Critter fountain and critter overcrowding

[Fistleaf]

Does the critter fountain allow ranching with higher population? For example, max critter population without overcrowding is 8. After adding the critter fountain, is it possible to ranch say 10 critters without overcrowding penalty?

[Primalflower]

the critter fountain gives the critter in question +5 happiness. Overcrowding will add a -5 happiness debuff alongside an additional -1 for each extra critter after the first. So a hatch under the effects of both a grooming station and a critter fountain would achieve 9 happiness, from +10 buffs and the inherent -1 debuff of being tame. So that would mean that a 96 tile hatch ranch would be capable of supporting an additional 4 hatches to a total of 12 (9 - (5 + 3) = 1, which is above 0 happiness) with a daily critter fountain drain of 60kg a cycle. I wouldn't say it's worth it, because you could also just, have a bigger ranch, or alternatively forgo grooming station entirely to automate the ranching process instead of overclocking your ranch, but I don't cast aside the idea that there may be a situation where it is beneficial.

[psusi]

So the point of the fountain is that you can use it *instead* of having a rancher take the time to groom?

 

[Primalflower]

2 hours ago, psusi said:

So the point of the fountain is that you can use it *instead* of having a rancher take the time to groom?

 

that is the more significant use, yes. 5kg/cycle per critter, meaning that the grooming of 10-ish to 9 critters can be handled by one gassy moo, since one produces 200kg of brackene upon milking and regens 25% of the meter that needs to be filled before you can milk it every cycle.

[blakemw]

13 hours ago, psusi said:

So the point of the fountain is that you can use it *instead* of having a rancher take the time to groom?

The two interesting uses of Critter Fountain seem to be:

1. Avoiding the need to Groom in normal sized ranches. Considering that in the late game labor tends to not be all that limiting it's not obvious when this is actually a good deal, besides the compulsion of some player's that dupes should enjoy a life of idleness and leisure.
2. Making compact ranches, which pack extra 4 critters into a ranch that would normally only hold 1 or 2 critters, for 5 or 6 critters in a ranch which is only like 20-24 tiles large. A Critter Fountain + Grooming Station takes up 15 tiles, while most critters require 12 tiles, but fliers tend to require 16 tiles (Pufts and Gassy Moos). While it's not immediately obvious when you might want a compact ranch, it can be easily imagined as a useful thing for mini-base mods or perhaps some extreme Spacefarer engineering, with a Spacefarer you also don't need a local Brackene supply, it'd be possible to pack some into the rocket's tanks.

[BaZERGer]

Sounds like this might be handy if you want to have happy tame critters outside of the 96 tile limit of the Stable room, as long is there's no other "Needs stable" buildings involved. It's simple enough to restrict even flying critters to a small area, while still letting them be part of a huge miscellaneous room.

[blakemw]

1 hour ago, BaZERGer said:

Sounds like this might be handy if you want to have happy tame critters outside of the 96 tile limit of the Stable room, as long is there's no other "Needs stable" buildings involved. It's simple enough to restrict even flying critters to a small area, while still letting them be part of a huge miscellaneous room.

You may think so, but the Critter Fountain is disabled if it is not in a Stable, it happens that by the game's reckoning it qualifies as a "Grooming Station" for making a room a Stable, but the room still has to meet the 12-96 tiles size requirement for a Stable and have no conflicting buildings, so creative uses are pretty limited and it's basically just an alternative substitute or complement to a Grooming Station.