A Rework (Buff) Proposal to Oxyferns

[fpx007]

Oxyferns can be used as an alternative way to produce oxygen. However, players seldom use it beyond the game starting because current game mechanics limit their utility. Oxyferns consume both water and dirt, need to be planted within a temperature & pressure threshold, making it really troublesome to domesticate. Also, their yield is rather low. (3 domesticated or 12 wild plants are needed to sustain a standard dupe. In comparison, a single electrolyzer can sustain 8 dupes.) What’s more, they need CO2 atmosphere to grow, while its product, O2 is directly released, thus invalidating the environment and further reduce their yield. Last, there is currently no reliable way to farm their seeds, (care packages is inefficient and highly RNG-dependent) and the starting amount of seeds on the map is low (especially maps without forests), further limiting their usefulness.

I guess the game can change the way how oxyferns work to make them more useful. Just make them harvestable plants that bear oxylite. Other than adding some harvest errands, no change is made to the early game utilization. And since they’re harvestable plants now,  there is a chance of getting extra seeds while harvesting and the quantity of seeds is no longer limited. They can also get mutationsin this way, too. In late game, they’re even worth planting because they not only consumes CO2 but also provide oxylite, which can be used as rocket oxidizer.

I believe, everything in this game needs some love, and should be useful in a way, even in late game.(e.g. as a early game low tier food, meal lice can be used as juice ingredient in late game.) The game should also allow multiple solutions to one problem. What do you think of this proposal?

[Sanchozz]

at least three of these problems, these:

• their yield is rather low
• O2 is directly released, thus invalidating the environment and further reduce their yield
• there is currently no reliable way to farm their seeds

can be solved at now with this mod.

[fpx007]

40 minutes ago, Sanchozz said:

can be solved at now with this mod.

I've checked this mod. This is a good mod, but since this mod has done so many tweaks to internal game mechanics, I'm afraid it would cause some unexpected glitches, especially with further updates. I believe my proposal has no technical problem as the cultivation & harvest mechanisms are mature and have already been widely applied to many plants. (The only issue may be drawing its new mature sprite.) Also, I believe mutation mechanism being applied to every type of plants is great. (The Wheezewort is an exception, of course, because it can create radiation on its own.)

[Zarquan]

On 4/7/2023 at 5:37 AM, Sanchozz said:

• O2 is directly released, thus invalidating the environment and further reduce their yield

It doesn't have to be that way.  If you have a setup like the below, you can have them working 100% of the time as long as you can provide CO2.  In fact, it will naturally pump CO2 in to the chamber to the right.

The oxyfern releases oxygen on the top tile, which allows the bottom tile to remain CO2, thus enabling the plant to stay in CO2.  Additionally, if there is CO2 in the top tile when the oxyfern emits, it will push the CO2 down and in to the storage chamber to the right.

The only important part here is that the oxyferns in an elongated CO2 lock.  The chambers can be smaller.

Not saying anything about the output though.

[meekay]

I tend to have a Pip-planted nature reserve full of Oxyferns at the bottom of my base. It's not enough to rely on but it saves a little water, both in terms of O2 generation and CO2 disposal.

[asurendra]

You can get as much seeds as you want by using half-seed planting mechanic, cant you?

[NikiHammerforce]

1 hour ago, asurendra said:

You can get as much seeds as you want by using half-seed planting mechanic, cant you?

How do you get half of a seed?

[fpx007]

15 hours ago, Zarquan said:

It doesn't have to be that way.  If you have a setup like the below, you can have them working 100% of the time as long as you can provide CO2.  In fact, it will naturally pump CO2 in to the chamber to the right.

The oxyfern releases oxygen on the top tile, which allows the bottom tile to remain CO2, thus enabling the plant to stay in CO2.  Additionally, if there is CO2 in the top tile when the oxyfern emits, it will push the CO2 down and in to the storage chamber to the right.

The only important part here is that the oxyferns in an elongated CO2 lock.  The chambers can be smaller.

Not saying anything about the output though.

