Why do dreckos move a certain way when a door is added?

[BLACKBERREST3]

So from this post, when I build something similar, dreckos will path towards the room if the door in the bottom right is there, but will path towards the dropper if the door isn't there. what is the rule that I'm missing here? Does it have something to do with dreckos ignoring doors in their pathfinding that will make them preference door paths over water tiles? or does it have something to do with "corner pathing" by adjoining doors to walls?

vertical door here doesn't work

and 4 tiles seem to be the limit before pathing up

There are lots of ways to control dreckos, but their movements are hard to decipher other than "that works" or "that doesn't work"

I noticed it does take shortest distance into consideration, but if there is equal distance between the two paths then door orientation does matter.

I don't got it, but here is where they go with no door and 1 less tile of liquid.

The 350kg rule applies here too. dreckos move up if the tile of water isn't sufficiently flooded, but move left is it is.

Edited Friday at 12:38 AM by BLACKBERREST3

[BLACKBERREST3]

dreckos really are that easy, neat. I plan to build this at the top with some airflow tiles so i don't have to worry about filtering gasses.

This seems to be the ratio I need, but I could add some sensors to give it a little more space.

[MinhPham]

Using a timer, once every xx cycles you close the door, the dreckos will come into the shearing room, when the door is opened, the dreckos will go back to the open area to grow their scale, this thing works for both tamed and wild

Edit : related to your question, the door adds a place that they can jump on, sometimes it made the calculated path shorter or longer, i have no idea

Spoiler

 

Edited May 18 by MinhPham

[Saturnus]

Instead of having the dispenser on top to drop down. May I suggest having the dispenser drop into an airlock controlled by a timer set to 10 cycles on, 10 seconds off. That pushes the egg shells and eggs within reach of dupes every 10 cycles. Eggs are just put back. If the liquid stack is 3 tiles wide the airlock operating does not affect it.

Note: Contrary to popular belief, eggs in a shearing room has no effect on critter happiness so does not affect scale growth. Only reproduction.

Example from my micro ranch build series below

The thermoregular is there to cool the mealwood by moving the tiny amount of excess heat from the breeders into the shearing room where it's absorbed by the dreckos there and their scales.

The micro ranch breeds regular dreckos only and feed them mealwood. Over their life time 60% of their eggs will be glossy dreckos thus you get both plastic and reed fibers from the same ranch.

Note: one breeding drecko will result in exactly 4 simultaneously starving dreckos except when breeding ranch is replenished where it will briefly drop to 3. So in the below example there will be between 6 and 8 starving dreckos at all times with the average being around 7.4

Edited May 19 by Saturnus

[BLACKBERREST3]

On 5/18/2026 at 12:37 PM, MinhPham said:

Using a timer, once every xx cycles you close the door, the dreckos will come into the shearing room, when the door is opened, the dreckos will go back to the open area to grow their scale, this thing works for both tamed and wild

Edit : related to your question, the door adds a place that they can jump on, sometimes it made the calculated path shorter or longer, i have no idea

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

This is sick! I can already see the uses for this. bypass the need for liquid locks [I think the liquid lock is necessary for this mechanic to function] or just make a carbon/chlorine/hydrogen room without the need for separation.

I'm trying to find more pathing mechanics related to this. I think the search term that gave me the best results were "one-way pathing mechanics".

found one article with similar mechanics.

The timer would be great because I want what would normally be a starving shearing area to instead be a phosphorite plant with balm lillies in chlorine and pinchapeppers in hydrogen. the tradeoff being delayed meat, but increased plastic/reeds/phosphorite. The dreckos will now barely starve on however many lillies I can cram in an area. I probably won't let them have the pinchapeppers.

Only downside I can think of is the downtime it takes to move back and forth between areas, but it should theoretically only take 0.5-1.5 cycles to move them all. Also, I would need temperature control as pinchapeppers/balm lillies need 35-85C and mealwood needs 10-30C. hmmm, I have choices here for what kind of ranch I want.

good news is that thermal conductivity is pretty low between chlorine and carbon.

I looked at mutations, but couldn't find the answer. what is the temp range of easygoing mealwood plants?

20 hours ago, Saturnus said:

Instead of having the dispenser on top to drop down. May I suggest having the dispenser drop into an airlock controlled by a timer set to 10 cycles on, 10 seconds off. That pushes the egg shells and eggs within reach of dupes every 10 cycles. Eggs are just put back. If the liquid stack is 3 tiles wide the airlock operating does not affect it.

Note: Contrary to popular belief, eggs in a shearing room has no effect on critter happiness so does not affect scale growth. Only reproduction.

