Hatch Coal Production tips

[S19TealPenguin]

I've been planning on taking advantage of using hatches for coal production, since they produce 125Kg of coal for every 100Kg of mineral they eat. Does anyone have any tips for this? 

[Kabrute]

Build a multi floor garden with hatch only on bottom floor, thus a floor of ready self cycling coal

[TheScaryOne]

Hatch ladders are pretty easy to build, leave some natural tile wherever you want them to burrow, then deconstruct the tiles that let them in. They can jump up and down two tiles, but only over a one tile gap. A ladder and a missing tile will stop them and allow your dupes to move freely.

A common use is to use them to eat fertilizer from the fertilizer plants that are being utilized for their natural gas.

[Lifegrow]

6 hours ago, S19TealPenguin said:

I've been planning on taking advantage of using hatches for coal production, since they produce 125Kg of coal for every 100Kg of mineral they eat. Does anyone have any tips for this? 

Trapping them early game, before you have access to plastic for traps is very easy - either place a block over their "mounds" as they sleep, then move them later, or use pneumatic doors to trap them (hatches like to fall into these and get stuck). With either method you can herd them easily if you use their behaviour that they will jump a 1 tile gap horizontally, and can leap 2 tiles vertically. Creating a path with a pneumatic door at the end is an easy way to trap them - just make sure you don't leave them any tiles to burrow into along the way.

5 hours ago, Kabrute said:

Build a multi floor garden with hatch only on bottom floor, thus a floor of ready self cycling coal

Really ineffective, and leads to a fair bit of wasted dupe time - Unless i'm mistaken, or it's been changed, food counts very little towards coal production - you're way better off feeding them manually in terms of dupe time wasted collecting numerous miniature piles of poop-coal.

2 hours ago, TheScaryOne said:

A common use is to use them to eat fertilizer from the fertilizer plants that are being utilized for their natural gas.

This was my approach in my last stream base - and surprisingly with a bit of automation it worked quite well. 

Once a day for 1% of the day (timer at the top right), the mechanized airlocks open systematically from top floor to bottom floor - this drops the fertilizer to the bottom level of fertilizer synths. Shortly after another signal triggers on the bottom clusters of 4 stacked doors and opens the top 3 momentarily, leaving the fertilizer resting on the bottom airlock. Then the bottom door opens for the briefest time possible, and drops the fertilizer to the hatches. The remaining doors then close, and delete any natural gas inside them (tiny amounts, it happens very quickly) or forces it back into the room itself. This is a bit of a convoluted way of handling this, however I wanted a system where my hatches were outside of the fert room, and where no natural gas could escape whatsoever. 500 cycles in and it works like a charm  

Currently sat on nearly 400t of coal, and haven't actively dug any out - however, this is a little skewed as i'm not actually using any coal at present - but I very much plan to in the future  

[Parusoid]

I don't see a point of coal farm once you get natural gas generators 

[Lifegrow]

36 minutes ago, Parusoid said:

I don't see a point of coal farm once you get natural gas generators 

Personal preference I guess, but once you've got the game down, it more becomes a case of utilising different aspects just for the sake of it. I'll probably turn those coal gens on just as a way of converting my excess fertilizer into coal -> additional power/co2 -> feed co2 to slicksters -> make oil, and in turn create more natural gas. It's just a case of using up some of my resources  

Sometimes "not seeing the point" is just a case of perspective...

[Kabrute]

Or feed co2 directly to scrubbers for pWater for fert synths on a loop

[chemie]

6 hours ago, Kabrute said:

Or feed co2 directly to scrubbers for pWater for fert synths on a loop

Slickers are much better option for CO2 removal.  If you really want PW, use showers.