 

This may enable oxyferns working all time, but even with such design, they are still not useful in late game due to the low default individual productivity and limited quantity of seeds. So people tend not to bother with it in late game. That's why I propose this topic. Many other early game objects still have a use in late game. e.g.  Meal lice for glossy drecko farming, oxygen diffusers/sublimation stations for O2 generation in rocket interiors. But the limited quantity and productivity really limits this plant.

 

5 hours ago, asurendra said:

using half-seed planting mechanic

This is definitely a glitch and may be probably patched later, unless devs officially confirm this as a feature. Besides, if something exists in the game that you can fully utilize it ONLY using glitches, its design is absoultely a FAILURE. (Don't say this is an early-game-only object and intended to be useless in late game. If so, it shouldn't be polluting the printing-pod care-package pool as what the game currently does.)

[asurendra]

21 hours ago, NikiHammerforce said:

How do you get half of a seed?

Look here

[Fleetfeet]

I like the line of reasoning (everything should be useful!) but I don't think oxyferns are in a terrible balance state. Rather, I fear that buffing the base plant without it involving a new mechanic will just invalidate other options. They're in a similar spot to wheezeworts, imo - Wheezeworts are somewhat simple, very low power cooling. They fill their own little niche and aren't powerful or plentiful enough to ramp up to full-scale production with the strength an aquatuner offers. Oxyfern are the same, to me - conditional little plants that are helpful in taking the strain off of larger systems, but not enough to solve the problem alone. I like them in that niche, especially considering there are a half-dozen other effective methods of mass oxygen production.

[fpx007]

4 hours ago, Fleetfeet said:

but I don't think oxyferns are in a terrible balance state.

I guess it is! At least, the wheezeworts are in a far more better state. They are convenient to use compared to most other common cooling methods, and most importantly, they can be deployed as early as you've researched Basic Farming, while thermo aquatuners/regulators require technologys that need advanced research. Besides, because wheezeworts only consume phosphorite while thermo aquatuners/regulators consumes power, the optimal scenarios for them are different and thus there is no direct competition between them. In SA, they are even more useful because they are easy source of radiation. However, because electrolyzers also only require a low-tier research Air Systems (I say it low-tier because this tech also only require basic research points), and consumes same resource (water) as oxyferns, there is direct competition between both methods. (i.e. it is also possible to use electrolyzers in any scenario where you can use oxyferns.) And obviously, oxyferns lose the competition in almost every aspect(environment criteria, output, availability, automation difficulty, resource consumption, etc.), or to say they're completely surpassed by electrolyzers. people tend to always use the latter instead. That's why I say they are in a far more worse terrible balance state.

Spoiler

An explanation to resource consumption aspect: In addition to water, oxyferns consume dirt and CO2 while electrolyzers consume power. But since electrolyzers also produce H2, which completely negates the power usage when used for power generation(and has a surplus!), the power consumption isn't an actual limiting factor. Thus, electrolyzers consume less types of resource, and are more universal.

 

[Fleetfeet]

Agree to disagree! Oxyfern have their niche, and making them competitive with electrolizers would be worse for the game overall. Where Oxyfern require little setup and maintenance, setting up a self-powered electrolyzer system requires a much more robust understanding of several systems. Sure, they're better than Oxyfern if your only goal is oxygen production and you understand how to make a SPOM, but... they're not meant to perform the same function, and not meant to be directly comparable.

I disagree with the premise that Oxyfern have no use case and will only be used if competitive with electrolyzers regarding oxygen production.

[fpx007]

7 hours ago, Fleetfeet said:

Oxyfern have their niche, and making them competitive with electrolizers would be worse for the game overall.

I was not meant to make them as competitve as (or surpass) electrolyzers, I only demostrated the fact that they are currently inferior to (and can usually be completely replaced by) electrolyzers because there is direct competition between them. With current game design the you want to use them when you can’t afford the metal ore cost to build electrolyzer system, which never happens, at least to me.

7 hours ago, Fleetfeet said:

but... they're not meant to perform the same function, and not meant to be directly comparable.

