Help out a noob

[Falkenpelz]

Heya, I'm back to some ONI and I'm trying to learn. I have a couple of goals for my colony and need some tips on how to get there without my colony going to shitz on the way. With my future colony (no asteroid selected yet) I want to:

Reach the surface and make a nice base with more than 4 dupes there.

Not take a trillion years to travel between important spots.

Ranch some critters, most importantly pips, because they bring forth such joy.

I'm happy for any advice, but I also have some specific questions: What is the best way to move towards the surface? Make a base around the pod first, or immediately start moving? What items/tasks are objectively bad/irrelevant and can be ignored? How do I deal with unfortunate cases of slimelung gems flooding the entire base? Should I assign dupe priorities or leave them alone? What to make of polluted oxygen? Why does everyone love pufts so much?

Happy for answers!

[Sasza22]

If you want to ranch pips make sure you select a planetoid that has them. It has to be a forest biome start for it to spawn with pips. If you are playing SO you can find them on other planetoids but that might take a while to get.

So i personally just dig up until i see the surface. But i don`t breach it before i`m ready for that. You want at least oxygen masks set up and an airlock before you get out there. In the vanila game it`s better to go to the oil biome first and get some fossil rocks to make extra steel for meteor protection. Meteors in SO aren`t that dangerous but iirc the can still damage your buildings or entomb them.

You can get exploring once you got your necessities covered (food, oxygen production, morale) and some of the tech needed. No point in going to the surface if you got nothing to do there so i`d at least get some glass going and the solar panel tech. Unless it`s SO where you want to set up a telescope early.

You don`t need to dig out the map or sweep all areas. Just pick what you need. You can disable disinfect tasks (or add an extra zero to the thershold) as dupes waste a lot of time on disinfecting random tiles.

Slimelung isn`t altogether that big of a threat. It hinders your pordutivity but isn`t lethal for dupes and can be largely ignored in it`s current form. If slimelung germs flood your base it`s best to spam deodorizers everywhere. Slimelung will die off in clean oxygen after several cycles. You can also plant buddy buds as they emit floral scent that blocks slimelung.

Polluted oxygen isn`t a problem unless it gets infected with slimelung. It will increase oxygen consumption slightly but that`s it. Just use deodorizers as long as you got enough sand.

Also a good idea is to make a long fire pole in the middle or on one side of the base to speed up dupe movement downward.

[goboking]

7 hours ago, Falkenpelz said:

What is the best way to move towards the surface?

Dig upwards.  (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

 

7 hours ago, Falkenpelz said:

Make a base around the pod first, or immediately start moving?

You could probably forage enough food and find enough air pockets to sustain yourself during the migration, but I wouldn't recommend trying.  Build at least a rudimentary base around the pod to sustain your dupes until someone learns the necessary skills to dig through the abyssalite that serves as a gate to the surface (and other biomes), and long enough to research dry wall, which is necessary to prevent oxygen from being lost to the vacuum of space.

 

7 hours ago, Falkenpelz said:

What items/tasks are objectively bad/irrelevant and can be ignored?

Objectively bad things are few, but there are some.  Off the top of my head...

• Making mush bars or liceloaf is a water sink, so avoid doing so except as a last measure to stave off starvation. 
• Don't use coal, natural gas, hydrogen, or petroleum generators without smart batteries, otherwise you're wasting a lot of fuel and generating unnecessary heat.

Irrelevant things that can be ignored.

• I kills me to say it, but @Sasza22 is right, you can safely ignore germs.  Food poisoning is but a mild inconvenience.  To a lesser degree, so is slimelung.  You have to go out of your way to get infected with zombie spores.  And you can avoid taking dupes with allergies.  All of that said, I personally train a doctor and produce medicine as doing so adds to the immersion of the game for me, and because it futureproofs my colonies in case we ever get a diseases rework.

 

7 hours ago, Falkenpelz said:

How do I deal with unfortunate cases of slimelung gems flooding the entire base?

As @Sasza22 said, liberal use of deodorizers will purify the polluted oxygen, which in turn will kill slimelung germs.  Once you've cleared up your base, store your polluted water and offgassing organics in an area that purifies the resultant polluted oxygen as it's generated.

 

7 hours ago, Falkenpelz said:

Should I assign dupe priorities or leave them alone?

At a minimum, I would use priorities to ensure your specialists are performing their specialized tasks rather than general labor (digging, building, storage, etc.) and that your general labor isn't preventing your specialists from performing their job (a digger sitting at the research station, for example).

 

7 hours ago, Falkenpelz said:

What to make of polluted oxygen?

Filtering it through deodorizers creates clean oxygen and clay, which in turn can be used to produce ceramic.  Alternatively, you can feed it to pufts for slime if you're farming mushrooms.  You can also ignore it if it's outside your base and you're using suits to protect your dupes from hostile environments.