Oxygen Masks in Latest Build ...

[Kderosa]

The revamped oxygen mask system appears to be working as expected in the latest build.

Here's a purposely simplistic set-up I slapped together to test it out today.

One oxygen diffuser.  One gas pump.  One Gas filter.  No controls needed - I just let it run until it naturally over-pressurized.  It fed 8 docks total - 4 servicing the upper half of the map and four servicing the lower half.  A crafting station is set up nearby to repair worn masks.  The docks and crafting table were set to priority seven and a few dupes had their operating skill set to highest priority to make sure tasks were timely completed. And they were. The colony expanded from 3 to 11 dupes during the 80 turns the system ran. The oxygen masks were used extensively as the map was explored, a SPOM was constructed, and the surface breached.

The thimble reeds on the map were all temperature stifled, so all the reed fiber created came from the three domesticated plants I set up.  Polluted water came only from the bathroom (sinks, lavatories, and showers) set-up. (I didn't even hook-up the pump in the cistern used to collect spills or use any other polluted water on the map.) There was enough water in the starting biome (plus a few tons from a nearby cool steam vent which was quickly walled-up to stop it from cooking the base) )to supply the bathroom, the super computer (all but four of the technology was completed), and the great hall water cooler for 80 cycles.

During this time about 75 reed fibers were produced from the bathroom run-off.  About 20 reed fibers were used to repair worn masks.  And, 54 reed fibers were left over at cycle 100 - enough to make 8 exosuits and outfit about half of the dupes in snazzy suits with some reed fiber leftover for future repairs.

So how did it work?  Basically set and forget.  Queue up worn masks forever and a dupe will repair each mask as it becomes worn whereupon it will be swiftly delivered to a vacant dock (assuming your priorities are set correctly and there aren't too many more pressing tasks to distract).  I didn't notice any problems the entire time.  It just worked.  It pulled far less oxygen than 8 exosuit docks would have and the only power used  is for the gas pump and filter (you can dispense with the filter if your base is full of oxygen and you don't mind wasting some metal ore for the occasional wrong element repair.  (I used a single 1 kW wire for the entire base and the average power draw hovered around 1 kW.)  As a bonus you get 182 kg of bottled oxygen from dropped worn masks for some eardrum popping fun,)

Of course, it's questionable whether you even need oxygen masks on this first planet.  The map is smallish and the dupes are good at holding their breath.  A little too good. . There is no oil biome or zombie spores to worry about.  Slime lung is nerfed. The new debuffs for non-oxygen gases are minor. There are only two areas of this particular map capable of scalding dupes not wearing exosuits for that matter. A somewhat experienced player can have an exosuit dock set-up running with only a little more effort - another diffuser and gas pump, a dedicated power circuit, and 2-3 tons of refined metal.)  Typically, I just let the dupes run around holding their breath until they're about to gain the exosuit skill anyway (about 75-100 cycles) and they seem to do just fine.  Even at the harder difficulties the dupes really don't need exosuits for the first 100 cycles (and that's about the useful life of the oxygen masks anyway) as long as you keep them from getting sopping wet which causes too much stress. The extra oxygen didn't seem to speed things up.  Most of the map is full of oxygen anyway once you have a few diffusers running.  Only the bottom of the map is full of CO but that's mostly badlands and there's little if anything you'll need there except some easy  refined iron.

So, all in all, the oxygen masks seem to be a solution in search of a problem. Dupes can hold their breath more than well enough to accomplish most simple out of base builds and the environmental hazards are too nerfed to present any trouble. But, if you want to use oxygen masks rest assured they are easy to set-up and easy to operate with minimal interaction and no micromanaging. Think of them like the recreation buildings - sure it's nice to have 70+ morale, but the reality is that most dupes only need about 25 morale to do their specific job. So you build them because why not, not because they're needed.

 

 

[ChrisPBacon000]

Wait, masks require reed fiber for repairs?  That strikes me as quite difficult to manage on a swamp asteroid start as there are no Reed's or dreckos available.  Unless you get lucky with a care package I guess. 

[sakura_sk]

 

8 hours ago, Kderosa said:

About 20 reed fibers were used to repair worn masks. 

You mean atmo suits....? Because I didn't see oxygen masks needing any reed fiber.

 

1 minute ago, ChrisPBacon000 said:

Wait, masks require reed fiber for repairs? 

 

No. Only atmo suits and jet suits need reed fiber. Oxygen mask need metal ore to construct and dupe time on crafting station to repair.

[ChrisPBacon000]

Thanks @sakura_sk.  I thought I had read masks take ore. That's still a non trivial cost but if you use the masks only sparingly it shouldn't be too bad. 