But sadly, currently they ARE, and that is the isuue…

Instead of makingone superior than the other, they should have different strengths/functions so neither is surpassed and forgotten. For example, if my original proposal is adopted, they would have different functions. You will still stick to electrolyzers if you want O2, but if you want rocket oxidizers, you would probably use oxyferns instead.

Spoiler

There could be alternative tweaking methods.For example, remove its water cost (and increase dirt cost if it becomes OP). If so, you would want to use them when you have access to much dirt but little water, whereyou can’t use electrolyzers. (This method still don’t solve the seed reproduction isuue though.)

Be aware if that one aspect of my proposal is to avoid the direct competition between different objects. Otherwise there is always a superior choice and the others will all be forgotten.

 

[zach123b]

On 4/8/2023 at 4:28 PM, Zarquan said:

Spoiler

It doesn't have to be that way.  If you have a setup like the below, you can have them working 100% of the time as long as you can provide CO2.  In fact, it will naturally pump CO2 in to the chamber to the right.

The oxyfern releases oxygen on the top tile, which allows the bottom tile to remain CO2, thus enabling the plant to stay in CO2.  Additionally, if there is CO2 in the top tile when the oxyfern emits, it will push the CO2 down and in to the storage chamber to the right.

The only important part here is that the oxyferns in an elongated CO2 lock.  The chambers can be smaller.

Not saying anything about the output though.

that's so little throughput with wild oxyferns, enough for -one- duplicant.  before i tried relying on them and domestically planted about 20 of them all together and many weren't getting enough co2.  you have to spread them out if you plant them -domestically-

oxyferns are only planted for wild purposes (no water use or nature reserves), people that don't read the info box, or for RP purposes.  they're space inefficient and the seeds are limited unless you make a whole contraption to do seed duplication and it takes -three- if domestic, -twelve- if wild, per dupe.  an electrolyzer does 8.88 dupes

their only saving grace is if you want to trade dirt for water.  which is plentiful at the start until you get into research heavily, then it becomes a trap for new players

[Fleetfeet]

17 hours ago, fpx007 said:

I was not meant to make them as competitve as (or surpass) electrolyzers, I only demostrated the fact that they are currently inferior to (and can usually be completely replaced by) electrolyzers because there is direct competition between them. With current game design the you want to use them when you can’t afford the metal ore cost to build electrolyzer system, which never happens, at least to me.

But sadly, currently they ARE, and that is the isuue…

Instead of makingone superior than the other, they should have different strengths/functions so neither is surpassed and forgotten. For example, if my original proposal is adopted, they would have different functions. You will still stick to electrolyzers if you want O2, but if you want rocket oxidizers, you would probably use oxyferns instead.

  Reveal hidden contents

There could be alternative tweaking methods.For example, remove its water cost (and increase dirt cost if it becomes OP). If so, you would want to use them when you have access to much dirt but little water, whereyou can’t use electrolyzers. (This method still don’t solve the seed reproduction isuue though.)

Be aware if that one aspect of my proposal is to avoid the direct competition between different objects. Otherwise there is always a superior choice and the others will all be forgotten.

 

Do you just shunt all your co2 into infinite storage, or something? I usually have 3-4 oxyfern in the bottom of my base, just to help cut down on on the work carbon skimmers have to do. Oxyfern convert a waste byproduct produced by a great many things into oxygen. They're not super efficient in regards to labour or dirt consumption, but like wheezeworts you can plant them wild and they're practically free carbon skimming.

I don't understand the claim that they do the same thing as electrolyzers and compete with them. They do not. They're far more comparable to Algae Terrariums.

[fpx007]

4 hours ago, Fleetfeet said:

Do you just shunt all your co2 into infinite storage, or something?

In case of CO2,  I don't expect oxyferns to remove them as a function or bonus, instead I regard this as an upkeep or limitation as you CAN'T plant them outside of CO2. This is just like how you can't plant saltvine outside chroline. And again, because their individual efficiency and total quantity is limited, you still want to rely on things like carbon skimmers to remove CO2 when you have a big base, because they don't really matters much. (You usually only have 1-2 dupes in your base? Because 3-4 ferns can only absorb the CO2 emission from that many dupes.)

