Is radbolt research unfun for anyone else?

[DarkMaster13]

I've tried to play Spaced Out many times now but I always get hung up when I reach the point where I need to do radbolt research.  Waiting around for radbolts to be produced and constantly having to babysit them so that excess bolts aren't produced or constantly swapping around research so my researcher can stay busy while bolts are being generated saps all fun out of the game.  Most of the advanced stuff that I would be playing with for my major projects at around this point in the game are all gated behind radbolt generation, so I'm left with very little to do.  Sure I could dig out the whole map or tackle a project for future use while I wait, but I don't really like playing the game that way.  I haven't been able to figure out a way to automate this process and make radbolt research something completely painless that can run in the background.

So I usually end up throwing up my hands over constantly fiddling with the material sciences bench and quit the game.

[gabberworld]

babysit  ? that is funny way to say. never needed todo this

[Tranoze]

Unfun, yes.
The way i do is build 10 manual ralt bot generator and 10 research station, and stick enrich uranium on all of them, that way i still have to manual them, but only once every few cycles.

[gabberworld]

this is my setup for rad, i todo this most off time

[pether]

I like nuclear research and how it affects the game. Previously you could unlock nearly everything using water and the simplest build pitcher pump. At cycle 20 you unlocked things you won't be able to use before cycle 200. I didn't like that.

DLC introduced nice changes to research system. I find orbital research a little tedious with possibility to improve it, but nuclear seems fine for me. You can use automation to remove manual control of the dupes, so I don't have problems here. My only complaint would be that there is not enough radbolt sources: you do most basic build with wheezewort or manual generator, and you have no other options until you have research reactor ready, and that is not an easy build. But it's not an issue of research system, the problem is in lacking radiation builds

[blakemw]

Here are some fairly foolproof setups, note that I tend to prefer diagonally looping radbolts until they get caught or fade away. I only really bother with Radbolt Storage for the rocketry Radbolt Engine.

With Enriched Uranium from Beetas:

The Manual Radbolt Generator is very respectable with Enriched Uranium, it is most easily automated by building it on a door, connected directly to the output port of the Materials Study Terminal.
 

With Uranium Ore but no Beetas:

This is a reasonably good layout for Radlamps and Radbolt Generators. Both are turned off once storage is full by putting the signal from the Terminal through a NOT gate. I only recommend using Radlamps if you don't have enriched uranium from Beetas.

 

With Wheezeworts:

Wheezeworts are best automated the same as Manual Radbolt Generator, by opening a Mechanical Airlock under a Planter Box. Feel free to use more Wheezeworts and Radbolt Generators.

 

 

[Primalflower]

I like rad research plenty.

This is my most ordinary setup for it. Its usually just either this or a radbolt generator attached to a crashed sattelite.

[DarkMaster13]

I'll usually get a Wheezewort chamber and then send the bolts into my research station from there.  The babysitting is to make sure that my researchers always have something to do and so that radiation doesn't hit the ground and create radioactive waste or hit my dupes and injure them. 

Has the research station always had that automation output port?  That would make my life a lot easier.  It's still going to be painfully slow, given a terminal can only store 100 bolts for 10 research, but at least I can automate it and let it run in the background then.

I don't think that research in general has been that good in ONI.  However this and space research in the base game were the things that outright made me want to quit the game.

[Primalflower]

4 minutes ago, DarkMaster13 said:

and so that radiation doesn't hit the ground and create radioactive waste or hit my dupes and injure them. 

I don't think that you should get too hung up on a bit being wasted as a result of hitting the wall. Radioactive waste isn't actually all that harmful, especially when its in small amounts and room-temperature enough to be solid.

7 minutes ago, DarkMaster13 said:

Has the research station always had that automation output port?

it has had it for several months, a very large portion of spaced out's development.

[Gurgel]

I find it unproblematic. Have done it with crashed satellites (easiest) and Uranium mechanized doors as radiation sources. 

[Sasza22]

On 9/24/2022 at 8:40 PM, Primalflower said:

I like rad research plenty.

This is my most ordinary setup for it. Its usually just either this or a radbolt generator attached to a crashed sattelite.

My dupes are too fast and with this setup they sometimes end up running into the radbolt as it fires.

[Primalflower]

1 hour ago, Sasza22 said:

My dupes are too fast and with this setup they sometimes end up running into the radbolt as it fires.

