Wood burners make too much CO2

[DarkMaster13]

The wood burner produces 102kg of CO2 per cycle for a measly 300W.  That's half the power output as a coal generator, but 8.5x as much CO2 (12 kg/cycle).  One carbon skimmer can remove as much CO2 as 1.76 wood burners produce.  The only thing that produces comparable levels of CO2 are the petroleum generators and ethanol distillers, which are much further down the tech tree and produce way more output for the cost.

The wood burner really should be something that's much more comparable to the coal generator, given how early it is in the tech tree and the utility function it should have.  However, with how much CO2 is dumps out, it's basically something you should never use.  Especially if you have access to the coal generator, which produces vastly less CO2 per kg of coal burned.

[SGT_Imalas]

wood burner power output is a red herring; its true purpose is to make the wood -> co2 -> slickster -> oil resource transfer

[Gurgel]

Wood burners are an excellent source of CO2. You can use them for their secondary purpose of electricity generation, but that is atypical.

Incidentally, using gas-crushers works nicely when using them for electricity generation.

[DarkMaster13]

Wood burners also aren't the only source of CO2 in the game.  You've got other very strong sources you can use if that's your primary goal, like ethanol burners that also consume wood.

I just don't think that them being a good source of CO2 is a good reason to make them a horrible early game power source, when that's clearly meant to be their primary function.  It means that they're first and foremost a new player trap when folks go into a forest or frosty start for the first time.  While experienced players ignore the wood burner outright until, and unless, they need CO2.

[speckle21]

nah, its not a trap. It's just an early game power source for those starts in the forest biome. Then you transition to more complicated but more efficient power sources.

Try starting on the Folia maps. Those starts have almost exclusively wood until you dig out of the forest biome. 

Klei is very smart to give you an easy early starting power source. Peat, Coal, Wood, etc. And then you tech up to something more efficient and substantial. 

[fpx007]

Actually, in terms of CO2 generation, making and burning ethonal is more efficient. For 12kg/s wood, 10 wood burners create 1700g/s CO2, while 12 ethonal distillers create 2000g/s CO2, not to mention the CO2 created from petroleum gens. In terms of power gen, 10 wood burners generate 3000W, while total power output of 3 petroleum gens and 12 ethonal distillators are 3120W, still beating wood burners.

So the main advantage of wood burners is lower tech requirement. However, since the utility of CO2 is limited in early game, generating too much CO2 is definitely a disaster in early game. So, I agree with the idea of OP. (Perhaps have its power generation increased to ~800W, and increase its wood upkeep if necessary.)

[DarkMaster13]

Plus, it's not like you need that much CO2 in the early game.  It's only 375g per cycle per oxyfern, and that's basically the only significant consumer of CO2 you might have at that time.  Your dupes plus one coal generator are quite capable of making enough CO2 for oxyferns to support the colony.

[Gurgel]

7 hours ago, fpx007 said:

Actually, in terms of CO2 generation, making and burning ethonal is more efficient.

Sure, if you do it long-term. But nothing beats a wood-burner for quickly filling a room with CO2. Easy, simple, fast. 

[degr]

I suggest move wood burners (same as any other CO2 producer) into space. You don't need CO2, not in early, not in late game.

[fpx007]

1 hour ago, Gurgel said:

nothing beats a wood-burner for quickly filling a room with CO2

The Super Sustainable simply beats it. Ethonal distillers may be used with petroleum gens, but they may also be used without petroleum gens. An ethonal distiller creates similar amount of CO2 (166.7g/s vs 170g/s), so in terms of how fast, they are similar, but they don't void that specific achievement. Even if you don't care about the achievement, ethonal distillers also provide a advantage that the ethonal may be backup for later use, which is more flexible.

By the way, unlike generators with pipe inputs,  wood burners can't be fueled when batteries are full (delivery threshold can't be set beyond 100%), thus they won't work either. This happens quite often when relying on uncontrollable energy(solar, nuclear, etc). To use them, you have to retrofit your electricity system, which adds to the complexity.

Underpowered or even useless objects DO exist in this game. Wood burner is already a good example. Other examples include ore scrubber, large solid oxidizer tank (in SO). However you argue, their underpowered status is solid: experienced players hardly choose them because either they are not needed, they bring more trouble than convenience, or superior options have already been available when they are finally needed. An object that is not underpowered should appeal to players in at least one aspect, and wood burners definitely fail to do so.

[Gurgel]

If you like complex solutions, sure. But I am an engineer. Simplicity is king. And hence nothing beats a wood-burner. 

[Carib94]

I agree Wood Burners are underpowered but FPP has made Wood Burners more useful for C02 with Aloe Veras for oxygen early game. 

