Sustainable algae

[Nebbie]

Right now, algae is a (mostly, discounting Morb+Puft farms) finite resource to provide a temporary means of getting oxygen until you've got electrolysis going.

That in theory is fine, but I find that algae terrariums aren't really worth it for the amount of water they use. I'd just rather have the water electrolyzed as soon as I can get off of deoxidizers. Additionally, this intense push to get off algae makes the whole slime distilling process worthless.

Algae ends up being, in my opinion, very frustrating to work with because it's not really balanced beyond the very early game. In the midgame, you want to just skip it, and in the lategame, it's completely useless.

I suggest the following:

1. Algae be given an additional uses besides oxygen generation (bioplastic, fertilizer, and/or food, perhaps)
2. Algae terrariums be changed to produce slime (such that you get slightly more algae out of distilling it than they consume)
3. Algae terarriums require CO2 (so they aren't something you can slap pretty much anywhere)

This would make algae sustainable and more useful in the mid and lategame. Later on, you'd still want electrolysis for your main oxygen supply because of the additional power, of course, and algae would be primarily about the non-oxygen use.

[BlueLance]

15 hours ago, Nebbie said:

Algae ends up being, in my opinion, very frustrating to work with because it's not really balanced beyond the very early game. In the midgame, you want to just skip it, and in the lategame, it's completely useless.

Algae is an early game resource, sure you can use it at all points but it is just that is all it is for, also algae terraniums are pointless like you said, from the starting biome you get between 75 and 125 cycles worth of oxygen production from them. Depending on how things go you could probably push it further. 

For late game my only use would be to use them in places where I want a boost in oxygen such as a far away biome, but this is taken over by exo suits.

[AlexRou]

3 minutes ago, BlueLance said:

Algae is an early game resource, sure you can use it at all points but it is just that is all it is for, also algae terraniums are pointless like you said, from the starting biome you get between 75 and 125 cycles worth of oxygen production from them. Depending on how things go you could probably push it further. 

They're so useless that I just slap it into a room I want to get rid of a tiny amount of CO2 and didn't want to build a scrubber lol (this was in early game)

I can imagine changing algae into a plague that eats up water and or turn it into polluted water. Maybe even make it consume oxygen if not in a lit area. But then we'd need a way to dispose of it, and apparently you can combine coal and algae into oil and a smokeless solid fuel thing.

[TortuousAugur]

I think it would be worthwhile to be able to cultivate algae as an early to mid game oxygen supply.

 

 

[Neotix]

I'm using algae in oxygen chambers in areas outside base with toxic atmosphere. I don't have to build long ventilation pipes and dupes have spots to take a breath.

[SpaceHobo]

Assuming no chemical pollutants, waste water exposed to bright light is a recipe for lots of algae.  In game, it could mean a colony with power to spare has a means to generate oxygen, algae and clean water in one go.  Granted the water might need to go through a filter first. 

[Nebbie]

8 hours ago, SpaceHobo said:

Assuming no chemical pollutants, waste water exposed to bright light is a recipe for lots of algae.  In game, it could mean a colony with power to spare has a means to generate oxygen, algae and clean water in one go.  Granted the water might need to go through a filter first. 

I'm not sure what you mean about creating water with algae. There should be a net loss of water (less polluted water made from the slime slime than you put in the terrarium to make it). Thus, power and clean water to spare to generate algae and oxygen (with some water returned as polluted water).

You do bring up an interesting point in regards to polluted water. It would be interesting if algae required polluted instead of normal water to grow. Would make for a reason to have reservoirs of polluted water besides for making fertilizer. However, I think it would be imbalanced because people could just use algae terrariums to clean up messes while intentionally depriving their dupes of bathrooms.

12 hours ago, Neotix said:

I'm using algae in oxygen chambers in areas outside base with toxic atmosphere. I don't have to build long ventilation pipes and dupes have spots to take a breath.

It is certainly a use for them, so they're not completely useless, but it could really benefit from algae not running out eventually without a Puft farm. Also, I'm pretty sure it's not the intended use as algae terrariums seem designed to supplement the main oxygen generation and bridge the gap between deoxidizers and endgame setups; the issue is that terrariums are kind of a downgrade in most ways and have a limited lifespan, which punishes using them for the main base.

[SpaceHobo]

6 hours ago, Nebbie said:

I'm not sure what you mean about creating water with algae

Creating clean water.  Overall, there would be a net loss of water as you said.  The trade off being that such a process would require intense light and thus lots of power.  RL algae does grow better in polluted water and, given time, it will scrub the water of all natural pollutants. 

 

For game balance, perhaps the water has to be pumped into a tank separate from the fresh waste and then pumped to clean water holding once it is completely clean?

[Fishslap]

But you can make this an infinite resource if you want. It's just hard to do, because you have to trap the balloon thingies that poop slime and then turn that slime into algae. But as long as it's possible I don't quite see the problem. Question is: is it worth the hassle.

[TheScaryOne]

I think the terrariums simply need to produce algae instead of destroy it. That would balance the outrageous water use by allowing you to have "pocket oxygen" that you can drop in any remote area with a deoxidizer mid-late game.

As is, they use so much water and dupe labor I don't even bother building them anymore.

Although I do like the produce slime idea, which needs to be refined back to algae, but I think the balancing would need a very close look.

[Jayndreh]

Algae terrariums are indeed out of balance. They use WAY too much water for what you get. I like the idea of it generating slime, as that lets you refine it back to algae and polluted water.