The Germavent strength trainer

[Fradow]

A well-known method for Dupes strength training is making them mop by carefully creating a Mop errand that they cannot complete.
But what if there is another faster, better method that can’t break because it’s completed?

Introducing the Germavent strength trainer!

It takes advantage of the fact that disinfecting something trains Strength, and here is what it looks like:

Special thanks to Hotep Thunderbolt and @mathmanican for refining the idea to a better build. The build shown here was designed by mathmanican.

The principle is simple: pump and vent a germy liquid or gas. Each time germy liquid/gas pass through a vent, parts of the germs are transferred to the vent. The quantity of germs transferred can be directly controlled with a valve (lower flow means less germs transferred).
Once there are enough germs on the vent, Dupes will automatically disinfect it.

The design shown here uses Zombie Spores created by a Sporechid in Carbon Dioxide, but the design also works well with Food Poisoning created by a bathroom loop in Polluted Water. The design also works with Floral Scent created by Buddy Buds in Carbon Dioxide or Oxygen, but require more space and/or plants (thanks to @Tranoze for bringing it up).

It’s up to you to find a ratio you are happy with, balancing germs generation, valves rate and disinfection threshold.

The example above uses 20g/s valves, which puts it at around 20W of power used by the pump, and allows having a disinfection threshold at about 1000 germs for an untrained Dupe (it has to be lowered for a trained Dupe, which will be faster to disinfect).

How does it fare against mopping? It’s absolutely better than most mopping strength trainers you’ll find in the wild.

The golden standard used in comparison is mathmanican Strength trainer gym, which is the most optimized strength trainer possible, since nearly 100% of the work time is used for mopping.

Pros of disinfection:

• It's auto-generated and cannot be completed. You don't have to take special precautions for that, or worry that despite those, the errand is completed.
• No need to take special precautions against Hypothermia or Heat Stroke, which can easily impact mopping strength trainers if the liquid temperature is such that Dupes go through the threshold for those status often.

Cons of disinfection:

• The global disinfection threshold needs to be lowered, potentially making Dupes disinfect other parts of your base, which is an unfortunate side-effect.
• A bit of tweaking might be necessary to create more germs than the trainer uses.
• It’s slightly slower than mopping under perfect conditions, due to the time spent switching between errands.
• It uses a bit more power. 20W vs 4W is not a lot to stress over though.

In conclusion, it’s not straight-up better than mopping, but there are different trade-offs.

Choosing one over the other is up to personal preference rather than an obvious choice.

 

[Tranoze]

6 hours ago, Fradow said:

The design shown here uses Zombie Spores created by a Sporechid in Carbon Dioxide, but the design also works well with Food Poisoning created by a bathroom loop in Polluted Water.

Can i use floral scent for less destructive germ?

[Fradow]

2 hours ago, Tranoze said:

Can i use floral scent for less destructive germ?

You can absolutely use floral scent, but you'll have to adjust the settings a bit, since Buddy But is a lot worse at producing germs. Using the setup above, it was a struggle to get enough germs on the vents even with valves fully open.

I think it's a very valid solution that removes the need for a Liquid Airlock, but requires more power and/or more space to have more plants.

 

Please note, on the example shown in the post, germs spread is totally prevented by walls and the Liquid Airlock. The Dupe won't ever get in contact with Zombie Spores.

[Tranoze]

1 hour ago, Fradow said:

Please note, on the example shown in the post, germs spread is totally prevented by walls and the Liquid Airlock. The Dupe won't ever get in contact with Zombie Spores.

I know, but some day all my dupe will have full 20 strength using that setup, and for people who like to limit amount of dupe, the gym going to be deconstructed after that, and handle zombie spore carelessly might put blob of it float around and it is almost impossible to get rid of. I think having all plant all around gas pump will work for floral scent.

[Fradow]

14 minutes ago, Tranoze said:

I know, but some day all my dupe will have full 20 strength using that setup, and for people who like to limit amount of dupe, the gym going to be deconstructed after that, and handle zombie spore carelessly might put blob of it float around and it is almost impossible to get rid of. I think having all plant all around gas pump will work for floral scent.

Considering the small space footprint, I question the need to even deconstruct the room, unless you are playing on minibase.

On the other hand, to safely deconstruct it, you can easily replace the room by a single Carbon Skimmer to remove the CO2 atmosphere. Zombie Spore die quickly enough in any other atmosphere.

The Floral Scent option definitely work, I tried it before answering, but something has to give: either you use more space, more power, or lower the disinfection threshold, or a combination of those. Buddy Buds are a LOT less powerful at producing germs than Sporechids, by a factor of at least 10x, if not x20 or even x30.

