Playing for less than a week, several questions

[BezKa]

Okay, so my main questions are: 

1. Usually I go with about 3-4 duplicates for the first several cycles, then stop once I reach 8. Is it too much? I struggle to feed them, mainly because my farms take ages to set up. 

2. Why do dupes target oxygen diffusers while lashing out? 

3. I'm having tons of trouble with electricity. I want to figure it out on my own for the most part, but I need one clarification- is putting several generators (no matter which kind) right next to eachother less efficient than putting them on sides of your buildings? I'm talking heavy machinery here. 

4. How can I best transport water? It's such a mess- liquid pumps take ages to set up and dupes just won't empty the bottles fast enough/at all. I find myself always with an empty tank.

5. Is trying to prepare rooms to be their Max's size a mistake? I like to make them excessive to make them better late game (barracks are Max size so I have where to fit beds later)

That's about it for now. Thank you a ton for help!

[Saturnus]

6 minutes ago, BezKa said:

Okay, so my main questions are: 

1. Usually I go with about 3-4 duplicates for the first several cycles, then stop once I reach 8. Is it too much? I struggle to feed them, mainly because my farms take ages to set up. 

2. Why do dupes target oxygen diffusers while lashing out? 

3. I'm having tons of trouble with electricity. I want to figure it out on my own for the most part, but I need one clarification- is putting several generators (no matter which kind) right next to eachother less efficient than putting them on sides of your buildings? I'm talking heavy machinery here. 

4. How can I best transport water? It's such a mess- liquid pumps take ages to set up and dupes just won't empty the bottles fast enough/at all. I find myself always with an empty tank.

5. Is trying to prepare rooms to be their Max's size a mistake? I like to make them excessive to make them better late game (barracks are Max size so I have where to fit beds later)

That's about it for now. Thank you a ton for help!

1. If you're struggling to feed your dupes then you might be taking in too many

2. They're destructive. They target whatever is most valuable for your colonies survival. However, if you have stress issues you're clearly doing something wrong. Either you're giving dupes skills in areas they don't have interest in, or more likely given a later question, you're not paying attention to decor.

3. Central power usual coal power at the beginning controlled by a single smart battery. And remember to delete all other batteries. Power is then distributed via transformers to as many grids as need If you have power plants next to consumers that almost guarantees negative decor and rising stress.

4. Pumps are fine 10kg/s should be sufficient for almost all cases. However, the most efficient way to move water is naturally by gravity.

5. There's no reason to get hung up on what size the rooms are as long as they're within the parameters. Once you've figured out how you like your base layout, you can always move the base, or restart with those lessons learnt.

[sheaker]

Ad 1. I am usually playing with three duplicants until some farms are set. Rarely I am taking one additional duplicant if really good option is available (good traits and three interests). Then I am usually adding 3 duplicants within short period of time until another stabilization of food chain. But it is for slow playing.

Ad 3. You should set a separate floor or shaft with heavy watt wire and with transformers. Every transformer should feed reasonable amount of buildings. It depends if You want totally free overload grid or You can allow some rarely overloads. Put hydrogen there and use wheezeworts for cooling. Some automation may be optional. Batteries on the heavy watt side.

Ad 4. Water pumps and pipes are the best solution. In some cases You can use one pipe for few liquids if they are not working constantly.

Ad 5. You really need to know You final design. For example You need to know how many duplicants You want. How many beds can fit into one good looking bedroom. How You want to decorate it. Usually You would like large rooms for stables but not so large for greenhouse. (That's my approach where I am making plastics and meat with glossy drecos.)

[BezKa]

10 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

2. They're destructive. They target whatever is most valuable for your colonies survival. However, if you have stress issues you're clearly doing something wrong. Either you're giving dupes skills in areas they don't have interest in, or more likely given a later question, you're not paying attention to decor.

Last session I completely ignored it. Before long, I ran out of water and stressed my dupes to the point they wouldn't do any work and droped like flies. I'll pay more attention to that, thanks!
 