Example from my micro ranch build series below

The thermoregular is there to cool the mealwood by moving the tiny amount of excess heat from the breeders into the shearing room where it's absorbed by the dreckos there and their scales.

The micro ranch breeds regular dreckos only and feed them mealwood. Over their life time 60% of their eggs will be glossy dreckos thus you get both plastic and reed fibers from the same ranch.

Note: one breeding drecko will result in exactly 4 simultaneously starving dreckos except when breeding ranch is replenished where it will briefly drop to 3. So in the below example there will be between 6 and 8 starving dreckos at all times with the average being around 7.4

That works. how I’ve been doing it is manually in batches this whole time where I would unlock the door so they can grab the shells. This is more efficient and doesn’t require sweepers, thanks!

I never seem to have enough lime though so I will need pokeshells at some point. I went on a deep dive the other night looking at ethanol loops with pokeshells and automated dirt renewability. besides cooking materials into dirt, I’m not sure how to get around dupe labor with composters. I guess there is always pips and floxes.

Thought about it a bit more. Trying to use up all the resources I don't need much of while converting the excess materials to something more useful. This is what I've got that doesn't revolve around the critter cap.

Algae + Water -> O2 + PW
PW + Sand/Regolith - > Seive -> Polluted Dirt
Polluted Dirt -> Sublimation Station -> PO2
Liquidize PO2 -> Lox + Dirt
+Dirt / +Water / +O2
-Algae / -Filtration Medium / -Polluted Dirt

I could replace the sieve with a PW boiler to save on sand.

Dupe labor is looking real appetizing with this spread.

Edited May 20 by BLACKBERREST3

[BLACKBERREST3]

18 hours ago, Saturnus said:

If the liquid stack is 3 tiles wide the airlock operating does not affect it.

I think it does affect it. It's just that the middle tiles have enough after it's closed to spill back over to the left again. The right side will be round 30 grams, middle will be around 50-60grams. If you somehow end up with 30 grams in the middle and open the door, the liquid will not spill back into the door.

I don't know the exact amount, but I do know it is between 30-50 grams is the tipping point for small liquids to traverse another cell. Oh, looked it up, this is different per liquid. crude oil is around 400 grams and naptha is 40kg. water and pw is 40 grams.

Edited May 20 by BLACKBERREST3

[BLACKBERREST3]

doing some more tests

 

 

 

The rule seems to be that it has to jump 1 tile off the vertical and have another one adjacent to it to be able to pass the liquid barrier. Looks like the angle of its jumps skip the liquid lock entirely.

And even though a drecko can jump up one tile, as long as the barrier is there it won't cross over without a diagonal route across. These and slicksters always confused me.

 

had to look back at my op, I still don't know why the pathing works in the first pictures 😵‍💫

 

Edited May 20 by BLACKBERREST3

[BLACKBERREST3]

While building the ranch, I noticed that there is no gas density between carbon dioxide and chlorine,  was hoping I'd find a buffer gas.

Edited May 23 by BLACKBERREST3

[BLACKBERREST3]

21 hours ago, Saturnus said:

Edited 20 hours ago by Saturnus

Having trouble adding a conveyor chute to this as an upgrade for later. Also, whenever the door closes, it will move the eggs and the dupes will have to do that errand again. I'll have to think of a different method here.

[MinhPham]

Which is exactly why he said the timer is 0.01/10 cycles, they only had to do it every 10 cycles  

2 hours ago, BLACKBERREST3 said:

had to look back at my op, I still don't know why the pathing works in the first pictures 😵‍💫

They can jump through a 1-tile gap, which is exactly what the navigation shown, but will not walk through a liquid lock. Open/close the door will create a platform for the jump at different location.

49 minutes ago, BLACKBERREST3 said:

Having trouble adding a conveyor chute to this as an upgrade for later. Also, whenever the door closes, it will move the eggs and the dupes will have to do that errand again. I'll have to think of a different method here.

Which is exactly why he said the timer is 0.01/10 cycles, they only had to do it every 10 cycles  

Edited May 20 by MinhPham

[BLACKBERREST3]

I knew about the 1 tile gaps, I was talking about the first pics I posted at the top where adding a door causes them to path one way or the other. No gaps in that one, just adding a door or putting it in a certain orientation causes the dreckos to see a shorter path for some reason even though they are able to path both directions, they will always choose one or the other. Sorry, this just isn't clear to me yet.

 

 

Dreckos go up with or without a door, Dreckletts go left with a door and up without a door. Door is always open here.