It does seem a bit strange that the mask doesn't prevent eye irritation... I see them most useful for either underwater building or working underneath the base where there may not be convenient oxygen supplies. 

[sakura_sk]

@ChrisPBacon000 oxygen masks just reduce the constant alert of breathability really (construction at the bottom in CO2 or at the top in the vacuum of space). No goggles yet.. sorry xD

[Kderosa]

1 hour ago, sakura_sk said:

You mean atmo suits....? Because I didn't see oxygen masks needing any reed fiber.

You are correct.  My bad.  That explains all the reed fiber left over.  

But all is not lost ...

1. Using oxygen masks for 80 cycles would give you a 50 reed stockpile to make atmosuits under similar conditions using just bathroom runoff

2. assuming atmosuits decay at the same rate, you will have more than enough reed fiber to perform continuous maintenance on your atmosuits using bathroom runoff

Given the small benefit conferred by oxygen masks and the small differential in resources and buildings needed to run an atomosuit set-up, the case for oxygen masks rests on a pretty thin reed.

[sakura_sk]

9 minutes ago, Kderosa said:

assuming atmosuits decay at the same rate,

Atmosuits decay even less than oxygen masks. After testing I saw oxygen masks to last 9 cycles while atmo suits 14 and jet suits 16 (+- 1 cycle)

[Kderosa]

1 minute ago, sakura_sk said:

Atmosuits decay even less than oxygen masks. After testing I saw oxygen masks to last 9 cycles while atmo suits 14 and jet suits 16 (+- 1 cycle)

I went through about 20 masks in 80 cycles with about 6-8 dupes using 8 docks.  Next time I'll use a bathroom water sieve set-up with atmosuits and see if there's still enough reed fiber to do repairs.  I'm thinking there will be.

The need for mass quantities of reed fiber is really only needed for LOX/LH piping which takes massive amounts (and if you like carpeting your base). For that you typically need 2-3 dozen pip panted thimble reeds and a few hundred cycles or you get very lucky with polluted water geysers.

[sakura_sk]

4 minutes ago, Kderosa said:

I went through about 20 masks in 80 cycles with about 6-8 dupes using 8 docks

Although they tend to use the first 2-3 docks after the checkpoint more that the other 6-5 of the 8. I haven't tested them enough in an actual colony to see how much reed fiber is enough (I usually just produce more than I need to  )

[Kderosa]

1 minute ago, sakura_sk said:

Although they tend to use the first 2-3 docks after the checkpoint more that the other 6-5 of the 8.

It appears to be the same use pattern for oxygen masks. The docks near the checkpoint get used more. Instead of queuing worn masks forever, I queued four at a time so I could gauge how many masks and how quickly masks were being repaired. And how smoothly the process was going returning repaired masks to docks. It appears they’ve fiddled with the dock delivery algorithm in this build to improve delivery rates because delivery went more smoothly than it typically has in past runs for me. We’ll see how it goes when I switch over to atmosuits soon. 

[sakura_sk]

1 minute ago, Kderosa said:

It appears they’ve fiddled with the dock delivery algorithm in this build to improve delivery rates because delivery went more smoothly than it typically has in past runs for me.

They fixed the bug "fill suit dock using next dock's suit" so... yeah, now it's smooooth!  

[Clinch]

I just noticed that you can fabricate the Oxygen Masks before you research the pattern...working as intended?

This was the first thread that came up in my search for "Oxygen Mask" that appeared recent - thanks in advance!

[Clinch]

Great post, thank you for this!

 

On 1/23/2021 at 12:59 AM, Kderosa said:

dispense with the filter

Have you seen the video about "power-free" filtering from Tony Advanced?

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1YJklClv_I

Once I start moving gases around the base (insert "Flatulent" joke here, go on), and have the appropriate tank researched, I usually set on up on the consumption side of the tank, along with a powered valve for a quick "off" switch. Do people share blueprints from the Blueprints mod?

 

On 1/23/2021 at 9:17 AM, sakura_sk said:

No. Only atmo suits and jet suits need reed fiber. Oxygen mask need metal ore to construct and dupe time on crafting station to repair.

I actually played until I had atmo suits before noticing that there was something else, just seeing how these things work now

[Kderosa]

1 hour ago, Clinch said:

Have you seen the video about "power-free" filtering from Tony Advanced?

Yes. But I’m not sure it would save much power since the pipe to the docks is often backed-up which would cause the gas pump, which is a little power hungry to begin with, to run more. Plus, I consider that filter cheaty enough and power plentiful enough that I tend to avoid it. You can also use a shut off valve with an element sensor and achieve the same kind of powerless filter which is less cheaty. 