 

11 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

3. Central power usual coal power at the beginning controlled by a single smart battery. And remember to delete all other batteries. Power is then distributed via transformers to as many grids as need If you have power plants next to consumers that almost guarantees negative decor and rising stress.

Not really sure how smart battery or transformers work. I'll see into it on my new session.

11 minutes ago, sheaker said:

Ad 1. I am usually playing with three duplicants until some farms are set. Rarely I am taking one additional duplicant if really good option is available (good traits and three interests). Then I am usually adding 3 duplicants within short period of time until another stabilization of food chain. But it is for slow playing.

Seems like a strategy that might work for me. I'll keep lower numbers this time.

 

12 minutes ago, sheaker said:

Ad 5. You really need to know You final design. For example You need to know how many duplicants You want. How many beds can fit into one good looking bedroom. How You want to decorate it. Usually You would like large rooms for stables but not so large for greenhouse. (That's my approach where I am making plastics and meat with glossy drecos.)

That's really difficult to figure out. It might take me several more sessions to decide.

 

Thanks a lot, I hope my colony will last more than a hundred cycles this time

[sheaker]

10 minutes ago, BezKa said:

Not really sure how smart battery or transformers work. I'll see into it on my new session.

Smart batteries are sending signal when charged enough. You can use this signal to turn off any source of power to prevent waste. Especially if you are using petroleum generator but it applies to all power generators.

Transformers decrease maximum wattage to prevent overloading. So You can use ugly heavy watt wires on one floor or one shaft to connect few transformers and then use separate common wires that are not so ugly and You can hide them in floors or ceilings to connect any devices.

[BezKa]

2 minutes ago, sheaker said:

Smart batteries are sending signal when charged enough. You can use this signal to turn off any source of power to prevent waste. Especially if you are using petroleum generator but it applies to all power generators.

Transformers decrease maximum wattage to prevent overloading. So You can use ugly heavy watt wires on one floor or one shaft to connect few transformers and then use separate common wires that are not so ugly and You can hide them in floors or ceilings to connect any devices.

Doesn't seem that useful to any of my designs... But maybe I'm just not seeing something. Thanks for explaining!

[Saturnus]

2 minutes ago, BezKa said:

Doesn't seem that useful to any of my designs... But maybe I'm just not seeing something. Thanks for explaining!

The key advantages are that you avoid having heavi-watt in areas the dupes frequent as -25 decor with 6 tiles range quickly adds up to an enormous amount of negative decor. And that you concentrate heat and waste products so it's easier to manage.

2 minutes ago, BezKa said:

Doesn't seem that useful to any of my designs... But maybe I'm just not seeing something. Thanks for explaining!

The key advantages are that you avoid having heavi-watt wire in areas the dupes frequent as -25 decor with 6 tiles range quickly adds up to an enormous amount of negative decor. And that you concentrate heat and waste products so it's easier to manage.

[BezKa]

7 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

The key advantages are that you avoid having heavi-watt in areas the dupes frequent as -25 decor with 6 tiles range quickly adds up to an enormous amount of negative decor. And that you concentrate heat and waste products so it's easier to manage.

All my previous designs were focused on keeping the workplaces ugly but all relaxing spaces as decorated as possible. Is decorating the machinery and such more effective?

[Saturnus]

2 minutes ago, BezKa said:

All my previous designs were focused on keeping the workplaces ugly but all relaxing spaces as decorated as possible. Is decorating the machinery and such more effective?

Yes. Decor is calculated as the average decor the dupe is exposed to over a cycle. It's updated every 1/10th of a second. So if your dupes spend a long time in low decor areas then you need extremely high decor in your bedrooms and great hall to counteract it. A better option is to make sure that most areas that dupes stay in over longer periods, like operating machinery for example, is at least decor natural. That way you don't need to go to extremes to counteract it. 