I have used Wood Burners as Food for Slickters and control them with automation. Wood delivery is automated so no issues there as usual. I could use Distillers and Petro gen to provide the CO2 but Wood Burners are more simpler, and they are not the main source of power when I use them this way. So its just there to make C02 and the power is the side benefit. Kinda like a Nuclear Reactors the main purpose of it is to get Rads for Radbolt engines and other radbolt related buildings, the power that it provides is just a good side benefit of it which can power an entire colony, tho wood burners cant LOL(well they can with wild trees LOL)  

[DarkMaster13]

22 hours ago, fpx007 said:

So the main advantage of wood burners is lower tech requirement. However, since the utility of CO2 is limited in early game, generating too much CO2 is definitely a disaster in early game. So, I agree with the idea of OP. (Perhaps have its power generation increased to ~800W, and increase its wood upkeep if necessary.)

It doesn't really need to make more power, since you can build more power plants to get the same result.  Simply reducing the CO2 output to something more in line with the coal generator would be enough to make it a viable early game power generation option for forest and frosty starts.

3 hours ago, Carib94 said:

I agree Wood Burners are underpowered but FPP has made Wood Burners more useful for C02 with Aloe Veras for oxygen early game.

Not really?  I just did a Frosty start and had more than enough CO2 for my Alveos without any power plants.  The start gives you a ton of oxylite just sitting around to get your initial pressure up.  It was looking at how much I'd screw myself over if I used wood burners that inspired me to make this thread, though I think I brought the issue up back when the forest starts were first added.  I stuck with a manual generator and low power consumption until I'd tapped into an ethanol pool.

[imazined]

Just put them behind a liquid lock. No need to suffocate your colony with CO2. Later use it for the soda bottle rocket

[Primalflower]

On 7/3/2025 at 7:13 PM, DarkMaster13 said:

when that's clearly meant to be their primary function.

They exist on a start starved for co2 via oxyferns. you had a misconception of their primary purpose and that's okay but i don't think how they exist now is offensive at all. they are additionally vital to FPP start since that too is starved of co2 for o2 production - each duplicant wants at least 2 alveo veras, and each alveo vera needs 2g/s of carbon dioxide, meaning that each duplicant wants an extra alveo vera of production, so of course it makes sense for wood burners to produce quite a lot of co2 for little wood input

13 hours ago, fpx007 said:

wood burners can't be fueled when batteries are full (delivery threshold can't be set beyond 100%)

uhh.... a 100% battery isn't feasible for more than a tick. every battery (i think, even the rocket one? not sure) has a passive drain. so setting wood burners to be fueled at 100% will always have them fueled, at least that's been my experience? even when using stuff that is always on like nuclear

Edited July 5, 2025 by Primalflower

[DarkMaster13]

25 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

They exist on a start starved for co2 via oxyferns. you had a misconception of their primary purpose and that's okay but i don't think how they exist now is offensive at all. they are additionally vital to FPP start since that too is starved of co2 for o2 production - each duplicant wants at least 2 alveo veras, and each alveo vera needs 2g/s of carbon dioxide, meaning that each duplicant wants an extra alveo vera of production, so of course it makes sense for wood burners to produce quite a lot of co2 for little wood input

The primary intended function of a wood furnace by the developers is to be run for CO2 for a couple minutes and then either permanently removed or turned back on again after ten cycles for another couple minutes if you still don't have a coal generator?  That seems incredibly unlikely, is very un-intiuitive, and presented completely wrong if that's the case.

Wood burners are unlocked in the same tech as coal generators, with no other unlock.  The description and functionality of the wood burner is nearly identical to the coal generator, the description is, "Wood burners are small and easy to maintain, but produce a fair bit of heat." The wood burner is inside the power category for buildings, not refining or utilities.  The only thing that makes them not suitable as an alternative coal generator is that they produce so much CO2, 17 times as much for the amount of power you get.

I've also genuinely and truly never needed a wood burner for CO2 to supply my oxyferns, and I've played a lot of forest starts on maximum difficulty.  Adding on coal generators after breaking into jungle biomes has always given me enough CO2 to keep things running just fine.  So if wood burners were adjusted to produce CO2 on the same scale as coal generators they'd definitely be able to keep oxyferns running.

For concrete numbers, I'd say something like 15 g/s would be reasonable.  It still produces 50% more CO2 than coal generators do to combo with the oxyferns and provide extra challenge, but isn't producing absurd amounts of CO2 for the amount of power you'd be pulling out of them in the early game.

[Primalflower]

6 minutes ago, DarkMaster13 said:

The primary intended function of a wood furnace by the developers is to be run for CO2 for a couple minutes and then either permanently removed or turned back on again after ten cycles for another couple minutes if you still don't have a coal generator?