 

54 minutes ago, MinhPham said:

Which is exactly why he said the timer is 0.01/10 cycles, they only had to do it every 10 cycles

It's not necessarily that it would take long to do, but if it generates a task at all, then that is also travel time too. I'm trying to avoid that. I also want to upgrade to conveyors later so I can have minimal dupe interaction.

This is what I've got so far and I like the looks of it...so far.

 

I just have to create a barrier at the right spot (near the right of the mealwood) so I can fully separate the hydrogen from the chlorine. and also fit in the grooming station somewhere on the bottom. I'm trying to create a specific height/width to tile into my base.

I have the extra tiles there in the egg room so I can deconstruct those and add a sweeper later

Edited May 20 by BLACKBERREST3

[Saturnus]

7 hours ago, BLACKBERREST3 said:

I think it does affect it. It's just that the middle tiles have enough after it's closed to spill back over to the left again. The right side will be round 30 grams, middle will be around 50-60grams. If you somehow end up with 30 grams in the middle and open the door, the liquid will not spill back into the door.

I don't know the exact amount, but I do know it is between 30-50 grams is the tipping point for small liquids to traverse another cell. Oh, looked it up, this is different per liquid. crude oil is around 400 grams and naptha is 40kg. water and pw is 40 grams.

There's a special blob size I like to use which is now extremely easy to get using a bottle filler and a meter valve.
I call them gluons because they have some very special properties.

The limit is 20g-22g per tile for water, salt water, pwater, brine and similar viscosity liquids.
It's 200g-220g for crude oil, petroleum, biodiesel, and similar viscosity liquids.
And 20kg-22kg for naphtha. As examples.

What they allow you to do is make easy hop locks

Free standing infinite storage with either a single or two liquids depending on whether it's for gas or liquids

Or wall-less hydra builds

 

Anyway, from one side step of the original conversation to another. Critters will not path into open airlocks if there's no legal path on the other side but they will path happily into open pneumatic doors.

Here's an example with one and two airlocks just to illustrate that the number is irrelevant.
Even though the pathing shows it should be able to enter the open airlock the hatch is in fact stuck where it is.
Only when you provide a legal path on the other side will it alternate between those two options but never stand inside the open airlock.

Other critters obey that rule too.
Here I used it in a pip setup because if I had used a pneumatic door the pip would sometimes path to the red square while a newly hatched pipsqueak would path to the orange tile. The pneumatic door would then close on them both and the pip would be magically teleported into the wall where the yellow tile is, and remain there until it died from hunger or you freed it by deconstructing the tile. The pipsqueak on the other hand would just drop below as normal.
 

 

 

Regarding the egg pusher issue.

If there's no tile above the airlock eggshells are always pushed up while eggs are always pushed side ways

So you can make an egg shell conveyor with two airlocks closed one after another

Edited May 20 by Saturnus

[Saturnus]

To expand on the door pusher idea

Motion sensor detecting a dupe leaving the area with the dispenser triggers a series of opening and closing of doors.

Works even if there's dreckos or drecklets in the area as noted above, critters do not like to stay inside open airlocks.
They can path into them because there's a valid path on the other side in this case but they very much prefer not to so they rarely will.



EDIT: note that the pickup isn't in a usable position above. This however will work. You just lock the main door when the dupe leaves. This setup even allows enough time for the sequence to be triggered by a critter sensor set to detect eggs the dupe is carrying so it isn't triggered by dupes picking up the egg shells.

 

Edited May 20 by Saturnus

[BLACKBERREST3]

4 hours ago, Saturnus said:

Here's an example with one and two airlocks just to illustrate that the number is irrelevant.
Even though the pathing shows it should be able to enter the open airlock the hatch is in fact stuck where it is.
Only when you provide a legal path on the other side will it alternate between those two options but never stand inside the open airlock.

Other critters obey that rule too.
Here I used it in a pip setup because if I had used a pneumatic door the pip would sometimes path to the red square while a newly hatched pipsqueak would path to the orange tile. The pneumatic door would then close on them both and the pip would be magically teleported into the wall where the yellow tile is, and remain there until it died from hunger or you freed it by deconstructing the tile. The pipsqueak on the other hand would just drop below as normal.

That explains a lot and also leaves me with a few more questions. I never knew critters interacted with mech doors in this way. The difference is that I've been using pneumatic doors this whole time. I'm starting to think that pneumatic doors have their own unique pathing behavior for critters similar to how mech doors keep the hatch trapped in the picture. I'm just gonna take a wild guess and say something like: "The AI pathing for dreckletts [tried with pips and got different results and dreckos will always take shortest path] will subtract the distance to safety by 1 horizontally if it is in a door [tested with mech and bunker doors too, but seemed impractical as it pushes liquids when closed]".

