After Achievement Report: Radioactive Ocean all achievements on hard without teleporter nor portal gifts

[sirloxley]

Challenge setup

Spaced Out! Radioactive Ocean; no teleporters, no freebies from the portal and everything on hard (except ravenous hunger)

(Seed: M-RAD-C-1487393830-8QRR4-0)

Objective: Get Carnivore/Locavore and be super sustainable.

This scenario is challenging because you cannot plant for the first 40-50 cycles, cannot slaughter any animals and there’s no algae in the starting biome. Also metal ore reserves are rather limitted, which is a major constraint for later expansion.

I had one helper, I am sceptic that this challenge is possible without (It's possible to complete the challenge but it was at times quite close.):

Cycle 1

Spoiler

It looks like you get a guaranteed fish (one), and one Hatch … and a couple of pips. That’s it, so priority is to scale up meat production from day one.

 

My starting dupes have all three interests, because I want to play long-term with this base hence I value multiple interest a lot over high skill values. (yes I rerolled, it’s hard enough as is):

• Burt – a world class mechatronic engineer to be
• Mi-Ma – researcher and soon pilot
• Abe – wanted a digger, got a digging mechatronic engineer

Cycle 15

Spoiler

By now my base has expanded to 8 dupes.

I got: Gossmann (Mechatronic Engineer), Max (Cook), Nails (Rancher), Rowan (Rancher), Turner (Cook).

 

A lot of things happened.

I declared mush fry party time! I must not plant, I must not slaughter any animals … what else can you do?

 

As it turned out, you get one(1) fish, one(1) hatch and a couple of pips. Good luck!

Also 60t of aluminum ore (after digging) which turns out is not as much as I thought it might be.

Found the hatch and found the fish:

The pips were kind enough to help me rearrange the plants. This one is something I started in my previous base, and it’s part of my go to setups now … food storage in a nature reserve:

 

Soon they shall be ranched, too:

 

The base has already run out of oxygen, since there’s no algae (yet), an early electrolyzer had to be built. The hydrogen comes in handy for power production, too. My I present you my first mechanical filter (after 2000 something hours of gameplay) – hydrogen gas only, please:

 

The base simply couldn’t afford the refined metal yet as I don’t have the tech yet and that conveyor loader is faaaar away:

 

Also the pipe blocking is well appreciated to save power. Yes, the piping setup will break (very soon), fill up with oxygen and needs micromanagement.

Finally since power is always a mess in my bases, I am trying something new:

 

This should help not having overloaded wires.

Cycle 21

Spoiler

Status update: I have 10 dupes by now, so I built a second electrolyzer. The colony is already running out of water for research/mush fry and a new source must be found. Also I let my dupes dig up for more ranching space and so the pump providing me with hydrogen for power production has to move up, too.

The printer decided to give me Banhi (Farmer/Rancher) and Steve (Cook)

Having to deal 95C salt water is not what this base needs on top, so I shut it off

On the carnivore achievement: This fish may be old, but I tame it nevertheless, I need its offspring ASAP:

 

It lays only two eggs before it dies, but every little bit counts. Also it already reproduced:

 

Incubating fish eggs is amazing. Hug them once and they hatch within one cycle.

I had to start micro-managing eggs; having algae is a treat to tame the fish, I think it’s next to impossible without. Once the fish is tame, waterweed seeds are actually a better option for feeding them.

Cycle 30

Spoiler

I had one more addition to the team, Jean (Builder/Farmer)

And I have ran out of water … again. Looking at this it was probably a bad idea to have the water so far away from the super computer / microbe musher.

Some early industrialization: I found a cool slush geyser, and will use it to for a metal refinery. Aluminium is too precious to have it pulverized into sand. Also I am preparing more pip ranches.

Main objectives update:

 

I have no idea what happened to that fish, I had a brief moment of doubt whether seafood contributes to carnivore. Anyway since I always need more fish, one of the incubators is used to get fish egg in, hug it, dump it, repeat.

I start cycling through the incubators to re-use them, i.e. put the egg inside, let a dupe hug it, and immediately remove it.

Cycle 40

Spoiler

My dupes are enjoying real toilets now and I hired Mae (Mechatronic Engineer).

This is the first time that I actually ‘live’ locavore … waterweed is seriously magic stuff, there are a lot of these plants which provides me with quite some food.

