Drecko "persuasion"

[6Havok9]

Hello there dupes and dupettes,

I was tinkering with the goal of creating a max size, possibly legit Drecko stable that minimized critter pathing.

I came up with this, which incorporated some "liquid art". Legit by using exuberant mealwood or balm lily:

 

 

I was pleased with the result, and by accident or subconscious conditioning this fits exactly in a "standard" layout of 16x4 rooms.

However during testing I was first mildly then intolerably annoyed by those lil buggers spending way too much time in the carbon dioxide area. I mean, they hanged around there in groups for more than several seconds. Up to large portions of a cycle! I don't care if we have a state of the art mass shearing room: you'll agree with me that this is simply UNACCEPTABLE.

 

So it was back to the drawing board, with some self imposed rules: dreckos must spend as much time as possible in hydrogen, the next build must not be larger than this one and must be "legit". So legit number of plants per critter.

Probably some of you already have a solution. I did not however. So I spent some time trying to understand how exactly drecko special moves work. I think they are more akin to teleportation than actual jumping and walking. Have you ever seen Dreckos sneak into your waterlocks only to find themselves stranded? Well, I concluded that they can ignore a full tile of liquid and "teleport" if there is at least one "walkable" tile after the liquid. So if they came from a corner or jumped to their destination, it should be possible to trap them.

 

First I tried to create corners for them using doors.

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

This worked fine, however it was awkward to build around. I managed, but the result was not exactly pretty. Also, they have to cross the open doors, which I don't like and try to avoid at all costs unless I'm working with pez dispensers. So I came up with an "on demand" liquid lock on a permanent corner.

 

 

Well... Not as pretty as the previous design. However it has the same footprint, has a sense of rough "simmetry" (duh..)  being divided in two chambers, and it's legit if exuberant plants are used.

The mechanized door creates the waterlock. Actually, transforms the topmost droplet in a full liquid tile. This full tile can always be traversed by dreckos coming from the right, since there is a walkable tile after it. However dreckos coming from the left can reach the plants only when the door is open.

Spoiler

By using a timer or cycle sensor, or whatever, we let open the door for the "necessary time" once a day. The lil buggers run right, eager to fill their bellies. 8 exuberant mealwood, one plant per drecko, and everything is fine. When they go back to the hydrogen room, they stay there. FINALLY.

 

This results in a massive increase in efficiency The gain is of course negligible, since well... We put your offspring in an industrial facility, dear dreckos. But that doesn't mean we should refrain from milking you some more. Oh, don't worry.. They get to contemplate the finest liquid and solid art and they enjoy their almost private shearing station!

Spoiler

 

Image for presentation purposes only. Final result might differ, art team still quarreling.

 

I might not even build this and go for the first design, because I find it so much nicer! 

Peace

Havok