4 hours ago, Fleetfeet said:

They're far more comparable to Algae Terrariums.

Although some similarities do exist, there is actually no competition between them. Algae terrarium uses algae, don't use dirt, which means when you are abundant in algae and scarce in dirt, you will still choose terrariums over oxyferns. But, when you domesticate oxyferns, you ALWAYS use WATER, which enables the utilizaton of electrolyzers by itself, so they are in direct competiton!

[NeoDeusMachina]

1 hour ago, fpx007 said:

In case of CO2,  I don't expect oxyferns to remove them as a function or bonus, instead I regard this as an upkeep or limitation as you CAN'T plant them outside of CO2. This is just like how you can't plant saltvine outside chroline. And again, because their individual efficiency and total quantity is limited, you still want to rely on things like carbon skimmers to remove CO2 when you have a big base, because they don't really matters much. (You usually only have 1-2 dupes in your base? Because 3-4 ferns can only absorb the CO2 emission from that many dupes.)

Although some similarities do exist, there is actually no competition between them. Algae terrarium uses algae, don't use dirt, which means when you are abundant in algae and scarce in dirt, you will still choose terrariums over oxyferns. But, when you domesticate oxyferns, you ALWAYS use WATER, which enables the utilizaton of electrolyzers by itself, so they are in direct competiton!

You know writing things in bold capital letters really don't make you more correct? It just makes you more painful to read if I am being honest.

About numbers: I have never seen a forest start with 3-4 oxyferns only - usually they are more in the range of 9-14 and that is on smaller maps. You can print them out of the pod as well, just like wort seeds (It is RNG, but it is still arguably a feature).

Electrolyzer water to O2 conversion efficiency: 888g/s O2 / 1000 g/s water = 88,8% conversion efficiency

Domesticated Oxyfern water to O2 conversion efficiency: 18,78kg/cycle / 19kg/cycle water = 98,8% conversion efficiency

So, if you keep bringing in the electrolyzer comparison every time you want to say they both use water, think again, the domesticated oxyfern is the most water efficient O2 production "device" in ONI.

It doubles up as a carbon skimmer, as others have already mentioned. While I understand that wild planting offers "free" O2 and "free" scrubbing, I just don't think it is significant enough for the hassle since they are limited in number. I would only ever use oxyfern domesticated. I have had playthroughs where I had 4-6 dupes fully supported on oxyferns for hundreds of cycles, all of them planted in a pit at the bottom of the base with a wood burner or ethanol distiller on top just to make a bit of CO2 when needed if the ratio wasn't perfect.

They do not generate heat, which is another advantage over other o2 production devices.

On forest start, dirt is not a problem, but water can be in the early game. Oxyferns offer a very interesting alternative to electrolyzer to get out of this low water availability pit (you need it for advanced research) until you get far enough so that you can get electrolyzers running at a later stage in the game, when you can tame a water geyser, for example.

In Spaced Out, they can even support small size colonies on remote asteroids pretty well and are very easy to set up.

They don't need to be "competitive" with electrolyzers at every stage of the game, but they are competitive and even better in some contexts. Whether you have been using them in the right context, I don't know. I actually always thought oxyferns were really good (domesticated) at what they do. They just cannot be seen as a direct alternative to industrial level of o2 production, because that is not their best area of application.

 

Regardless of all of this, and more addressed to the original suggestion - I have mixed feelings about it. I do like the idea, conceptually, of making them harvestable for oxylite, but... wouldn't It change their use somewhat from O2 production to oxidizer production? We currently do not have a reliable way of converting oxylite into o2 besides dumping it and letting it off gas, which is really not that great. It works well in rockets, I guess, because of the limited space, but that is at later stages in the game. So it would make them bad in terms of early-mid game O2 production, on top of adding an extra errand for each plant. They are already quite dupe labor intensive until you can get hydroponics and shipping for dirt, so adding an extra errand per plant, per harvest cycle would be quite significant.

