The big problem: Resources being used up permanently discourages actually using base-building tech

[Roadie]

If I really wanted, I could build an elaborate system with liquid piping to send water past algae terrariums and through water tanks, and gas piping to move around O² and CO², but...

...right now there's really no point. Since water and algae gradually get used up permanently and are impossible to replenish from existing supplies, I have to keep expanding no matter what, so I really can't treat anything I build as more than temporary.

Liquids, gases, and plants should really allow for a closed system, to encourage increasingly complex Rube Goldbergian systems. You'd still be encouraged to expand for more raw building materials, but ideally you'd still get the feeling of having a single home base to focus on.

I think there's a couple of key things that would really help with the feel of this:

• All plants (including plants in planters, etc) should take in CO² and water
• All plants should give off some of the water they take in as water vapor (which later condenses) and/or contaminated water (especially for fertilized plants, as runoff)
• Algae terrariums should, instead of using up algae, very gradually produce it to be harvested
• Plants and algae should gradually die off if kept in bad conditions for that plant (low CO², too hot/cold, etc)
• When duplicants visit the outhouse or lavatory, they should also produce contaminated water based on how much they've eaten (to represent the glucose breakdown part of the cycle)

Put together, these would (with the right techs) allow for a closed or mostly-closed system, with expeditions for more water/algae needed to restock after damage or to top up based on inefficiencies, rather than feeling like you might as well just move your entire base elsewhere and use up everything every time.

[SenhorLevi00]

Plus: making the charcoal combustion give off a little bit of water... We could make a good renewable and sustainable system. But this might discorage the player to explore the asteroids?? The devs said that they plan to put some random things that might help or might kill you, maybe in the far way from the printer...

 

[Roadie]

37 minutes ago, SenhorLevi00 said:

Plus: making the charcoal combustion give off a little bit of water... We could make a good renewable and sustainable system. But this might discorage the player to explore the asteroids?? The devs said that they plan to put some random things that might help or might kill you, maybe in the far way from the printer...

I feel like the continuing need for raw construction materials should be plenty to encourage exploration, especially if there's exotic materials you can only get in large amounts far away from the printer. Having it be a "carrot" (keep exploring to get more stuff) rather than a "stick" (keep constantly expanding or everybody just dies when you run out of water/algae) would make it feel like you've got a reason to build a lasting base and maybe exploration outposts, rather than having to relocate everything when your resources run out.

[AlastairCorsair]

I agree with the bulk here in. Conservation of mass and energy in at least a lose way should have some adherence. It makes my brain itch to see such a great bulk of materials up and vanish! As for game play id love to see the more nuanced and pipe nightmare systems that get developed to deal with expansion and reclamation of resources. without it it makes building elaborate HVAC systems nearly pointless. There is a point where some material IRL just can no longer be salvaged. Trees>paper >cardboard>toilet paper>into the septic tank>reclaimed water and so on till you hit material that can only be removed from the active system and sequestered away. If you don't do that right be locking it behind a multi layered 'tank' consequences happen. Call it Sludge worse than slime and only good to be locked up. Given more tech and time maybe you find/build your own aquifer full of the worst contaminates possible, even rads maybe[Love to see that sexy blue glow of cherenkov radiation in H2o or the sickly yellow green of rad contaminated H2O. A real thing at a certain LV its like glowing Gatorade! ] Fill the man made aquifer up let it sit in locked-down or pump in more bleh or active agents to help and wait for lower down a trickle of clean to normal contaminated H2O. Mind you id expect and hope this would take a fair chunk of time day to weeks at least. Giving credence to one planing ahead for the long game! 

I want to see this as a colony sim not a mining sim where you live work then die, so the overseers can portal in and take all the stuff home, they get O2 im sure be a neat story twist but not as fun a game.[dont get me wrong im loving it so far, just health crits] I kinda feel like vanishing stuffs is cheap, or should be a punishment/cost of advancement. New dupes might need a small finite resource input like some brother alchemists had, or some material like gasses leak back through it when it opens etc..  You punch into space there go most the O2, items taken by critters in the night, I saw that one little guy but nibbling a few sandstone or such its a concern. If it starts attracting scavengers to eat more and more break items and then breath my air! worse of all  transgressions then leave giving a real net loss with a cause you can see and react to. Even a twist of do you play Eco friendly and get benefits from some critters maybe laying egg/young in your planters causing a crop boom or fighting of others? Play the machine, tear down everything mass production style where you  soak the sandstone in blood of space rats? Maybe as the game grows some more credence to the closed system can come into play, id love to see that. ID much rather face my doom from the ripples of my actions than just running out of algae then air in a expected spiral. Even if its a literal drowning in my own filth, so starting a coal seam fire...who knows.

[Apsmar]

once I run out of Algae and turn to having to use water to make oxygen the game goes spiraling out of control as I chew thru water faster then I can find and dig for.  Makes it hard for the long game.  I am getting better at conserving resources, but it is always just a matter of time. 

The great thing about algae in real life is how fast it can grow and multiply.  just look at the problems of algae blooms on lake Eire to see that algae should be more of a production then a loss.  Throwing in a better strain you can grow behind a tech would be nice.

[IgorFradi]

Gosh i really think this should be fixed!

[PixelBattery]

I also have this problem.