[BezKa]

1 minute ago, Saturnus said:

Yes. Decor is calculated as the average decor the dupe is exposed to over a cycle. It's updated every 1/10th of a second. So if your dupes spend a long time in low decor areas then you need extremely high decor in your bedrooms and great hall to counteract it. A better option is to make sure that most areas that dupes stay in over longer periods, like operating machinery for example, is at least decor natural. That way you don't need to go to extremes to counteract it. 

Hm, that certainly explains a lot. Also, do Wheezeworts cool the surroundings while in pots?

[Saturnus]

Just now, BezKa said:

Hm, that certainly explains a lot. Also, do Wheezeworts cool the surroundings while in pots?

Yes but it cools the gas it is in so most effective in hydrogen, and almost useless in CO2 or chlorine. In fact, you really shouldn't consider using wheeze worts in anything but pure hydrogen gas as basically all other gases (that are gases in the wheeze worts temperature range) have so low SHC it's not worth setting up.

[BezKa]

3 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

Yes but it cools the gas it is in so most effective in hydrogen, and almost useless in CO2 or chlorine. In fact, you really shouldn't consider using wheeze worts in anything but pure hydrogen gas as basically all other gases (that are gases in the wheeze worts temperature range) have so low SHC it's not worth setting up.

Awesome, thanks! 

[Steve8]

You don't need a central power grid right away. In the early to early mid game it's perfectly fine to have several power grids on regular wire. Each with two coal generators. If you need power somewhere somewhere farther away to run a pump for example it's easy to just put down a coal generator and a smart battery. But as you get into heavier industry and your power needs grow you need and want a single grid with transformers.

For food you may want to be more aggressive in digging out your starting biome. There is a lot of food buried in the ground. But it's fine to stick with 4 or 5 dupes at first. Means thing take longer to get done, but if you are fine with that it's ok. The microbe musher is also an option if you are really pressed for food to the point of starving. But you shouldn't use marsh bars permanently as they use a lot of resources and labor.

Wheezeworts in oxygen are ok if you just need a little cooling. Like keeping a farm cool. You don't need to freeze everything. Just don't try to cool an industrial area that way - it won't work. This is another case where people are obsessed with having maximum efficiency everywhere and can't see that it's not always needed. If something is slightly less than perfect you will be told to not do it. But there are plenty of things that are fine as stopgap measures until you set up something better. Wheezeworts thankfully aren't as OP as they used to be, but they can still be situationally useful. In the long run you will use a different way to cool your base, but until then they can be a localized option. In general your dupes are very heat tolerant, so plants are really the main thing you need to keep cool until later on when heavy machinery puts out way too much power. But they are other ways to do it like melting ice with a temp shift plate

[TheMule]

2 hours ago, BezKa said:

Okay, so my main questions are: 

1. Usually I go with about 3-4 duplicates for the first several cycles, then stop once I reach 8. Is it too much? I struggle to feed them, mainly because my farms take ages to set up. 

Until you're more experienced, stick to the golden rule of not hiring dups if you're not producing enough food and oxygen for them. So increase food and oxygen production first, then hire dups.

That said, there's a lot of buried food in the starting biome. Be sure of collecting it all. If you're starting on a map with mealwood, it's 5 plants per dup, w/o cooking meat lice. It takes 6 cycles for the first harvest. So you plant 5 seeds, and know that after 6 cycles you're free to hire a dup.

One oxygen diffuser supports 5 dups, BTW.

 

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2. Why do dupes target oxygen diffusers while lashing out? 

No special reason, but your dups should never be that stressed. A similar golden rule applies here: never assign skill points to a dup if you're not sure you can meet their new morale requirements. Always keep a positive morale balance for each dup. Learn about room bonuses, in particular learn how to make a Great Hall. That alone is +6 morale.

Despite common practice and what all tutorials say, I don't even bother with other rooms at the beginning, I just build a Great Hall when I need it  and I'm set with morale for a while.  The only reason I might build barracks at the start it to keep shine bugs away from cots.

 

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3. I'm having tons of trouble with electricity. I want to figure it out on my own for the most part, but I need one clarification- is putting several generators (no matter which kind) right next to eachother less efficient than putting them on sides of your buildings? I'm talking heavy machinery here. 