 

So yeah, as was said by another poster, agree to disagree.

[fpx007]

4 hours ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

Electrolyzer water to O2 conversion efficiency: 888g/s O2 / 1000 g/s water = 88,8% conversion efficiency

Domesticated Oxyfern water to O2 conversion efficiency: 18,78kg/cycle / 19kg/cycle water = 98,8% conversion efficiency

So, if you keep bringing in the electrolyzer comparison every time you want to say they both use water, think again, the domesticated oxyfern is the most water efficient O2 production "device" in ONI.

Oh, I missed this. On this aspect, you are right. I'm sorry what I said was too absolute. But still why I don't think this is important is because a 10% change in cost is only a quantitive change. You won't give up electrolyzers due to this small water difference, especially for oxyferns which can't be spammed. (This change can be taken into consideration if it can be spammed, however.) But many other isuues, e.g. the cost of dirt and CO2, the smaller temperature threshold, etc. are all the difference of something or nothing, or the terms qualitive change. You want to use oxyferns but you have no dirt? NO WAY! You want to use oxyferns in atmosphere at 50 °C? No way! The quantitive changes usually don't make one option invalid (just make one less efficient), but these qualitive changes do.

4 hours ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

In Spaced Out, they can even support small size colonies on remote asteroids pretty well and are very easy to set up.

I used to have the similar thought, but only before when I did the calculation and find how inefficient they are, so I gave them up. You need to deilver both dirt and water, which means you need more packages (1.225kg/kgO2) than electrolyzers(1.125kg/kgO2) when summed up.

Spoiler

After all, that is still a quantitive change which doesn't matters much. Besides, I prefer direct delivery of O2 instead. That's even a simplier in setup, requires no manual work as upkeep and takes up even less packages.

4 hours ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

Whether you have been using them in the right context, I don't know.

By the way, I only use them to build natural reserves, and don't expect them to do anything other than increasing the wild plant count. I tend not to uproot them unless they are in the way because something is always better than nothing, but I seldom purposely domesticate them. (I may let pips plant them if I need a natural reserve, though.)

4 hours ago, NeoDeusMachina said:

but... wouldn't It change their use somewhat from O2 production to oxidizer production?

In my original post, they utility WOULD change in late game, but ALMOST NO change is made to early game utilization. Harvested oxylite usually emit O2 if left alone, so their final product is still O2 if you don't interrupt. I admitted the fact that this add some harvest errands, but since ripe plants auto-harvest if left unharvested for several days. This is just a trade-off between manual work and plant efficiency. (Also as a bonus, harvest errands train dupes' farming ability!) As for late game, it is totally fair because many other early game objects do. e.g. While meal woods are rarely regarded as food source in late game, people still plants them for juice making or (glossy) drecko ranching. Also this won't introduce the competition between them and dense pufts/ oxylite refineries either. Refineries are fully automate and much more efficient, but cost gold and is power-negative. Dense pufts can provide meat as by product. And most importantly, oxyferns consumes CO2 while pufts/refineries consumes O2.

Spoiler

The reason why I made this proposal is because I believe they are currently under-powered. Again, everything in this game needs some love. But in an ecosystem, unless a perfect balance is achieved, competition always make certain species stand out, so other species who stand on a same position but is less competitive just can't get adequate resource, and usually go extinct. This is also true for objects in a game. Players always compare in-game objects have similar functions and costs. They compare their effectiveness, consuption, limitations, etc, and tend to focus more on competitive one and neglect others. That is, the incompetitive one gets less resource (players' attention, or love), and then goes extinction. Because I believe extinction is the result of competition, All I want to do is to AVOID direct ingame competitions. I didn't post a simple proposal like increase oxyfern O2 output, because I know this will make electrolyzers less competitive and extinct, too!