That's my best guess so far and it is very niche. Chaining doors together doesn't work like with mech doors as the drecklett will still consider total number of tiles as the path to safety.

For some reason I am always getting the pips to fall down in your build with either pneumatic or mech doors. I can't seem to get them to teleport, but I do believe that can randomly happen especially if you play on fast or superspeed settings. Highly recommend not playing on superspeed because it messes up automation timers. Also, that area with the pips has to be a vacuum or the gas will rise and cause the salt water to fall down, took me a bit to figure that out XD. Hatches always move right in liquid locks apparently.

 

 

5 hours ago, Saturnus said:

If there's no tile above the airlock eggshells are always pushed up while eggs are always pushed side ways

I did notice that when doing the deep freeze egg storage on my hatch ranch build. eggs seem to be "heavier" than other items. I'll keep that in mind when designing different ranches. I really like your water lock hatchery so I'm going to adapt that into the drecko ranch. I decided to use the elevator idea with the water lock and I think I cracked it.

I had issues with the water level earlier so I gave it one more tile as a buffer so the water didn't spill to the floor above when closing the horizontal mech door. The egg shells will now go on top of the dispenser while the egg can get pushed back and forth by the mech doors. I might use this design as an infinite storage solution later because it works so well and items don't sublimate in water which is a bonus.

It works with pipsqueaks too. sadly the water lock-door trick (horizontal near top right) doesn't work the same way with pips as it does dreckos.

 

[BLACKBERREST3]

had to replace the pneumatic door there with a mech door to hide the eggs from the sweeper while it's juggling.

what in the world did I stumble onto. Dreckos escape, but dreckletts are stuck there. don't even need to fill the area with water. That drecko is jumping upside down! and because there isn't a valid path past the doors on the return trip, they don't enter the mech doors again.

Oh, nvm i see the path now. it walks on the bottom side of the mech door down the left wall and immediately back up again.

Edited May 20 by BLACKBERREST3

[BLACKBERREST3]

with the right logic, I'm able to corner clip the eggs back down too.

Not the best idea because the dreckletts get stuck in the wall if you close the right most door on them.

I fixed it with an extra door, sweet spot is 2 full tiles of water or 2000kg. no longer able to corner clip eggs downward, but I didn't need that anyways.

ran out of time, I'll figure out the automation for all this later.

Edited May 20 by BLACKBERREST3

[Saturnus]

Following further up on the pusher idea.

This setup works because the drecko can escape through the top part of the drip lock when it hatches but it will never enter the open airlock tiles after that because there's no legal path on the other side since the bottom tile of the drip lock is not a valid tile to move into.

I also checked and there's no chance of drecklets getting stuck inside walls in this setup with door sequence described in the previous post. Using that same sequence there is also no gas deletion either.

I'm aware this does mean the dreckos and drecklets can crawl on the ceiling but under the circumstance I think it's a fair compromise.

Even in the few second the top airlock is open, it still doesn't count the 4 open airlock tiles in the corner as valid tiles to path into since there's no valid path on the other side of the airlocks.

[BLACKBERREST3]

It didn't even occur to me that dreckos/dreckletts could climb the liquid lock if I just closed the pneumatic door. I have them all over the current design, I usually left them open to get rid of the speed penalty, but it looks like I could just leave it on auto if the room looks like this or I need them to path back down from the walls/ceilings. This seems to be the way to go with the drip lock and mech doors. I can't think of any reason that you can't just leave the pneumatic door open and add another pneumatic locked door to the left of the dispenser. wouldn't that prevent them from climbing on the ceiling? I'm gonna test it real quick. Ah, so they prefer to climp up when they hatch because of the drip lock, got it.

 

You are able to fit a ceiling trap in this room to prevent them from climbing. The vertical door trap must always remain open for correct drecko/drecklett pathing and for dupe access to the eggshells/dispenser. Had to elongate the room by 1 tile to add the dropper/pickup back into the room.

What can go wrong when I built it a certain way; if the vertical door is closed, it made it so they could jump on top of the door traps or they would fall back into the driplock and path back into the mech doors. Also, if you join the cieling trap to the left top corner of the room, they could also jump on top of the doors from there too so you need to leave a 1 tile gap between the top left wall corner and the ceiling trap door.

I'm gonna steal the automation from my hatch build for this.

No compromises XD

[BLACKBERREST3]

Should probably delete that pneumatic door going into the room to open up the asteroid and prevent misery/cramping unless you haven't dug out a good sized area in which case it would cause all other wild critters to become miserable. Forgot that shearing station doesn't work outside of stable. I'll post further down how I'll handle this.