Not in my experience, but for the sake of completion, this had ought to be foolproof. Could even place an oxygen mask station to the right of the materials study terminal so as to prevent any potential idling misbehavior.

[ZombieDupe]

On 9/24/2022 at 6:35 PM, blakemw said:

With Wheezeworts:

Something like this is what I end up doing, however what ends up happening with such setup is there will be a radbolt stuck in loop for a while until the research is used up so the bolt can be stored in the station for further use after firing when a duplicant uses up the bolts in the station irregularly. Would recommend having another station on the top right with the loop-back radbolt reflector on the top, then no bolts are wasted and no need to be concerned about the bolt deteriorating and leaving radioactive contaminants behind. Can't recall or check at the moment if there was contamination when a bolt disappears or only when they collide with something, so that might not be so much a concern, but still some power waste regardless.

[blakemw]

12 hours ago, ZombieDupe said:

Something like this is what I end up doing, however what ends up happening with such setup is there will be a radbolt stuck in loop for a while until the research is used up so the bolt can be stored in the station for further use after firing when a duplicant uses up the bolts in the station irregularly. Would recommend having another station on the top right with the loop-back radbolt reflector on the top, then no bolts are wasted and no need to be concerned about the bolt deteriorating and leaving radioactive contaminants behind. Can't recall or check at the moment if there was contamination when a bolt disappears or only when they collide with something, so that might not be so much a concern, but still some power waste regardless.

Sometimes I do that too, like one of my setups from a real game:

But the gains often aren't that big, because in my experience a good researcher and deplete radbolts faster than they are generated, meaning there is always room in the Material Science Terminal as long as research is actually being done, and the "overflow" bolt only happens once research has ceased, and with a good setup that overflow bolt is only about 0.5 radbolts (as in it is shot at 51, arrives as 50.5, and 50 is absorbed) and evaporates before it would even get to the next Terminal, then the automation shuts down the Generator (of course there can be the odd "pathological" case with partial research that gets abandoned midway through, but these can be pretty rare). Also radioactive contaminants are zero issue whatsoever, not causing any problems for dupes unless talking about Radbolt Engine or reactor meltdown levels.

If you're mainly concerned with never wasting radbolts, you can just not have a loop at all, and not attach any automation to the second Material Science Terminal, that way it'll just catch overflow bolts, then the researcher can use those radbolts once it has accumulated enough. Though such a build may work well to illustrate my above point, that a good setup really wastes very few radbolts.

[goboking]

I think it’s fine and I appreciate the throttled pace of research in SO!  The research reactor, on the other hand…

[Tranoze]

22 minutes ago, goboking said:

The research reactor, on the other hand…

Research reactor actually make sense and very useful in small asteroid where we dont have much volcano and light (moonlet) for enough power to run heavy machinery. Get me a few rollback and poking around but after i got it to work, it gives me enough power to run all base building, and enough rad bolt for space travel.

On large starting asteroid on other hand, you have enough power from solar and volcano to just ignore it.

[Neotuck]

As a different approach, I made an infinite bathroom loop that would generate radbolts as a byproduct!

[meekay]

Here is my typical wheezewort-based set up. It's designed to fit in my 16-tile wide grid (18 including side walls).

Three wheezeworts in a room generate about 97 radbolts/cycle on each of the two generators. With only one generator active that's fast enough to complete each of the level-5 techs in a bit more than two days; by the time I'm ready for the most expensive techs I should have enough power available to enable the second generator. The automation on both generators is: ((switch == on) AND (NOT (MST full))). The MST is set to a priority of 7 so that my top researcher will prioritize that over other tasks. The doors are kept closed so that flying critters don't wander in and interfere with the beams.

When I am finished with all research I convert the room to a diamond factory. I replace the reflector with a radbolt joint plate and put a diamond press next to the wall, which is why the room is built 5 tiles high instead of the usual 4. The automation on the generators stays the same. I also add in a sweeper, a smart storage (200kg refined carbon) -> NOT -> kiln, and a conveyor receptacle bringing coal from my hatchery, so that when the diamond press fills up it just needs a dupe to show up and work for a minute or so. I can make diamonds almost as fast as a single miner ship can execute a medium-range mission, return, and refuel.

I also commonly use crashed satellites as a radiation source. I usually don't colonize such a planet until after I no longer need the research, but I can use it to make diamonds or initialize the temporal tear opener.