Achievement updates:

My dupes are busy adding livestock:

42 and counting, except … yeah, it’s a little bit exaggerated:

Also the Hatch situation is not good.

I have started a fish starvation ranch and two breeder pools:

Stress has become a bit of an issue, too:

Thanks to the refinery I added a power upgrade:

On a final note on this cycle update, here’s why you do not really want open electrolyzers in your base:

Cycle 50

Spoiler

The locavore achievement was completed at cycle 46, so I have declared a mush fry party hiatus. No one really complained.

A couple of things needed to happen: More incubators! Temperature management to preserve the Beetas; as I cannot print anything but dupes, any creature that dies out is permanently gone.

I also got to know that dupes eat faster when exposed to a light source. I haven’t really learned a lot, have I?

There’s also a setup to clean out the salt water. It’s probably going to take a lot of time.

I have setup a germ killing room

 

Probably overkill, but isn’t that the gist of the game?

Achievement updates

The fish population is now taking off, I have 10 breeders in total:

Egg goes into incubator, gets hugged and immediately shipped off into this room.

Still not a lot of hatches:

Cycle 60

Spoiler

The pace of game has slowed down a lot by now. I am out of metal ore to build, hence the base looks a lot like cycle 50

The rising temperature is starting to stifle my plants:

I need to fix this, so I have added a ‘cooling loop’

It doesn’t loop, though, just sits there to feed the metal refinery. This is clearly not sustainable.

The base has a gas sorter now:

Except that last loop filled with CO2 because I was dumb; should have been polluted oxygen.

Achievements update

 

If my dupes start eating BBQ/Cooked Seafood exclusively now – which they don’t – it will take 34 cycles to get the achievement. This is not good.

I have a lot of fish now, don’t I?

With this setup (starvation ranching fish), 15 fish are required to feed a dupe, so this can consistently feed … not even half of my dupes.

I have also started a mini-game I call egg huggling:

Egg goes in, hug it, drop it, repeat. Micro-management at its finest.

On the good side, this netted me with quite some hatches:

Since I was not missing ANY opportunity to increase the Hatch population, this is why I doubt Carnivore on this setup is possible without Algae. Pips are not meaty enough to make up for the Hatches.

Another problem I found is that I have to start fixing Oxygen, now. Not only the setup is poor because it creates a lot of unwanted heat; worse - it doesn’t even properly oxygenate my base:

Cycle 70

Spoiler

I added two more dupes to the collection, Amari (Farmer/Rancher) and Nikola (Farmer/Rancher). Yes, my base is lacking dupes for supply tasks, this was a poor choice of dupes, Amari has a bottomless stomache which I considered helpful.

 

I also am about to break to Space.

Achievement updates

 

At current pace the carnivore achievement will be done in 27.6 cycles, and the dupes are on a meat (well fish) diet now. Finally on track.

Although I am starting to pay a heavy CPU toll now:

Cuddle pips - aren’t they cute? – yet the egg hugging is not worth it. It’s 100% extra, an incubator gives 400%. What is worth it is the space requirements, though. This 51 tile ranch can sustain 12 cuddle pips, needs more trees, though.

Cycle 85

Spoiler

I don’t have a cycle 80 save file. No idea why … actually I know, I got drawn in by the egg huggling micro-management. Don’t do this in your bases, I had no choice since I am out of aluminium ore by now to add more incubators.

Food is sorted now, finally. And yes, I am finally building a proper oxygen production facility. Usually I have them done around cycle 40, in this base I didn’t find a good spot to put it, so I needlessly delayed it until much later.

One of my definitely dumber ideas is this one:

Hug all eggs in the upper room and dump them via the right dispenser to the lower room. Once all eggs are lullabied, open the room and relocate all eggs without lullaby buff to the upper room. Repeat ad nauseam. I almost stopped playing, a cycle took me a lot of time.

Achievement updates

At current pace, 11.5 cycles to go until Carnivore. I also maaay have overdone it with the fish:

Looking at the Hatch situation, I stopped setting up new ranches and started harvesting the surplus. I built a very rudimentary kill room:

For the egg transportation, this is all I was able to afford (besides critter sensor/notifier):

Cycle 111

Spoiler

I stopped doing regular save updates but hit Carnivore in time, yay.

Here’s the base at cycle 111. The SPOM is still not fully built, it misses the hydrogen generators. Since I am out of metal ore since cycle 60 or so it’s not moving as fast as I want it.

