New to Spaced Out, a few questions...

[giygus]

First off, I am pretty new to the game in general, I have only had one colony go over 365 days.  After a break, I picked up the DLC and starting messing around again, but a few things are puzzling me:

1. Animal variants seem to be way harder to breed.  In my base game, longer lasting colonies, I don't recall ever having an issue breeding stone/smooth hatches or smooth dreckos.  I hit day 100 a little while ago in first DLC colony, and I have only 2 stone hatches, and zero smooth dreckos.  Was there some change here, or was I just way luckier then I realized in the base game?
2. I don't quite understand radiation accumulation in dupes.  I see them react to being near high radiation areas (winching with a green glow) but it never seems to negatively affect them.  I understand they lose rads while using the bathroom, but I don't think it shows total rads on their bio stats page. I don't know if they are getting exposed to much, or how much is too much.
3. Without being able to breed smooth dreckos, having no oil on the starting asteroid, and wheezworts being both rare and radioactive, I was having trouble with heat.  No plastic = no steam turbine, which means cooling the base is much harder.  I guess I'm supposed to dump heat into the cold biome until I can build a rocket ship to the oil asteroids?  Or is there something I am missing?

Thanks in advanced for any advice

[meekay]

For #1 and #3, do your dreckos have access to healthy mealwood plants at floor level (not in planters)? That's how they increase the odds of producing smooth drecko eggs. Stone hatches require feeding sedimentary rock to normal hatches.

For #2, each dupe will accumulate rads throughout the day and then reduce rads by a fixed amount when they pee or vomit. The amount they lose when they pee is determined by the difficulty setting. If they accumulate more than 100 rads they get minor radiation sickness, which makes them stop and itch every few seconds. Over 200 rads they get major sickness which will cause them to frequently vomit until they drop back below 100.

Different materials will absorb (block) radiation at different rates. Lead and depleted uranium are the best but igneous rock and aluminum are pretty good and much more common. Insulated tiles do not block any more than regular tiles. Since dupes tend to spend a lot of time on ladders you'll want to make sure they have a ceiling with igneous rock -- even/especially the ladders next to your launch pads, where your dupes are directly exposed to cosmic rays. You'll also want to observe what areas of your spacecraft habitat get penetrated by radiation and plan accordingly.

[DolphinWing]

2 hours ago, giygus said:

I hit day 100 a little while ago in first DLC colony, and I have only 2 stone hatches, and zero smooth dreckos.  Was there some change here, or was I just way luckier then I realized in the base game?

For my understanding, no changes to there. I can ranch them like they were in the base game. As meekay said, you might need to check food source.

2 hours ago, giygus said:

but I don't think it shows total rads on their bio stats page

A total radiation exposure is listed in dupe's condition. You can see where the is high radiation area in radiation overlay. Sometimes they fear the high radiation in a wrong place or at a wrong time. Hope that will be fixed later.

2 hours ago, giygus said:

wheezworts being both rare and radioactive

Dupes will get sick when they absorb 100+ rads. They don't get instant sick when they run into somewhere high radiation. Check above and you will see how much radiation they got. You need to keep dupe standing next to wheezworts (300 rads) for 0.3 cycles to get sick. It's not that scary so you can take it for cooling with proper setup. Maybe Klei can add that to the health pane in the future.

2 hours ago, giygus said:

until I can build a rocket ship to the oil asteroids?  Or is there something I am missing?

Not sure which asteroid/cluster you are running. In Spaced Out style maps, there should be a teleporter around your base and you can teleport to another asteroid with oil biome. In Moonlet cluster maps, that would be another story.

Cooling with steam turbine is not the only way to cool your base. You should be able to use cool slush geyser or cool salt slush geyser since most DLC start has them. Some may use Ice-E-Fan or ice block or tempshift to transfer heat.

[giygus]

7 hours ago, meekay said:

Stone hatches require feeding sedimentary rock

Ugh, I was using sandstone.  As for the drecks idk, its mealwood all the way.  Their stat page says 55% chance for glossy.  I think I let them get cramped too often though, so the whole thing slowed down.

 

6 hours ago, DolphinWing said:

A total radiation exposure is listed in dupe's condition.

Ok I see it under status now, I must have been looking under germs or properties, or I'm just blind.

6 hours ago, DolphinWing said:

there should be a teleporter

There is, I never played with it.  Honestly, I didn't think it would do anything until I activated what I assumed would be the receiver on whatever asteroid it went to.  I just assumed I needed space program to do anything.  I will turn it on

 

6 hours ago, DolphinWing said:

You should be able to use cool slush geyser or cool salt slush geyser

I have both, just another thing that didn't occur to me.  A lot of base game tutorials are about how to get aquatuner cooling going, I honestly didn't think of other ways I guess.

[giygus]

So the teleporter room itself had crude oil in it....guess I need to start paying more attention.

[DolphinWing]

8 hours ago, giygus said:

So the teleporter room itself had crude oil in it....guess I need to start paying more attention.

They are, but not much for plastic production. There are more possibilities if you try.  Here in forum there some many people sharing their ideas. I like to see how different people do different setup with various goals. I just love the way we are exploring them in ONI.

[Occam Blazer]

On 1/18/2022 at 10:56 PM, giygus said:

Without being able to breed smooth dreckos, having no oil on the starting asteroid, and wheezworts being both rare and radioactive, I was having trouble with heat.  No plastic = no steam turbine, which means cooling the base is much harder.  I guess I'm supposed to dump heat into the cold biome until I can build a rocket ship to the oil asteroids?  Or is there something I am missing?

This will chill a modest sized base with a copper ore aquatuner and no plastic. It's my go-to when oxygenating a base using electrolyzers. For an even simpler version of it look to this earlier post. It's also self-powered.

[Odeen]

There's a lot of useful info about the critters in the game info panel. It should tell you things about food, atmosphere, and temperature ranges.

[Gurgel]

I did drekko farming for plastic only the 2nd time on my current colony. Now I have 1500t of plastic I do not really need

What I did once was using the oil from the teleporter to make a minimal amount of plastic and then get more from care-packages. It is just about enough for that.

On 1/21/2022 at 10:56 PM, Occam Blazer said:

This will chill a modest sized base with a copper ore aquatuner and no plastic. It's my go-to when oxygenating a base using electrolyzers. For an even simpler version of it look to this earlier post. It's also self-powered.

Impressive. Pretty advanced engineering.