Why do algae terrariums stop working?

[despairbear]

I've noticed that, after my game has run for a while, a bunch of my algae farms stop producing oxygen altogether. They continue to play the active animation, but their status boxes are mostly blank, and don't show any oxygen emission rate, CO2 consumption, etc. The status box also does not say "need more materials" or anything like that.

This happens when:

1. The algae terrarium is self-watered (there's a liquid drain pouring a small layer of water onto the floor)
2. More algae is available in storage
3. More water is available in a basin nearby
4. Plenty of CO2 is pooling in the base
5. The game has been running for a couple hours

The problem continues to happen after a save/restart/load. A video of this is below.

What's happening here? Is it user error, or a bug? I can guess a few explanations:

1. This happens when atmospheric pressure near the algae is too high, and they can't push out oxygen. (This doesn't seem to be the case in the video)
2. The algae farm actually needs an algae delivery, but the part of the code that reports it to the dupes and the status box is broken
3. It's some other kind of bug.

Is there something else I'm missing?

(A couple of people have reported this as a bug in the bug tracker too.)

 

 

[Spider2430]

It's probably a bug causing it, I've had the same issue with mine also

[FrosDMB]

I have a crazy feeling that you may need to pump your CO2 up to the Algae Terrariums.

[Tias]

5 hours ago, FrosDMB said:

I have a crazy feeling that you may need to pump your CO2 up to the Algae Terrariums.

When the CO2 is below the terrariums this is correct, CO2 sinks and if it's already found it's way past the terrariums there's nothing to do about it other than pump it up,

So either always put the terrariums as far down as you can or be ready to pump the CO2 to them.

Also 6 terrariums is more than enough to handle the base in the video, assuming you only use them to scrub CO2 and have O2 production elsewhere that is.