Flying 4-dupe banquet hall

[myxal]

Cheers everyone, and shout out to u/Special-Substance-43 from reddit for the 40%-inaccessible dining table idea - I've been tinkering with my previous 4-dupe design to enable the banquet hall bonus. Here's what I've come up with and would love feedback - this is not at all battle-tested.

The gas ventilation was overhauled to reduce foreground building space required while offering (mostly?) the same player comforts as the previous design:

Spoiler

• Robust against contaminated supply from the planetoid and junk gases entering interior pump
• Prioritises external supply where available
• Avoids re-pumping during flight

Exploded view:

 

The new system is one big loop with several elements in specific order

• Interior pump (1) has priority over the loop. If it's pumping and there's packets stuff in the loop, there's a bridge buffer (3) upstream to take up the stopped packets.
• Next downstream, external supply from the module port bridges onto the loop.
• Next downstream, mechanical filter (2) separates out non-oxygen packets and dumps them to the module output port.
• Next downstream, bridge supplies O2 consumers in the module (4) - gas vent, atmo docks, etc.
• Next downstream, the aforementioned buffer (3) takes up loop's packets if the pump is ordered to pump. This usually happens on long flights, when pump needs to take out CO2 from the module.

Automation:

This time, the big pump is turned on be either:

• accumulation of CO2 or other non-oxygen gases at the (atmospheric) element sensor
• gas pipe element sensor not sensing oxygen in the loop

Both of these sensors are filtered - the latter's filter delay should match or exceed the total length of the loop. The pipe sensor's trigger is additionally ANDed with a space location sensor in such a way that re-pumping is avoided when undesireable (ie. in space, possibly on planetoids with habitable bases).

I don't think I can get the single SpaceLoc sensor to also correctly drive the atmo checkpoint, but maybe there is a way. TBH with 4 docks the benefits of automating the checkpoint are mostly moot.

And with that, presenting interior..

4D-V3 EDIT: Not working properly, see below for V5 build

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I was worried that the dupe opening the door between rehydrator and the dining table would break the eating errand, but nah, it's OK:

 

Changed overlays:

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Edited December 27, 2025 by myxal
Automation figured out

[myxal]

I think I figured out the automation - it's not really possible to have a single SpaceLoc sensor control both pump and suit docks without major downsides, so the checkpoint is left uncontrolled.

I decided to have the SpaceLoc sensor output green on "planetoids with external gas supply". This opens up the gas vent and limits the pump automation to turn on only to extract junk gases from the module. In space and on "freshly landed" planetoids with no gas supply, the vent is left closed (module oxygen is replenished from oxylite), and the gas loop emptiness sensor is allowed to turn on the pump - this refills docks without wasting pump uptime to repump oxygen within the module.

Could be done without the extra AND and NOT gates (filter or buffer SpaceLoc signal into the NOT gate for the gas pipe element sensor's input) but eh... not like the automation overlay is too crowded.

Spoiler

EDIT: Aaand coming back to survival I immediately spot the problem with this. If the SpaceLoc sensor's configuration isn't "planetoids with full base", then switching between grounded/available has to be done manually when landing on colonised planetoids vs.parking on home base. Aargh, I'll brew this some more.

Edited December 26, 2025 by myxal

[Tigin]

I did something similar for the banquet hall, although I used a pneumatic door to separate out a room (That empty 2x2 was originally a gas pump that was supplying an enclosed telescope)

Also those pneumatic doors should be wicker doors!  

[myxal]

3 minutes ago, Tigin said:

Also those pneumatic doors should be wicker doors! 

Old habits die hard

But yes, less automation port spam -> better. 

[myxal]

Hm, anyone here familiar with suit dock abuse? How well/poorly would this work?

• Toilet on the module door
• dining table 40% accessible through door...
• ...which holds up atmo suits
• 4th dock below checkpoint

Spoiler

EDIT: No-eyed-deer lord, routing gas in this thing is a headache...

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EDIT 2: I'd need 1 extra foreground building space for the ventilation setup. I can remove the tile above the dining table's left seat, but duplicants then try to idle beyond the checkpoint:

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I guess a cheeky glass-filled-farm-plot empty will have to solve this...

EDIT 3: Actually, this might just about work, no cheeky sensor entombment required.

4D-V5

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EDIT 4: Sidenote: In the other thread I specified an optional CO2-sensor to enable the pump on extremely long stays in the cabin without external air. Well guess what - because the dupes here need to take suits to the toilet, the pump periodically gets turned on (and CO2 sucked out) already!

Edited December 27, 2025 by myxal

[myxal]

Ventilation update - having realised that the O2 consumers in the cabin (docks and vent) shouldn't be treated the same, I cooked up a new ventilation system, eliminating the shutoff, about half the automation, and saving 2 foregound building cells:

Spoiler

EDIT: Happy new year, etc. etc...

4D-V5.1

New ventilation above, in module:

Spoiler

• Foreground space in the upper right was intentionally left blank. Any contamination in external gas supply is released through the vent inside - the large pump takes care of most undesired gases which sink to the bottom, but hydrogen contamination will rise to the top, so that space can be used for a minipump which will extract the hydrogen. Rocket wall on the right is left unoccupied so a pipeline can be built directly to module output port.
• Unnecessary tile from bedroom wall removed.
• Incidental CO2 extraction no longer happens when rocket is parked on planetoid with O2 supply, so atmosphere element sensor is required.

Automation in the exploded view above doesn't work as intended - external oxygen will keep the pump disabled even in case of CO2  glut.

• The filter loop has extra length to help take up incidental O2 when CO2 extraction is triggered.
• Oxygen from the filter loop has priority path to docks.
• When those fill up, the bridge buffer (upper right) starts filling up, triggering the gas pipe element sensor. If the oxygen was supplied by the internal pump, it is shut down now and won't be triggered from the buffer until 20 seconds after it becomes empty.
• If the bridge buffer backs up completely (the oxygen is supplied externally, or the internal pump picked some up when extracting CO2), overflow into the gas vent to ensure the filter loop is eventually vacated.

 

 

Edited January 1 by myxal

[ChromMann]

Hello, I saw you reddit post about this and this design is super awesome, thanks for sharing.
I've got a potentially dumb question. In the ventilation overlay all bridges are not visible. Is that because they are deconstructed/ not built or is there something else to it?

[myxal]

On 1/13/2026 at 11:55 AM, ChromMann said:

Hello, I saw you reddit post about this and this design is super awesome, thanks for sharing.
I've got a potentially dumb question. In the ventilation overlay all bridges are not visible. Is that because they are deconstructed/ not built or is there something else to it?

I (manually) deconstructed them (individually) just for that screenshot for better visibility of underlying pipes. I do wish there was a less tedious way... or, you know, the appearance of bridges in the overlay didn't make it unintelligible, for me at least.

I do know about the screenshot mode hiding port icons but I find it just trading one kind of poor legibility for another - the bridges+underlying pipe runs are slightly more legible, but the absence of ports makes it hard to make out which way the packets should move - you have to know and keep in your head where the ports are. Not difficult on buildings I use and build around regularly, but I couldn't tell you off the top of my head where the ports are on the surfboard, petrol refinery or plastic press - so if that port isn't on a pipeline's dead end, I have no idea that a pipe segment should have a port there.