I am starting a shine bug farm now, since I consider uranium too valuable to waste it in a manual radbolt generator. This is most likely a mistake.

I have also added something better to deal with the eggs (and stopped that huggling madness):

Some later cycles/additions

Spoiler

I enhanced that kill chamber, which is still a very primitive one – although good enough for time being

The upper critter drop off is setup to accept any excess critter, i.e. the stable drop offs have higher priority. The catch is that the dupe sensor below will close the door before the dupe gets to drop of any critter (can only be reached from the bottom) and hence will drop the critter into the water pool below, hence avoiding soaking wet stress penalty.

This does not work with flying critters.

The shine bug reactor is still around, and I will probably keep it:

I may have to kill some fish to improve performance, though:

Overall this was fun, but I will never do this again. The egg huggling was mind draining, and the lack of ore is still hamstringing my progression, even at cycle 400+.

Let me know what was your latest base story

[lich46]

My last game is rad-ocean too. Max difficulty(including max hunger), tele on but never used, no care package. Here are my suggestions:

1. 3 interests dupes are far less useful in early game. An expert +7 scientist can speed up the colony. In late game, morale and interest is not a problem.

2. Pacu is not guaranteed. Only <25% chance will a pacu spawn on starting asteriod. If there is pacu, it can become rather easy.

3. a SPOM+hydro-generator rush is helpful (~30c)

Spoiler

This is a map without pacu. With SPOM+hydro-generator, you can cook mush bars at a minimum cost of manual power. (37c)

4. Save metal for rocketry. I choose not to upgrade toilets until space travel.

5. Adventure the space for food, for fiber, and for the worthy (~60c)

Spoiler

Use big telescope to explore the space. Use enriched Uranium for early rad research. Use ores and metals to build up your forces.

My supply ship design: (O2 for masks+ CO2 as fuel + H2 as power). 1 supply ship+2 trailblazer ship can go up to 7 tiles (at 58c)

I happened to meet Moo asteriod at 4-tile range. Slay the moo planet for meat and Carnivore is almost done.

(72c: Moos already killed, now travelling for oil and drecko, with O2 masks)

If not met Moo, Swamp asteriod is a much easier but less profitable destination.

At <90c, Carnivore finished.

6. Now you have dreckos from oil planet and metal from swamp planet, enjoy the game, lol

[sirloxley]

3 hours ago, lich46 said:

My supply ship design: (O2 for masks+ CO2 as fuel + H2 as power). 1 supply ship+2 trailblazer ship can go up to 7 tiles (at 58c)

That's a nice setup there

I just wonder what your initial colonization rocket looked like

[lich46]

15 minutes ago, sirloxley said:

I just wonder what your initial colonization rocket looked like

Trailblazer ship(2x): Charged with oxygen, bring 2 fully charged masks for landing. Remember to feed the dupe before the flight.

Supply ship(1x): Pills, food and metal.

Spoiler

Trailblazer ship: interior

O2 production: NO, wires: NO, liquid: NO, automation: NO, food: NO

A few notes:

Spoiler

The trailblazer ships can only support a single trip of ~1 cycle (They are designed to deliver 800 metal + 2dupes to the surface, they don't even have to land). 3 dupes go in 3 different ships but return all in the same supply ship.

 

If the destination is <= 4 tile range: good. The trailblazer ships can come back at their own and recycle.

Otherwise you may have to: 

1. build sublimation station in case of suffocation;

2. either land the trailblazer ships and fuel them with supply ship, or choose not to recycle them.

[psusi]

Wow.  Just wow.  In my worst nightmare I couldn't have imagined a scenario half as difficult.

[sirloxley]

On 10/27/2022 at 5:35 AM, lich46 said:

1 supply ship+2 trailblazer ship can go up to 7 tiles (at 58c)

I am starting to wonder how exactly you did this. CO2 rockets can do 6 tiles max, so the only way to get a 3/4 tile two-way trip (=7-8 tiles) out of them is to bring extra CO2 for a refill, OR to somehow extract that CO2 from the rockets and recombine. That's a lot of rockets ...

Edit:

Ok, nevermind, I see what's happening, didn't give that second picture a good enough glance. Compressed CO2 storage. Hats off, that's a very clever move, I didn't consider this option. Personally I am not a huge fan of infinite storage, but I respect this playstyle.