[Tranoze]

2 minutes ago, Fradow said:

Considering the small space footprint, I question the need to even deconstruct the room, unless you are playing on minibase.

On the other hand, to safely deconstruct it, you can easily replace the room by a single Carbon Skimmer to remove the CO2 atmosphere. Zombie Spore die quickly enough in any other atmosphere.

The Floral Scent option definitely work, I tried it before answering, but something has to give: either you use more space, more power, or lower the disinfection threshold, or a combination of those. Buddy Buds are a LOT less powerful at producing germs than Sporechids, by a factor of at least 10x, if not x20 or even x30.

Can you try conveyer rail with slime? instead of gas air lock, conveyer dropper seem like should work the same, especially when it drop slime down.

[Fradow]

2 minutes ago, Tranoze said:

Can you try conveyer rail with slime? instead of gas air lock, conveyer dropper seem like should work the same, especially when it drop slime down.

I did try that already a long time ago. It's attractive because the Loader, Sweeper and Chute all gets covered in germs.

There are 2 issues with that though:

• there is no valve for solids. There goes your power usage.
• Slimelung (I assume that's going to be the germ of choice for debris) isn't produced by any plant or structure, and getting a culture of it is going to be a challenged.

I dropped the idea of using germ covered debris quite early during the prototype phase because of those issues.

If someone find how to do a reasonable build out of that, let me know!

[LadenSwallow]

How many tiles is the 'suction' area for a carbon skimmer? For instance, to 'skim' the CO2, can you use an airflow/mesh tile (liquid filled) boundary layer to allow removal of the CO2 without allowing it to actually flow out? For instance with slime off gassing to pO2 you can make:

D = deodoriser

M = Flooded mesh tile

A = Airflow tile

Room filled with pO2

To filter out the pO2 without allowing it to mix. (Slimelung will persist in the O2 for a while but will eventually die off).

Can you accomplish the same with carbon skimmers and (spore infected) CO2?

[Tranoze]

4 hours ago, Fradow said:

I did try that already a long time ago. It's attractive because the Loader, Sweeper and Chute all gets covered in germs.

There are 2 issues with that though:

• there is no valve for solids. There goes your power usage.
• Slimelung (I assume that's going to be the germ of choice for debris) isn't produced by any plant or structure, and getting a culture of it is going to be a challenged.

I dropped the idea of using germ covered debris quite early during the prototype phase because of those issues.

If someone find how to do a reasonable build out of that, let me know!

Let me introduce you to storage dropper.
You can add automation timer for less power usage, this is just a rough blueprint of this.
Benefit: 

-Add vast amount of germ to storage, so you dont have to lower world germ setting.
-Slime auto generate slime lung, so this should supply steady amount of germ.
It still could consume vast amount of power, but i think that can be improve with good automation.
Please improve this design for me, this just an idea and i tested it work.

[DimaB77]

Fradow, too, but a little easier.

[Fradow]

5 hours ago, Tranoze said:

Let me introduce you to storage dropper.
You can add automation timer for less power usage, this is just a rough blueprint of this.
Benefit: 

-Add vast amount of germ to storage, so you dont have to lower world germ setting.
-Slime auto generate slime lung, so this should supply steady amount of germ.
It still could consume vast amount of power, but i think that can be improve with good automation.
Please improve this design for me, this just an idea and i tested it work.

I did a quick test, and I don't really see it working in practice. Germs don't reproduce that fast on their own if you don't have a generation source. In my short test, spawning Slime infected with the maximum amount of germs allowed in sandbox resulted in a Dupe quickly gettting rid of germs until the germ spreading isn't fast enough to have them constantly disinfect the storage.

It might be possible to do something, but that's going to require effort I'm not willing to invest, and I'm pretty sure the result will be underwhelming.

 

5 hours ago, DimaB77 said:

Fradow, too, but a little easier.

And how do a Dupe access the vents to disinfect them?

By using a single valve, you split packets, and I'm pretty sure it will have an impact (though that would have to be tested).

[DimaB77]

I was just continuing your joke. Much more efficient are the manual generators.
From below they have access to both vent. There are enough germs for both.

[Coolthulhu]

21 hours ago, Fradow said:

Cons of disinfection:

• The global disinfection threshold needs to be lowered, potentially making Dupes disinfect other parts of your base, which is an unfortunate side-effect.

The biggest con of disinfection is that you have to turn the global disinfection on at all, when it's worse than useless in vast, vast majority of cases.

[Tranoze]

3 hours ago, Fradow said:

I did a quick test, and I don't really see it working in practice. Germs don't reproduce that fast on their own if you don't have a generation source.

Oh you have to limit storage to 20 kg max size, and have 1 tons of slime on ground.