Electricity in ONI works very differently. It doesn't flow, it's everywhere on the wire, so placement of generators, batteries and consumers has no relevance at all. What matters is the circuit they are connected to. Also load is placed everywhere on the circuit, meaning you can mix wires of different ratings but the whole circuit is rated the same as the smallest wire, no matter where it is located. So you usually don't do that, but it happens by mistake (and can be a pita to find the single piece of wire that makes the whole circuit overload).

At the beginning it's easier to keep circuit separated, and maybe let dups distribute coal around. It's of course inefficient, and neglected generators can lead to brownouts (so maybe set priority to 6 and dedicate one dup as an operator).

 

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4. How can I best transport water? It's such a mess- liquid pumps take ages to set up and dupes just won't empty the bottles fast enough/at all. I find myself always with an empty tank.

It's more like a symptom that you're using way too much water. I use water only for research (super computer), and basins at the start. Then upgrade to lavatories/sinks with their water producing loop, and the water is dedicated to the supercomputer. Much later, after I locate and tame a water source, I use water for oxygen production.

The average Terra start has plenty of water, and other asteroid types too, so you might consider bristle berries as starting food, but I never do that. If I did, I imagine I would trap shine bugs inside the farm for powerless and heatless light.

Anyway you can increase the amount of water dups move by training them in Supplying (+400 and +800kg in carrying capacity), and setting up multiple bottle emptiers next to each other (you can place them on top of the pool on mesh tiles). I do that sometimes, but much, much later in the game. You shouldn't need to do that at the beginning.

 

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5. Is trying to prepare rooms to be their Max's size a mistake? I like to make them excessive to make them better late game (barracks are Max size so I have where to fit beds later)

It depends. I usually build a more advanced base elsewhere later in the game, so I don't really bother with the layout of the first base, as long as it's functional. I find it a waste of time to overthink and overdo the initial base. My only concern is travel time, so I try and keep rooms close and in the order dups need them. The downtime actions usually are: hit the bathroom, grab food, go to Great Hall, eat, got to recreational room or the pod, go to bed. So ideally food storage should be right outside the washroom (after they washed their hands), next the Great Hall, then the pod / recreational room, then the bedrooms. E.g. things are not really optimized if your Great Hall is at the opposite side of the base in relation to the washroom. That said, in the grand scheme of things, it's usually a minor optimization, as most players tend to build the base around the pod anyway.

Just don't over think it. The way I see it, you're not building a town, you're setting up camp. You don't need a urban development plan for that. Who cares if cots are not symmetrical. If you're lost in the woods with 2 friends and you found a suitable place, you don't spend 3 hours in aligning cots with 1/32 of inch precision as vertexes of a perfect triangle around the fire. Maybe you have more important stuff to think about.

[BezKa]

2 hours ago, TheMule said:

At the beginning it's easier to keep circuit separated, and maybe let dups distribute coal around. It's of course inefficient, and neglected generators can lead to brownouts (so maybe set priority to 6 and dedicate one dup as an operator).

By setting one dup as operator, what do you mean? Priorities tab? Or is there another setting personal to the generator I don't know about? 

2 hours ago, TheMule said:

depends. I usually build a more advanced base elsewhere later in the game, so I don't really bother with the layout of the first base, as long as it's functional.

Honestly, it didn't even occur to me to change my base location. I was never able to venture far, so I always thought the pod is where your base stays forever. If there is in fact enough space to set up a new base after some development, then I would have completely different approach. I'll have to see I guess, I'm pretty sure I haven't even seen all the possible biomes. 

2 hours ago, TheMule said:

It's more like a symptom that you're using way too much water.

I'm trying to figure out the best oxygen production site. I've been trying to put the hydrogen thingies on few levels with gas pumps on top and above, for easy filtering. The pressure in the room stops me from any real results, as my colony decided to piss itself to death before my grecko farm could get me some plastic for pressure has vents. But I'm certainly using less of the oxygen machines this time. Plus, my current attempt came with three big lakes right next to eachother, plus nicely leveled polluted water. Still worried about the usage, I'm a real fan of overproducing...