What can be done instead yet a bit on the overengineered side of it would be to bring liquified CO2 instead. E.g. via CO2 geyser or H2 'powered' thermo regulator or radioactive biome.

[SackMaggie]

I've done it multiple times(Max difficulty, No care package, No teleporter, Carnivore, Super Sustainable) with only hatches and some time hatches and Pips (Pacu made challenge easy So I kill them all if any).

I don't build any firepole and use all that metal to make incubator. For incubator automation I use timer sensor and put all incubator into yellow alert (The 24/7 yellow alert effect is just annoying but actually better than micro-manage).

For your next playthrough try not to use double door, any liquid/gas storage, firepole, any rail for shipping egg (Use that metal to make more incubator).

Here's my recent map with cycle number stamp in screenshot (I really liked it).

Spoiler

This map was played with sweet dreams update and as you probably know getting new trait to spawn in this map was very rare.
This is the one and only seed that I generated and have Brain-machine in it. Sadly It got metal rich trait (I always avoid it, but I weighted new Content > OP trait).

Seed: M-RAD-C-1361739529-CQRR4-0

Mod with gameplay change
Smart Egg Incubator mod install (Link)

Screenshot was taken at resolution 4096x6144 (around 20 MB each) You can click on any image and zoom in to clearly see what's going on.

Cycle 1 Cheap flush toilet done I just don't like outhouse (don't want to deal with polluted oxygen).
Cycle 5 Cheap SPOM nearly done.
Cycle 12 Stable built (Waiting for someone to have 2 skill point) Now have 6 dupes.

Spoiler

Cycle 18 Water sieve, New toilet, Chlorine room.
Cycle 25 My first incubator running and all polluted water was stored and Space breached(vent excess oxygen)
Cycle 33 Locavore completed, Water geyser tamed, Nature reserve, Lots of space prepared for stables

Spoiler

Cycle 43 Started metal refinery, 5 Stables was built, Preparing space for radbolt research thingy (Finish at 44).
Cycle 56 Solar panel up, More incubators, Water storage, Mealwood.
Cycle 80 Sustainable done for a while and start murdering some critter, At this point I feel Rich metal is a no-go for next play (Too much metal for me).

Spoiler

Cycle 90 More Incubator and more waiting
Cycle 95 Pretty much nothing left to do all hard part was done So I Build firepole. (And Carnivore was done around 97)
Cycle 100 Most hatches killed (I'm preparing to fully relying on Pips)

Spoiler

So what I got in this play though was Rich metal made it far less challenging, and getting lots of dupe at the start was the right choice since more dupe mean more chores done and food is offset by having more dupe do cooks.

And For Smart Egg Incubator mod(Link) kind of too good.

Here's my base at 280 cycles just before rocket launching f**ked-up my screen-shot.

Spoiler

Cycle 280 food source for entire base is from pips, rocket constructed (Nose cone was setup as infinite O2 storage I'm sorry for the pilot)

Cycle 290 Rocket launched KLEI screenshot system f**ked up

I quit the game after noticed my screenshot at cycles 330.

 

 

[6Havok9]

@sirloxley this is impressive. I'd like to know more about your decision to not have ravenous hunger.

I used to think that ravenous hunger would make carnivore/locavore easier, by having less mouths to feed that count as double the amount of standard mouths, but having the same amount of noses (?)/lungs to fill with oxygen, as standard eaters breathe the same amount as ravenous eaters.

Now my runs either end because of starvation (if ravenous on) or fail because too slow and messy (if on standard hunger).

Spoiler

When you posted this I decided to try again a max everything/100% run on a seed I already knew and loved until I had to stop playing. It was a success until cycle 400. A flipped asteroid.

But now.. I had to restart multiple times before cycle 20. Something must have changed in the world gen with the addition of story traits: there is not enough muckroot to sustain everyone, not enough hatches to allow you to eat some without failing later, the wild plant population is at "extinction event", the abyssalite barrier is a huge "screw you" unless I start with handpicked dupes.

And there is so much water around.. it's actually harmful. Can't move it easily, can't consume it fast enough. Not until locavore is done, and wasting it is simply unacceptable.

So oxygen is actually included this time. "Don't starve" is the priority this time, since "don't go insane" is failed after 4 cycles.

Maybe this time I'll take a step back and tune down the hunger level a bit. It's just that, if the colony manages to survive, I don't want massive food infrastructure dedicated to A TREE, with minimal results. 

So, what was your reasoning behind your decision?