Edited May 21 by BLACKBERREST3

[BLACKBERREST3]

working on a bypass so it doesn't dead end into a room. seeing where it goes.

I was able to modify the previous build with the drip lock one. corner clipping the egg down works again. only downside is if they hatch at the same time as the doors are scheduled to close. no sensor can fit inside of a door so this will always be a very rare chance of dreckletts getting stuck in the wall, unless you do it in batches semi-automatically.

15 hours ago, Saturnus said:

I also checked and there's no chance of drecklets getting stuck inside walls in this setup with door sequence described in the previous post. Using that same sequence there is also no gas deletion either.

Just to double check, but it still looked like dreckletts could get stuck if they hatch at the same time the door closes, is that not the case even if it is extremely rare? I didn't know if the sequence you described prevented this.

Edited May 21 by BLACKBERREST3

[BLACKBERREST3]

[face palms] I just went full circle. I realized I didn't need any liquid lock because invalid door pathing was enough. Now in the rare chance a drecklett is stuck in the wall, there is a semi-automatic way to release it. I'm right back at the other build. Only difference is I built the sweeper one tile higher so I don't need automation to hide the sweeper from the eggs while it's juggling. corner clipping down is still possible and fully automatable in case the breeder pen is fully extinct for some reason, doesn't even have to clip, the sweeper can reach it from there through the corners and I can send the eggs on a loop back down to the breeder pen where the incubator will be. I wonder if a weight plate under the second vertical mech door would work?

 

Edited May 21 by BLACKBERREST3

[BLACKBERREST3]

It does work like that! 200kg for a closed door and 200kg per drecklett. Since no items can stay there, this can be controlled with automation for 200+ kg. Added a second mesh tile to prevent gas deletion. I just realized this could also be a way to control item direction with doors. if all doors are open, egg goes right. if right door is closed, egg goes left. items will always go up.

 

 

 

Edited May 21 by BLACKBERREST3

[BLACKBERREST3]

I'm gonna have to go back and edit all of this, just stress tested this and found out that they do get trapped if they are crawling on the ceiling of the mesh tile

Edited May 21 by BLACKBERREST3

[BLACKBERREST3]

I might have to do some sort of liquid lock here to prevent them from pathing up in the first place. if they are on the ground it's fine, but if they are upside down, they get trapped.

[BLACKBERREST3]

That was difficult. I think I finally have a fool proof solution even in edge cases. I've stress tested all sorts of scenarios. I think this is it. hopefully the final time I go back and forth whether or not corner clipping down is possible with this (it isn't). okay, so to recap, eggs get juggled between 1st vertical and 1st horizontal mech doors to get the egg shells. 2nd horizontal mech door is always open and is just a floor to walk on. The 2nd vertical mech door is usually closed. The sweeper arm will not be able to see the egg being juggled between vertical/horizontal, but will see the egg if it is juggled to the second vertical mech door's cell. Water tiles will be sufficiently flooded on 1st and 2nd row to give dreckletts motivation for escape otherwise they would just stay there in a gas pocket on the vertical mech doors. The mesh tiles are there to prevent liquid/gas deletion and to give a path for the water to flow when doors are closed. There should be no possible way for a drecklett to be caught here as far as I know even if they hatch at the same time you start juggling eggs.

 

Will always move left here.

 

They won't even start to move if they are drowning until they see a valid path forward. I've also tried opening and closing the second mech door to try and create a vacuum to see if the dreckletts would path to it at all and I couldn't get it to happen with this amount of liquid (it happened with less liquid before).

 

If they are trapped it will be when they aren't climbing so they will be trapped behind the door of the cell they were in and not inside another door or mesh tile around them. Climbing is what causes them to be trapped in a different tile I've noticed.

Same situation here too, no where to climb to and they don't get trapped inside of another tile. Only behind the door that closed on them.

They will start climbing here, but ONLY after you have juggled the egg between the vertical/horizontal mech doors. This pic is taken right after the horizontal door has opened, causing dreckletts being hatched to path up the door and to the right. But because we just juggled them, there will be sufficient time for the dreckletts to escape before the next juggling cycle. This means that the automation for juggling the eggs to the left or right of the first vertical mech door have to be tied together in some way to prevent immediately closing the first horizontal mech door on an upside down drecklett (I can't imagine a situation where that would even happen). 

 

I've made this incredibly complicated, but I guess I don't have to worry about dreckletts getting trapped for thousands of cycles.

Edited May 23 by BLACKBERREST3