Transport Tubes are not faster than running

[llunak]

Hello,

in my late-game playthrough I decided that it was maybe time to finally build tubes. Not quite knowing how they work, I first built a test line and noticed that ... well ... it just seems that tubes aren't really worth it.

I started the playthrough during the OC preview, and my late-game duplicants have athletics at 20+, which means that on plastic tiles they can run pretty fast. In fact, as fast as travelling using a tube. You can try that with the attached horizontal tube test, Harold with athletics 24 will run while Nisbet will use a tube[*]. And Harold can run exactly as fast as Nisbet flies in the tube, which means he'll in fact get there faster, since starting the tube travel takes some time.

Now, given that tubes are a quite complicated business to set up and need quite some resources, energy, place to build and actually get built, what's the point of building them when plastic tiles will do the same job, cheaper, easier and they can lead almost anywhere?

The other save is about going down, where the tube is somewhat faster than sliding down a pole, but the difference is unimpressive. The only real difference is when climbing up, because climbing even a plastic ladder is not that fast - so currently a tube in fact only makes sense as a lift.

Are there any plans to tweak that? Do people actually use tubes for real? I can build them, but that's more because there's not that much else to do in the colony anyway, so there's time to build something that feels more like a luxury toy than a practical improvement.

 

[*] Note that in the save they've just been given orders to travel to the other side, but it seems loading doesn't quite restore that to make them start at the same time, so if you want to try it, you may need to order them again.

 

test - tube down.sav

test - tube horizontal.sav

[Oozinator]

Possible fix:
Give every dupe a "i want to use tubes" trait.-15 athletics.

[Supraluminal]

I think a relatively common pattern is for people to play with a fixed number of dupes for quite a few cycles while getting the base stabilized, then bring in more dupes late-game once there are plenty of resources. I guess tubes are a way to help the new dupes be useful until their athletics catches up, anyway.

[LTLking]

They can move into and out of sealed off rooms.
Ie if you have your gas generators in the same room as the geyser. Use a tube in and out. No escaped gas. No need for a liquid airlock to get dupes feet wet.
Have a room full of puft's. Use a tube in and out. No slimelung escaping throughout the base.
Have a room you keep at 0c. Use a tube.

Get the pic.
QUARANTINED rooms. Works especially well for your oil refinement, plastic production and a room you use the metal refinery in.
The machines used to suck them up into the tubes is not light on power. You don't want to be using them to transport them all over the map. So using them in place of running across the map is not worth it.

[Oozinator]

6 hours ago, LTLking said:

Ie if you have your gas generators in the same room as the geyser. Use a tube in and out. No escaped gas. No need for a liquid airlock to get dupes feet wet.

I never used tubes for that. I use a pump and sensor >50g and me is happy with that.

[BlueLance]

Yeah the tubes are a bit funny, but since they can pass through walls etc they beat dupes because they can travel as the crow flies (Assuming you have the tube going straight there) otherwise the only other thing I can think of is they dont interrupt the state of areas by travelling through doors.