And how would you tackle the challenge, if you had to tune up hunger level? 

I still have some sanity to waste 

[blakemw]

13 hours ago, 6Havok9 said:

Something must have changed in the world gen with the addition of story traits: there is not enough muckroot to sustain everyone, not enough hatches to allow you to eat some without failing later, the wild plant population is at "extinction event",

On some maps you just have to use an optimized Mushbar setup (use a shinebug to kill germs and don't make mush fry). There's plenty of dirt on absolutely any start, though you might have to get creative on swampy. Water also isn't severely limiting in most cases, probably only Frozen Forest Asteroid is going to present some challenge, even then melting one ice Tempshift Plate makes 10 mushbars (I did that for a max difficulty 100k mod map game). Efficiency is important: musher next to pitcher pump, and ideally placed in such a way that dupes can poop, then grab a mushbar off the floor and take it to the mess hall with minimal diversion, that eliminates the need to transport mush bars to food storage. You might even arrange your base around the water supply if there's a water supply large enough to last a while.

[sirloxley]

So I am giving this another run since having that Pacu to start with was indeed a "too easy" start ^^. Still no ravenous hunger, I just don't dare (yet). I am currently employing 24 dupes (which means I have until cycle 83 to get all pieces in place for 100% bbq diet, I am not there yet, but it looks good).

As for why no ravenous hunger: Call me a wimp, but I didn't feel like putting that extra burden on. I fully recon this is even harder since you have less workforce to achieve the same amount of (ranching) work. For the long term gameplay I think this setting hardly makes any difference - Slicksters, Pips and Dreckos provide endless amounts of (free) bbq; yet at least until locavore this looks hellishly difficult and leaves not a lot of margin for mistakes.

Now if I were to try it with ravenous hunger in my scenario (and not getting that Pacu) I have these additional options ...

• Sanishells ... with the downside that this needs several Ethonal Distilleries for reliable polluted dirt ... which in term requires temperature management, at least there's quite some polluted water (which I mostly use for O2 generation) which looks guaranteed in every seed.
• Cuddle pips, they are much more space efficient than regular pips - unfortunately this may require save game scumming
• Rush rocketry and be lucky to have either Moo or Metallic Swampy Asteroid (Pacus) in range

Just to avoid any misunderstanding on that last bullet point: I am awestruck by that feat of sending three CO2 rockets that early to another planet just for meat, it was gutsy and ambitious ... it's just not guaranteed to happen. Also this would have to happen early, like cycle 35 to make any impact.

For an even harder setup I suggest metal poor asteroid without Cool (salt) Slush Geysers

6Havok9 - Concerning your setup on flipped Asteroid, you have Sweetles which can be endlessly multiplied, you have to rush these (+ Grubgrubs which can help with sleet wheat); on the good side once you run out of Sulfur you are not in danger of losing the species. Find every Hatch, and don't kill any. And yes, it's Mush fry/bar party galore, you have a huge amount of water on that planet (in form of ice), rush the Metal Refinery to get it.

[6Havok9]

12 hours ago, sirloxley said:

As for why no ravenous hunger: Call me a wimp, but I didn't feel like putting that extra burden on. I fully recon this is even harder since you have less workforce to achieve the same amount of (ranching) work. For the long term gameplay I think this setting hardly makes any difference - Slicksters, Pips and Dreckos provide endless amounts of (free) bbq; yet at least until locavore this looks hellishly difficult and leaves not a lot of margin for mistakes.

Didn't mean to sound rude: I actually found previous runs easier with ravenous hunger. I like a low dupe count and I'm very selective when it comes to traits, so ravenous hunger meant that my few good dupes could complete the challenge. I had to make very few mush bars and was able to rush locavore and complete carnivore as soon as cycle 80.

With standard hunger I find myself picking useless/harmful dupes just to burn more calories. Maybe I fail, maybe can finish carnivore at cycle 99, but then? I'm stuck with them, they waste oxygen, fart around, require more space, steal errands.. and they make the suit achievement more tedious. I don't want to "recycle" them and I just restart.

It doesn't matter now since I failed multiple times on both settings. So yeah, I guess it's another restart. Time to build a base centered around a microbe musher and turn locavore into dirt diet. 

Or just give up and turn on teleporters and care packages. I miss those free jumping joyas (the real printing pod jackpot) and a random brine bottle/wild pip can be useful on a distant planetoid.