I will say that I tried expanding my docks to over 8 and one diffuser/gas pump started to struggle to keep up. 

[he77789]

2 hours ago, Kderosa said:

You can also use a shut off valve with an element sensor and achieve the same kind of powerless filter which is less cheaty. 

Shutoffs consume 10W.

If mechanical filters are exploity, does that mean everything that uses the "no element mixing" rule is an exploit, e.g. water locks, hydras, bead pumps etc?

[Kderosa]

26 minutes ago, he77789 said:

Shutoffs consume 10W.

If mechanical filters are exploity, does that mean everything that uses the "no element mixing" rule is an exploit, e.g.

If you’re worrying about 10w or 120w for that matter in ONI you’re probably doing something wrong since power is so abundant.

 

In my opinion, others may feel differently, I consider all of these to be abuse of game mechanics. The game, as is, is already a bit too easy once you have a few runs under your belt without having to resort to mechanic abuse exploits to make it even easier. Same goes for the 1 kg of fluid doesn’t change phase exploit. And the quick cycle tepidizer over driver. But, you should feel free to play the game however you want. 

[TripleM999]

8 hours ago, Kderosa said:

Same goes for the 1 kg of fluid doesn’t change phase exploit.

This for sure is intended mechanic, proved by code review. But as you say, as this is a single player game, one self sets the rules, what is allowed, and what not.

[Kanukki]

I rather preferred the earlier implementation of the Oxygen Mask station/checkpoint that just grabbed oxygen from the surrounding environment, which made setup even easier (usually). No need to separately pump/filter and pipe oxygen, you can just setup a diffuser in a closed space with it and let it hit max pressure. That seemed to be a better "sweet spot" between holding breath and a full Exosuit dock. Currently, as the OP and others point out, there is little real need for Oxygen masks as dupes can either just hold their breath for 0 setup effort, or go for exosuit protection for just a bit more investment and effort.

[sakura_sk]

1 hour ago, Kanukki said:

Currently, as the OP and others point out, there is little real need for Oxygen masks as dupes can either just hold their breath for 0 setup effort, or go for exosuit protection for just a bit more investment and effort.

If we are talking about terra start, yes. Oxygen masks are probably not necessary because reed fiber is easy. Swamp start isn't so easy to get reed fiber (at least one rocket trip to the closest planetoid and then wait for a lucky print or land, dig, build, load drecko eggs/reed fiber seeds and return).

Other than that the previous station created vacuums very easily and oxygen masks were one time use.

So... I would prefer oxygen masks how they are now. For the cost of one pump (and no other "recharge suit" power cost) you get less breathability alerts and quicker construction time (no back and forth to breath)

[Kderosa]

3 hours ago, sakura_sk said:

Other than that the previous station created vacuums very easily and oxygen masks were one time use.

Yes. Shame it was so poorly implemented. It would have been nice to plop down a mask station wherever a big construction project would take place or at the entrances to the space/oil biomes to quicken construction and decrease annoying messages. It also seems thematically inline for this sort of game. I’d also like to see a portable liquid tank/pipe filler and a portable rechargeable battery. One can dream. 

8 hours ago, TripleM999 said:

This for sure is intended mechanic, proved by code review. But as you say, as this is a single player game, one self sets the rules, what is allowed, and what not.

I know. But something just seems wrong about it. I know the in game physics don’t conform to reality but this one requires too much of a suspension of disbelief. 

[Clinch]

On 1/26/2021 at 6:22 PM, Kderosa said:

power plentiful enough

It certainly is!

I feel like if your piping is organized, having a bridge send all of the flow to a filter (powered or not) to 'prime a line', then removing the bridge might be a nice middle ground. Some initial investment, but zero moving parts/fluids thereafter.

My current game is in need of some organization, I appreciate the idea!

[Kderosa]

1 hour ago, Clinch said:

I feel like if your piping is organized, having a bridge send all of the flow to a filter (powered or not) to 'prime a line', then removing the bridge might be a nice middle ground. Some initial investment, but zero moving parts/fluids thereafter.

I find there's almost no need for any kind of filter in the game.  Most mixed gas/liquid problems can be minimized or eliminated by vacuuming out a vent/geyser room/tank first or by smart placement of the pump.  A little contamination is usually easy to deal with except maybe plants that require polluted water and you're drawing from a tank of mixed liquids.

[Clinch]

20 hours ago, Kderosa said:

Most mixed gas/liquid problems can be minimized or eliminated by vacuuming out a vent/geyser room/tank first or by smart placement of the pump.

My brain always wants to do exactly this! Producers and consumers, with as few dependencies and responsibilities as possible