Finally, under-powered or not, I don't think this is the key isuue. Even if they are not under-powered as some of you say, it is still totally fair (and necessary) to apply this change. I believe they are under-powered, so such tweak becomes even more important. (In case of seed segmentation, I don't think the expilot of a glitch should be taken into consideration when we are talking about some purposed ingame mechanic.) 

[Zarquan]

On 4/14/2023 at 9:18 AM, zach123b said:

that's so little throughput with wild oxyferns, enough for -one- duplicant.  before i tried relying on them and domestically planted about 20 of them all together and many weren't getting enough co2.  you have to spread them out if you plant them -domestically-

oxyferns are only planted for wild purposes (no water use or nature reserves), people that don't read the info box, or for RP purposes.  they're space inefficient and the seeds are limited unless you make a whole contraption to do seed duplication and it takes -three- if domestic, -twelve- if wild, per dupe.  an electrolyzer does 8.88 dupes

their only saving grace is if you want to trade dirt for water.  which is plentiful at the start until you get into research heavily, then it becomes a trap for new players

I was showing a structure that allows oxyferns to work 100% of the time, not arguing it was worth doing.  Hence "not saying anything about the output."  But this structure also works with hydroponic tiles.

[tuxii]

ONI already has 2 forms of oxylite production, the refinery and pufts.  Oxyferns will never be able to compete with those sources, so what would be the point?  It's just trading a weak oxygen producer for a weak oxylite producer.  It wouldn't greatly change the way most players use oxyferns.

Oxyferns have always been intended to be a early game stopgap measure on forested starts.  So oxyferns are more analogous to algae, which is meant to run out so players have to move on to better oxygen sources.  That's why oxyferns are so limited.  If they're not limited and the player is provided Pips, as they almost always are of forest starts, they're practically free oxygen.  It would be too easy.  The player could just grow massive wild oxyfern farms (changing from oxygen to oxylite makes little difference here except time spent harvesting) and not move onto more advanced concepts as Klei intends.

I think oxyferns are fine in their current form and I think their role in early game is perfectly fine as well.  But I do think oxyferns could use some love.

Perhaps a late game (requiring tier 4 or 5 research and advanced material) building could give the oxyfern a second life.  A pressurized greenhouse or something that holds one and increases its oxygen output for some cost. Also, perhaps the greenhouse could be expandable and one core building could be scaled up with more oxyfern plants planted in pods which function similar to atmosuit docks connecting to a checkpoint.

The Greenhouse could also have applications for other plants and there could be a lot of fun possibilities there.  It could actually make mutating plants worthwhile.

[degr]

I think best way how to improve oxyferns is this one:

1. remove oxyferns from game

2. make plants such as Sleet Wheat, Nosh Sprout, Mealwood, Thimble Reed, Bristle Blossom require CO2 and produce O2

[fpx007]

4 hours ago, tuxii said:

Oxyferns will never be able to compete with those sources

They will be, in some aspects. Refinery is power intensive and requires gold, while puft mutation system is complex and critter pathfinding, especially airbrone ones, takes up a lot of CPU resource, which is undesired in late game. Besides, the primary goal of my proposal is to make them reproduceable. It is totally OK if they are made reproducable in another way.

4 hours ago, tuxii said:

So oxyferns are more analogous to algae, which is meant to run out so players have to move on to better oxygen sources.

First, algae is never limited. You may ranch pufts to get slimes, then refine them to algae. Second, algae can also feed pacus. 

4 hours ago, tuxii said:

If they're not limited and the player is provided Pips, as they almost always are of forest starts, they're practically free oxygen.  It would be too easy. 

Remember that pip planting is extremely inefficient in terms of space. Resource is never only limited to those materials It also includes space, which is totally not renewable. So the massively planted wild plants will not make the game broken.

4 hours ago, tuxii said:

and not move onto more advanced concepts as Klei intends.

Advanced concepts just give players more options. They don't equal to better. For example, do you always use mini pumps instead of regular ones as Klei intends?

(For the other part of your idea, they are fine.)