[sirloxley]

Just had my first tryout with ravenous hunger. It's ... insanely hard. I hired 6 dupes, which clearly was too many. Moreover I misplaced my kitchen and ended up abandoning it after 25 cycles because I was clearly not on track for carnivore.

In my books I should have had at least 2 Hatch eggs and one in an incubator by then which I wasn't even close to. Will give it another shot today, but it's clearly eating too much of my time, so I will probably drop it. My seed: M-RAD-C-1856499486-CQRR4-C

[blakemw]

1 hour ago, sirloxley said:

Just had my first tryout with ravenous hunger. It's ... insanely hard. I hired 6 dupes, which clearly was too many. Moreover I misplaced my kitchen and ended up abandoning it after 25 cycles because I was clearly not on track for carnivore.

No it's fine to have 6 dupes, but you do need 2 Microbe Mushers unless one is a fairly exceptional cook: a fairly good rule of thumb for max hunger difficulty is 1 Musher per 4 Dupes (minimal cuisine skill), if the musher is being used 100% of the cycle you might get away with 1 per 5 dupes.

Max hunger difficulty on forest starts involves some serious labor management and optimization, you really can't afford needless running back and forth. But if you can keep each dupe focused on their role it becomes fairly straightforward.

I learned this from a horrible Aridio challenge I devised, where I played on Aridio on all max difficulty no care packages with the further self-imposed rule of immediately printing a dupe every time the printing pod lit up until I had 24 dupes, I had to significantly raise my labor management game to keep them all alive, it was impressive how ruinous a mis-placed Microbe Musher relative to the water supply was.

[asurendra]

Noob question: how do you get Fish here? I always though they should not spawn here... 

[SackMaggie]

1 hour ago, asurendra said:

Noob question: how do you get Fish here? I always though they should not spawn here... 

Some seed have pacu some don't.

[mathmanican]

On 11/6/2022 at 2:51 PM, sirloxley said:

I have until cycle 83 to get all pieces in place for 100% bbq diet

A few "Binge eater" dupes can do wonders when getting carnivore. Lock 'em in a room with as many negative debuffs as possible, and a single binge eater can do the "work" of many dupes. 

[sirloxley]

So I tried again same settings as that previous post of mine (7th of September), and can report success - I managed to hit carnivore mid-cycle 99 with 11 dupes. I initially doubted it but it's possible to reach it without having to go to space. One of my dupes had bottomless stomach but my numbers say this just means it's a little bit later, still within the 100 cycle limit.

So wow ... Starting with 1 wild Hatch and ~4 wild Pips is all that's needed, I really didn't believe it; although I had to restart/go back several times. Playing ravenous hunger changes the dynamics quite a bit; it's different challenges to solve early on.

A couple of things I have learnt along the way (in random order):

• On ravenous hunger instead of O2 kcals is the limitting factor during early game
• The same amount of work has to be achieved with half the dupes
• You need your power sorted ASAP, dupes on wheels is a killer - I stopped using manual generators at cycle 15
• I danced a lot around liquid pools to avoid stressed dupes. Worst stress level was 50%. Not sure it was worth it
• A bad base layout with long distances is much more punishing with fewer dupes
• Locavore is much easier and faster to achieve, I hit it in cycle 30 with 8 dupes (with normal hunger it's earliest around cycle 45)
• I wanted to stick with 10 dupes but had to hire an 11th dupe in cycle 80. Without I probably would have missed the target. My intention was to avoid having to resort to a last minute bbq binge because it just didn't feel appropriate.
• Sanishells are a viable option but not required
• Metal Ore is precious so I started as soon as possible using a metal refinery instead of crushing it
• Incubators with live critters inside still use power if activated, that was a surprise
• blakemw is right: Mush bars are so much preferable to mush fries during locavore draught. Also a shine bug in your kitchen helps a lot
• I needed the Pips for the achievement to bridge a meat gap at around cycle 80. They are a terrible in terms of dupe efficiency, but without them I would have failed.
• Poor building placement is hard to fix a posteriori - Ok I kind of knew that one before. I misplaced a germ killing room and a bottomless hydra eloctrolyzer setup, and it hurt so much in terms of dupe movement.
• I have yet to find a (cheap) non micro-management solution for the incubators which does not involve mods. I initially used switches, then timer sensors with 50s/600s, which I kept micro-managing up until cycle 96; The SSAI automation is simply not feasible with 26 incubators, as it adds 225kg refined metal (~6t of material) on top of the refined metal bill compared to the time sensor setup.
• I needed three ranchers to support all the infrastructure, that is 26 incubators, 6 stable of 8 Hatches, 2 stables with 8 Pips and a small stable with 4 cuddle pips

I will add some stats and pictures below for the curious. Careful, the base pictures are very big to allow zoom in.