Yes...? Like, a lot of forest starts simply don't have coal is the thing

[DarkMaster13]

29 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

Yes...? Like, a lot of forest starts simply don't have coal is the thing

I think you misunderstood the point I was trying to make later in my comment.  That was that the amount of CO2 produced by a coal generator is plenty to supply oxyferns and therefor the wood furnace does not need to produce extremely large amounts of CO2 to keep oxyferns supplied.  Reducing the wood furnace to only 15 g/s of CO2 would still be plenty to keep oxyferns or alveos well supplied.

[Carib94]

4 hours ago, DarkMaster13 said:

Not really?  I just did a Frosty start and had more than enough CO2 for my Alveos without any power plants.  The start gives you a ton of oxylite just sitting around to get your initial pressure up.  It was looking at how much I'd screw myself over if I used wood burners that inspired me to make this thread, though I think I brought the issue up back when the forest starts were first added.  I stuck with a manual generator and low power consumption until I'd tapped into an ethanol pool.

That depends on how many dupes you have early, if not many then of course not much c02 is needed. But i hear you. 

[Gurgel]

8 hours ago, DarkMaster13 said:

The primary intended function of a wood furnace by the developers is to be run for CO2 for a couple minutes and then either permanently removed or turned back on again after ten cycles for another couple minutes if you still don't have a coal generator? 

I see your problem: You try to find out what the developers intended. That is the wrong approach. In case you have not noticed, ONI is a simulation. That means almost _nothing_ has a "primary purpose" or "primary intended function" and your "problems" result from trying to find one. The actual question you should be asking instead is "what can this thing be used for?". And suddenly there is no problem anymore.  

Edited July 5, 2025 by Gurgel

[imazined]

Also the is like an unreliable narrator. Don't believe everything it says. Look how things behave instead of what the label says. 

[asurendra]

While wood burners are a bit less effective, they  take much, much less space. And thats matter on some maps

 

Edited July 5, 2025 by asurendra

[speckle21]

Why does the wood burner need to match the coal generator?

I actually like them NOT being a drop-in replacement. Every map is different. Some will have lots of coal, others will have lots of wood. So you need different plans and approaches for each. If they were perfectly balanced drop-in replacements for each other, then each map would play the same. Build everything in a certain order and it gets boring.

I like that some maps i got uranium battery power plant racks. Others i got saturn critter trap gas farms. I got a coal/hatch farm in a few. And sometimes, i'm rocking a wood forest with ethanol distillers.

My favorite power plant build wasn't even very good: it was a steam turbine power plant directly over a salt water geyser. I geotuned it to spit out steam at 195c. Not gonna lie, it kinda sucked because it would go dormant and i needed other power during that time. But it was fun and different. 

 

Is the wood burner REALLY that big of a problem? Personally i just want the automation and refilling to be fixed. So i can refill disabled burners. 

[DarkMaster13]

16 minutes ago, speckle21 said:

Why does the wood burner need to match the coal generator?

It doesn't.  You can stick with manual generators and ignore using wood for power entirely, which is the correct move at the moment because the wood burner is a really bad choice for power generation with the current balance.  You wait until you dig up coal from elsewhere, get a hatch population up, or crack a supply of natural gas or ethanol before you move off of manual.  Standard ONI problem solving.  I do find it a bit bland that this forces the player to use the same solutions as a sandstone start.

What I would like is for the burner to not produce so much CO2 that it's basically worthless for power generation.  If 50% more CO2 per unit of power is not an acceptable trade off, would you accept 200% or 300% instead?  Why does it have to be 1700%?  Why is the status quo so sacred that any changes are unacceptable?  It's not like you couldn't still use burners powering a lamp to fill an area with CO2 pretty quickly.  It just takes a cycle rather than a minute.

6 hours ago, Gurgel said:

I see your problem: You try to find out what the developers intended. That is the wrong approach. In case you have not noticed, ONI is a simulation. That means almost _nothing_ has a "primary purpose" or "primary intended function" and your "problems" result from trying to find one. The actual question you should be asking instead is "what can this thing be used for?". And suddenly there is no problem anymore.  

Sure, I can reframe my problem then.  "I think the early game on forest and frosty starts should have an early game power plant similar to the coal generator and plug slugs, but with its own trade offs, that is a perfectly reasonable choice for new players to rely on for a hundred cycles. The wood burner is positioned and presented to fit this purpose, but produces so much CO2 to essentially be a new player trap if they try to use it in this role."

[speckle21]

its not that the status quo is sacred, i just haven't run into a problem with it so far. I've used wood burners, and the CO2 is a bit annoying, but it's never really bothered me.