case in mask deployment is setting up for deployment in inhospitable breathing conditions - and it's bewildering that the mask station sucks all of the air out of the room ( to make matters worse with the whole breathing thing ).

As someone asked, where would a mask be used or where would I use the station?  Well, that cauldron of poorly managed gasses at the bottom of the base may eventually need to be built out and detailed for management. I can count a time or two where the functionality of a mask would be much preferred over the complexity of an exosuit station. Mushroom farming comes to mind.

What the station needs is an indisputable cache for returned O2, this would vent O2 back out into the environment at the rate it was taken from it should the default storage be exceeded. By indisputable, I mean, there's no impractical or arbitrary limit on the quantity of mass being returned to storage as there would be with a bottle emptier.

This type of station behavior would be in line with the current ambient environmental implementation. 

As for masks and stations - If it's set up in a linear checkpoint fashion, then you have the returned O2 if any. Otherwise the duplicant can simply continue to wear the mask until they run out of O2, and they simply stop using but don't drop anything or unassign their mask - they run out of reserve mask O2 and start holding their breath if they're in unbreatheable air. They can take the mask off in breathable air, but dont drop it. Passing back by the station has no effect if there's no O2 to return - they simply don't stop at the station (unless)...

...(If) we apply the arrow mechanics as we have with sinks and washbasins, then we get a better idea as to the results of what circular or asymmetrical traffic flow might result in ( a masked dupe would refill if twice passing a station or passing another station ). This essentially mimics the ore scrubber station and sink/germ mechanic.

The catch statement being made already ( they just keep wearing it until it runs out of air if they wander back into breathable space without having passed a station and having run out of mask O2 ).

The fail statement is what happens when it's explicitly unequipped? It drops on the ground and leaks the stored O2 until it: becomes depleted and turns into a storage item like clothing, or it sits there until it is assigned to another duplicant ( whereby they put it on and breath the stored O2 regarding the common sense rules for the puprposes of masks ). It then becomes a part of their inventory ( as assigned equipment ).

.. CO2 is passed into the environment as usual while wearing a mask. 

The rules set about by this would preclude there being any non-leaking masks. Being able to have back-pocket on-demand reserve oxygen masks in Oxygen Not Included is heresy!

[cpy]

Why it's not like a sink? When dupe have germs it will use sink if it's clean it will just pass by. Same with oxygen stations, if mask can be refilled it will be.

[The Plum Gate]

I think we've found some solutions - perhaps they have as well. There are several good threads on this here in the forums.