 

2 hours ago, Steve8 said:

Wheezeworts in oxygen are ok if you just need a little cooling. Like keeping a farm cool.

So basically I can get wheat by planting them both in one room, provided it's small and insulated enough? 

[Yunru]

Electrolysers are one of the least efficient methods of oxygen generation, with Algae Terrariums being one of the, if not the, best oxygen producing structures. 

[sheaker]

21 minutes ago, BezKa said:

So basically I can get wheat by planting them both in one room, provided it's small and insulated enough? 

It is not working so good because sleet wheats are heated mostly by irrigation. If no cool water source is available to You  would recommend to build hydrogen room with wheezeworts below sleet wheat farm to cool it from bottom. And keep CO2 in sleet wheat farm itself to prevent spoiling. If You have cool water just use it to cool room sufficiently.

[Steve8]

On 1/2/2021 at 3:23 PM, BezKa said:

So basically I can get wheat by planting them both in one room, provided it's small and insulated enough? 

The problem with sleet wheat is the water temperature. Not the air temperature. The water sits in the hydroponics tiles and heats them up. You can just harvest wild sleet wheat in the ice biomes though.

The best mid game food is really hatches. Barbecue is a very good food and easy to produce. Plus you get lots and lots of coal.

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The pressure in the room stops me from any real results

I don't know what you're doing, but that's not really your problem. You don't need high pressure vents for them to work.

[TheMule]

1 hour ago, Yunru said:

Electrolysers are one of the least efficient methods of oxygen generation, with Algae Terrariums being one of the, if not the, best oxygen producing structures. 

If you have clean water sources, you make do with them. Excluding via oil wells, large scale production of p water from water isn't trivial.

Of course, letting pwater offgas is (almost) powerless and w/o heat creation. How you bottle it is another matter, but it can be done w/o terrariums.

 

1 hour ago, BezKa said:

By setting one dup as operator, what do you mean? Priorities tab? Or is there another setting personal to the generator I don't know about? 

Personal priorities tab. It's not strictly necessary to have an operator. At the start I usually have one dup with lesser digging/building priority, who takes care of everything, w/o being distracted by construction/demolition projects. Quite often it's the 4th dup, to whom I give a skill point in Supplying (+400 carrying capacity) straight out of the pod.
 

2 hours ago, BezKa said:

I was never able to venture far, so I always thought the pod is where your base stays forever. If there is in fact enough space to set up a new base after some development, then I would have completely different approach.

Yes, I'm under the impression that many players give for granted that the pod has to be part of the base, but it's not the case. Sometimes, in my colonies, the "old" base is the rookie base, and the new base is the one for veterans. It's not that I have to demolish the old one.

Space is plenty in standard ONI. Since it seems you've never seen an entire map revealed, I won't spoil it for you, but you can lookup what the standard map size is. In standard unmodded ONI, all maps are the same size.

2 hours ago, BezKa said:

I'm trying to figure out the best oxygen production site.

Electrolyzers may be a bit premature. Like I said, I do that, after I've located and tamed a clean water source. There's a lot implied in that sentence tho...

- atmosuits for easier and faster exploration, and easier taming;

- gold amalgam (both fibers and amalgam you find in slime biomes) for high temp machinery;

- steel & plastic for a basic cool steam vent tamer, even if it can be done with golden amalgam; the thing is you have to understand a bit of how the game works to make golden amalgam aquatuners work...;

So there is a lot of stuff I do while still being on algae for oxygen. Having a clean, predictable, reliable source of water changes things a bit. Often clean water comes at 95C and the easiest thing to do is use it for electrolyzers (and oil wells, but that's later). It isn't really usable for much else at that temperature (well, the supercomputer. Showers too, but I never build them.)