Spoiler

Graphs showing the evolution of (tamed) critters and table with the source data. I had 48 Hatches, 20 Pips and 26 incubators.

Spoiler

Source numbers (values are at the beginning of the cycle)

Some key events for my base (M-RAD-C-1856499486-CQRR4-0):

Cycle 1: My starting dupes are Rowan the digger (+9), Hassan, the germ resistant builder (+9) and Travaldo who will excell as plant murdering researcher (+9). There's an annoying pool of polluted water beneath the portal; the asteroid houses 4 Pips and one Hatch.

Spoiler

Cycle 3: The crew welcomes Ada, an undigging/yokel/uncultured yet soon to be (+5) Rancher/Farmer

Cycle 6: Devon gets printed, a Binge-eating Cook (+11)

Cycle 9: Quinn is the next one printed, a mechatronic engineer of legend (interests in digging/supplying and operating); my dupes are munching on mush bars already. In my base I am about to setup a bottomless hydra. Saves a lot of pumping, but requires some kind of pressure control which I added later on to the piping.

Spoiler

Cycle 12: Next to be printed is Banhi, another mechatronic engineer (supplying/operating/cooking). Also hats for everyone, which is a big deal.

Cycle 15: The manual generator is no longer used since there's now power from a H2 generator with smart battery. To build the battery my dupes used the copper from the pre-built conveyor loader + one load of Aluminium ore rock crushing as materials. Ada is skilled as rancher since cycle 12, but the base is lacking the technology (yet) for a grooming station. Not sure if I got the order right here.

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Cycle 16: Last print for a while, Camille who will be our supplier (+9)

Cycle 22: The base has a Metal Refinery and a first incubator. There shall also be a washroom soon

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Cycle 26: My dupes are enjoying a Washroom by now. Also featuring a totally misplaced germ killing room.

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Around cycle 30: Locavore is done. Time to build planter boxes (39) for mealwood and farm tiles (20) for waterweed.

Cycle 34: Another incubator got added to the team. And no more mush bars. They won't be missed. I use liceloaf instead to increase the kcals.

Cycle 43: Water has run dry, the pool on the bottom is for O2 generation; time to build a desalinator. Also the hydrogen powerplant was moved and split into two separate grids.

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Cycle 53: Another dupe was added to the team: Ren - a rancher/mechatronic engineer hybrid

Cycle 56: Dupe #10: Lindsay, farmer/rancher. Also the bottom of the base becomes a cold mess, so it gets walled off. The stable placement is not ideal so they will get moved to the left hand side of the base. My dupes are also adding conveyor rails to reduce cramped critter debuffs.

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Cycle 67: Power becomes a problem, so a bottomless space rodriguez was built. Some dupes got a bit of radiation sickness.

Ranches are prepared to move the critters from the right hand side stables to the left. There's a cool slush Geyser explotation going on, the water is heated by the Metal Refinery.

The base is home to 15 Hatches and 6 Hatchlings (morphs included) and 17 Pips with 4 Pipsqueaks. There are also 26 Pip eggs - which are not seeing incubator time - and 6 Hatchling eggs. The incubation works by hugging/removing/replacing, i.e. quite some micro-management already.

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Cycle 77: A lot of incubators were added in the meantime, totalling 18 now. All stables are built and all critters relocated.

There are not enough critters to support carnivore at the moment; the base is home to only 27 Hatches, 7 Hatchlings and 20 Pips. My plan is to start the meat diet on cycle 80.

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Cycle 80: A supplier, Jean, is printed. Also a kill chamber and meat transportation gets added.

Cycle 81: All stables are full now

Cycle 86: Finally there are 48 adult Hatches in all stables.

Cycle 89: The base has 22 incubators now. Still not enough I realized only late as I have 11 dupes, i.e. I need at least 24 incubators. I prefer to err on the up side

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Cycle 99: Carnivore!

That CO2 is valuable so I didn't skim or vent any of it. CO2 rockets need quite some of that stuff.

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