I have no chance to make a good system, because I'm busy trying to keep things running. Which results in inefficient use of resources and power. I tried to make a good system, but then other things were left unattended, resulting in lack of oxygen/food or water, depending on what I tried to focus on.

[tyraelpl]

Not to be picky but both O² and CO² should use subscript not superscript, this place is for ionic charge. Since I can't find it anywhere I suggest using simply smaller fonts. Thus it's rather O2, CO2 or H2 but would be H⁺ or Ca²⁺. Thats how both are used at once HCO3^-

[AlastairCorsair]

Dear tyraelpl. Not to point out the obvious and be that guy but you are being really darn picky!! Im not going to waste time either learning Alt Codes for sub and super scrips or tediously copy pasting it around all day. You clearly know what we mean so does everybody else that knows how molecular compounds are actually written, yeah. CO2 O2 CL etc its convenient simple as that. Feel free to be as precise as you want but keep it up and you will quickly grow tired unless your OcD is really the issue. If you want to start this debate go start a post on it fresh, aright. Or open the dangerous can of worms that is how to pronounce Algae. This thread isn't the place for it.

Back to the topics at hand. On another failed colony I just gave up on. Same issues of vital resources getting eaten up so fast despite furthering my conservation methods did little to nothing. My newest observation is focused on the Algae farms, they suck so do the algae converts. Im not sure what seem worse burning power on the converters,or how there is not good level to set the farm priority at. 9 is to much and seems to vanish away gallons of water if more than 1 Dup task in near the same time I moved one up from a lower setting and almost half my Dups ran to fill each with a full load of water! There went a few days wash water! unless you have no active expansion or have sealed in as a final effort to outlast an issue, any setting below 6 they never get tended to. 6,7,8 get tended some times but so inconsistently that it destroys gas equilibrium in my critical areas rapidly. Even carefully cycling the converters does nothing to help, the O2 will just pool up  anywhere from 1000G 1500G and flow barely into the next room over sitting at from 200-300G o-O Worse yet the farther reaches of my base[one my first 50 so day run in a huge base, 3 screens tall 4 wide, or my recent much tighter, barely 2x2 screens, built with more inter-flow areas for gas] will be >200 as low as 110g very confusing. The Algae converters might also be suffering this hmm, over fill bug, I was in panic mode to far to observe them that close this run. When pressure get under 300 the CO2 scrubbers dont seem to even work at all, just drained power with no observable O2 production.

Growing Algae would be nice but if the consumption rates are the same, I fear it will buy any of us an average of 5 more days of well functioning colony and only 1 more system to spent days setting up for it to fail as anther part of the base goes haywire. We need threshold settings to start. I want O2 systems to be set to 9 its critical to breath for most Dups but not have them running to tend them any time its demanded resource tick down once. I need them to stay functional but not tie my hands as I lose all my work force to run in circles while I need to get the next system active and stable as well. Odd that the deorderizers work how i kinda want the algea farms to work, by not wasting my precious water. Items with thresholds I could find the right point for the range they are at to keep it all running. A tab for base wide thresholds would be even better but on item would go along way in the conservation game. Along with conservation, why cant i use grey water, the run off from hand washing and showers to flush the lavatories? Maybe in time we will see a 3 fold tier of water contamination like Clean water>grey water>contaminated water>toxic sludge. Each taking longer to clean up or costing more to the filtration material. Could see processing grey wash water or being savvy and running it into lavatories to save on resources. Then it add the risk or piping a new resource into the wrong thing!

[zaig]

On 2/16/2017 at 8:53 PM, SenhorLevi00 said:

Plus: making the charcoal combustion give off a little bit of water... We could make a good renewable and sustainable system. But this might discorage the player to explore the asteroids??

 

Hey man, I assure you,people wont be discouraged ! because heck, I want to see whats on the other side, what happens when you reach the far end of the map, do I eject into space ?

[phelaen]

i found mercury and crude oil though.

no uses for it yet

[Aru3]

12 hours ago, AlastairCorsair said:

Dear tyraelpl. Not to point out the obvious and be that guy but you are being really darn picky!! Im not going to waste time either learning Alt Codes for sub and super scrips or tediously copy pasting it around all day. You clearly know what we mean so does everybody else that knows how molecular compounds are actually written, yeah. CO2 O2 CL etc its convenient simple as that.

...

I'm totally okay with CO2, O2, CO, Cl2, N2, H2O, etc. I think the problem was more that they bothered to use superscripts at all, instead of subscripts, which is peculiar. It would be better to use neither one than to use the wrong one. It just looks really bad.

[tyraelpl]

20 hours ago, Aru3 said:

I'm totally okay with CO2, O2, CO, Cl2, N2, H2O, etc. I think the problem was more that they bothered to use superscripts at all, instead of subscripts, which is peculiar. It would be better to use neither one than to use the wrong one. It just looks really bad.

Yes, my point was not clear but was that too. One should use proper notation or if not sure, don't use any. H2O is proper, H2O is ok, H²O is bad.

Games are also meant to teach things, right? So why not learn (or recall) some basics of chemistry along the way.

@  AlastairCorsair

It's never CL for chlorine, always Cl and when in context like yours it's Cl2 ;like every homoatomic gas (O2, H2, I2 etc.) but the noble gases (Ar, Kr...).