 

Earlier oxygen production can be achieved in various ways. Algae (diffusers) is the most straightforward, but in many bases (with abundant starting water), I've placed terrariums at the bottom of the base; letting polluted water offgas (with deodorizers directly above), is relatively labor and water intensive, but people figured out ways to automate water distribution, for a longer term solution. Dups still have to "unclog" the terrariums now and then, tho. There are other ways to bottle pwater, BTW.

 

[BezKa]

Thank you all for helping! That's way more information than I needed for now. I'll be coming back here often to check it out, thanks again for all the advice!

[he77789]

I don't really get your thought process. Electrolysers don't even have a vent output, why did you think the high pressure vent would help?

[2tallyGr8]

2) Because Oxygen Diffusers can be attacked, and they are usually placed where dupes can easily get to them to be refilled. Focus on decor, which should help, by making your dupes less stressed. Press f8 to see the decor overlay, and work on making your main ladder areas, sleeping areas, and anywhere else dupes spend a lot of time nice and green.

4)

On 1/2/2021 at 4:11 AM, TheMule said:

It's more like a symptom that you're using way too much water. I use water only for research (super computer), and basins at the start.

I agree, like TheMule said, it is mostly likely a symptom of too much H20 usage. Super Computer and Wash Basins are the only thing that should be using water for the first few cycles, and then I get lavatories going, then sinks, and then an electrolyzer (spelling is probably wrong, but I'm too lazy to check) to consume the hundreds of kilos of excess water that is coming out of my toilets. I'm guessing you are using bristle blossoms, by the fact that you are able to use a pitcher pump to put water where you need it. They consume more water than they are worth, at least until mid-game taming of steam vents. I stick with Meal lice for the first 350 cycles or so, and focus on decor, which should also help with #2, by making your dupes less stress. Press f8 to see the decor overlay, and work on making your main ladder areas, sleeping areas, and anywhere else dupes spend a lot of time nice and green.

I will watch your ONI Journey with great interest. I have been playing for 1 1/2 years now, and I have yet to finish a run, if that tells you anything about the learning curve.

[Sith515]

On the topic of food production AND water shortage: feed the dupes raw meal lice, 5 plants per dupe, till you're ready to move on to better alternatives (meat from hatches). Don't do mush bars or lice loafs unless extreme emergency. Also disable water coolers, they still count as a building for room bonus even if disabled.

On the topic of stress and room sizes: i play sorta wide with 16 dupes, so a classy living brick blueprint never failed me so far. I don't see any reason not to make bedrooms and bathrooms max size for 8 cots or 4 toilets&4 sinks respectively.

And since it's on the topic of stress, it's highly recommended that you make these rooms (mainly great hall really. All it takes is water cooler and flower in a pot) and not just leave cots "out in the wild". These buildings provide morale bonus so dupes don't get stressed. More on buildings and morales in the game room overlay (f11)

To further reduce dupes stress, only skill them in what they would be doing and only if you can support new morale requirements. Not everyone has to have digging 3, constructing 3, doctoring, arting plumbing etc etc. Hire and separate dupes by their interests and jobs, eg. "digger/builder" only gets skilled in digging and building and gets priority on these errands, "dogsbuddy" gets skilled in carrying and plumbing and gets priority on "storing/sweeping/life sup/toggling", etc etc.

On the topic of power, 3-4 jumbo batteries and 2-3 hamster wheels enough till you get into industry, at that point you get a couple of nat gas vents to kickstart it. You may also want to fully separate certain facilities and run those on separate grid (eg. oxygen production). Also hatch ranches for coal and a bit later on smart batteries with basic automation to coal gens.

 

[BezKa]

On 1/3/2021 at 4:13 AM, he77789 said:

I don't really get your thought process. Electrolysers don't even have a vent output, why did you think the high pressure vent would help?

I use gas pumps to filter hydrogen and oxygen out of the locked room. Electrolysers will stop working once the pressure in the room is too high, so I need the pumps to work properly, but vents also stop working at certain pressure, blocking the pumps which blocks the electrolysers. 

[he77789]

High pressure vents only go to 20kg. Even if it did work like that, it would just delay the problem.