 

26 minutes ago, degr said:

I think best way how to improve oxyferns is this one:

1. remove oxyferns from game

2. make plants such as Sleet Wheat, Nosh Sprout, Mealwood, Thimble Reed, Bristle Blossom require CO2 and produce O2

Well, this may be the last resort, but I wouldn't be against if Klei did it because then they would no longer pollute the the printing-pod care-package pool. (Besides, reed shouldn't do so because they can be planted under water/p.water.)

[tuxii]

5 hours ago, fpx007 said:

First, algae is never limited. You may ranch pufts to get slimes, then refine them to algae. Second, algae can also feed pacus. 

Effectively in early game, algae is always limited.  Many players hit the wall and run out of algae and have to hastily build an electrolyzer setup.  The ways to renew algae are limited and require planning and knowledge of mechanics.  There are starts without access to slime or pufts where the algae limit can be really felt.  Yes, it can be collected from space but that is decidedly late game, however getting a organic space POI isn't always guaranteed either.

9 hours ago, fpx007 said:

Remember that pip planting is extremely inefficient in terms of space. Resource is never only limited to those materials It also includes space, which is totally not renewable. So the massively planted wild plants will not make the game broken.

Except for the mini moonlet starts space is never really that limited.  Where will the oxyferns live?  At the absolute bottom of the base, which is the least valuable real estate on the map.  On Classic and base game maps there is space for multiple floors of wild planted oxyferns.

I would break the game with oxyferns myself if the seeds weren't limited.  I would fill the bottom half of the map with wild planted oxyferns and have my dupes live above while feeding them a steady diet of longhair slickster meat.  A few wild arbor trees so I can burn wood for CO2 to feed the oxyferns.

Also, I love how you completely ignored my idea about a Greenhouse building.  It shows me that you are closed to any other ideas aside from your own.

[fpx007]

19 hours ago, tuxii said:

ONI already has 2 forms of oxylite production, the refinery and pufts.  Oxyferns will never be able to compete with those sources, so what would be the point?  It's just trading a weak oxygen producer for a weak oxylite producer. 

3 hours ago, tuxii said:

The ways to renew algae are limited and require planning and knowledge of mechanics.  There are starts without access to slime or pufts where the algae limit can be really felt.

First, in base game, there is alwasy a chance to print pufts, while in SA, there is always a marshy asteriod containing them (then they become printable). Second, You also mentioned pufts in oxylite refining. Why do you think dense puft ranching is OK (so proposed oxyferns become "weak oxylite producer") while regular puft ranching is "limited and require planning and knowledge of mechanics"? Obviously, the latter is simplier (as it don't require the knowledge of mutation management.)

3 hours ago, tuxii said:

Except for the mini moonlet starts space is never really that limited.  Where will the oxyferns live?  At the absolute bottom of the base, which is the least valuable real estate on the map.  On Classic and base game maps there is space for multiple floors of wild planted oxyferns.

I would break the game with oxyferns myself if the seeds weren't limited.  I would fill the bottom half of the map with wild planted oxyferns and have my dupes live above while feeding them a steady diet of longhair slickster meat.  A few wild arbor trees so I can burn wood for CO2 to feed the oxyferns.

This is totally a fine trade, even if space is unlimited. With pips, you can plant all kind of plants as wild ones. Don't they give you free resource? Or should they never yield a seed as oxyferns? Unless you are playing at minimal difficulty, no food will cause dupe death, just as no oxygen.

3 hours ago, tuxii said:

Also, I love how you completely ignored my idea about a Greenhouse building.  It shows me that you are closed to any other ideas aside from your own.

I said other parts of your ideas (including this one) are FINE (so I do not need to argue over that). Why do you misinterpret other's words on purpose?

[tuxii]

21 minutes ago, fpx007 said:

This is totally a fine trade, even if space is unlimited. With pips, you can plant all kind of plants as wild ones. Don't they give you free resource? Or should they never yield a seed as oxyferns? Unless you are playing at minimal difficulty, no food will cause dupe death, just as no oxygen.

No it's not.  Because the game is Oxygen Not Included.

*mic drop*

I'll see myself out.