PSA: Why Algae Terrariums Desperately Need a Rework

[PhailRaptor]

This is something that has bothered me for the last couple of updates.  I know some other players have harbored their concerns for much longer, like @Kabrute.  But really, I haven't seen any actual discussion on the point.  And watching the stream for the first time today, and seeing their demo base for the new features containing at least 4 of these things, I think it's time to start talking about it.  To that end...

Algae Terrariums are a complete noob trap.

Per second, 30g of Algae, 300g of clean Water, and 333.33mg of CO2 go in, and 40g of Oxygen come out.  If the Terrarium is built within the field of a Light Source, you get an extra 4g of Oxygen.  Assuming perfect conditions (ie continuous light, extremely prompt deliveries) you need 2.27 Terrariums to sustain a single Dupe with regular Oxygen requirements (no Diver's Lungs or Mouthbreather).  Or, in other terms, 68.18g of Algae and 681.82g of clean Water to sustain a single Dupe.  

Compare that to the Deoxidizer.  Per second, 120W of power and 550g of Algae to make 500g of Oxygen and 7.5 W of heat.  That's enough for 5 Dupes each second.  Scale the Terrarium's numbers for the same number of Dupes, it becomes 340.91g Algae and 3409.1g clean Water.  Using Terrariums instead of a Deoxidizer saves you 209.09g of Algae at the expense of 3.409kg of clean Water.  The Terrariums will also save you either 115W or 110W depending on which light you use, Standing or Ceiling respectively.  Technically you can make your first Terrarium set power free by using the light halo of the Printer Pod, but after that you have to start building lights.

"But we can't forget the CO2!", you might say.  Well, actually, we can.  That CO2 consumption for the Terrarium isn't in grams like everything else.  It's in milligrams.  So per second, each Terrarium is going to eliminate 0.3g of CO2.  Yeah... real game changer there.  Especially when we consider that each Dupe exhales 20g per second.  You'd need 60 Terrariums to offset a single Dupe in terms of CO2.  Yikes.  I'm not even going to run the numbers on the clean Water and Algae for that scenario, it's already ridiculous enough.  Compare that to the Carbon Skimmer.  Per second, it takes in 120W of power, 1kg clean Water, and 300g of CO2 to produce 1kg Polluted Water and 5W of heat.  A single Carbon Skimmer is able to handle 15 Dupes.

All of these numbers taken together show pretty overwhelmingly that the Terrarium is an utter waste of resources.  The problem is, if you only glance at the requirements of the Terrarium, it actually looks pretty good.  You can build them without power, and they only take a little bit of your limited resources while eliminating a bit of your waste!  That's pretty much the definition of a noob trap.  Something that is very attractive to people who don't know better, while simultaneously hurting that player in ways that are far from obvious.

So what do we do about it?

Well, it's pretty simple.  Terrariums either need to be removed, or reworked.  Reworking them will require they have a purpose they can serve for some period of the game without being overshadowed by other machinery.  For example, we could double-down on the CO2 removal aspect, and have each one consume 10g per second.  But we'd still have to either nerf the amount of resources consumed, or buff the amount of Oxygen produced to make them worthwhile.

[TheScaryOne]

Beat me to the punch by two minutes!

 

[Jigsawn]

On my first few bases I certainly used quite a lot of terrariums (this is a few weeks ago). I'd place two or three at each part of my base where CO2 was collecting. Although I don't think they are game breaking, the water consumption ended up being a massive problem for me, plus your dupes spend a lot of valuable time delivering resources to them every day.

I found they did a good job of keeping on top of the CO2, but I was never really sure how efficient they were at putting out oxygen, so I'd always add deoxidisers if I got Insufficient Oxygen warnings. After coming on the forum here people warned me about how inefficient they were, so in my last two bases I just have one or two scattered around in high CO2 buildup areas, or I dump down a few in newly dug caves to clean up the air and then dismantle them.

If they remain balanced as they are, they should probably warn in the description that they use a lot of algae/water for oxygen return.

The main problem with buildings like the terrarium is that the average player, like me, pretty much ignores the numbers listed in the building descriptions. It's all very well to have the oxygen output listed, power consumption, heat output etc- but to a new player that means nothing. Noone but the most dedicated numbers people are going to spend time looking up numbers for dupe oxygen consumption, figure out what Kj heat outputs really mean in the game, and so on. 

So without a lot of number crunching/game knowledge, you make decisions based on what the building descriptions say. Algae terrarium says it makes oxygen and reduces CO2? Great, I'll build tons at the bottom of my base, I have plenty of algae around at the start of the game and a few big water lakes nearby - no problem. The problem is when your resources start running out, you may well not realise it was those terrariums that caused the problem in the first place.

The same goes for Deoxidisers and Elextrolyzers, as it very easy to build far too many - see my recent threads in the Feedback subforum. As a new player it's never made clear enough just how much oxygen you really need. The only concrete indicators you have are Insufficient Oxygen warnings (which have a host of issues), and the end of day oxygen consumption report. That daily report seems subject to lots of variability depending on where your dupes have been, what resources/gases/caves etc you have dug out.

I've suggested in the Feedback forum that visual indicators might do a better job of showing how much oxygen dupes need, and oxy machines output. Imagine if it was visualised as a list of bubble icons for example. You could still include the numbers on the side. A dupe consumes 4 bubbles a day, a terrarium shows its output as 2 bubbles, and so on. At the end of the day you can see your dupes consumed 20 bubbles - it makes the maths really easy even if it's just a rough representation of the true numbers/variables.

I'm over 100 hours into the game and I still don't go into the minutae of adding up specific numbers - the only exception being with wiring systems where I need to figure out how to split up bigger loops into 1000kW chunks.

 

[SeAn1211]

I think Terrariums are not very cost effective compare with other ways in any kind of situation at the moment. It should serve a purpose during a game phase.

In early games, where clean water is limited, its foolish to use Terrariums to generate O2. If I wanted to remove CO2, I usually dig a big hole and deal with them later.

I mid to late games, I should have all sorts of tech unlocked to generate O2 and CO2 would become a valuable resource to me.

[TheRealKillface]

In my current colony, I rely on 2 deoxydizer and 1-2 algae terrarium for sweeping the excess CO2 till I go full electrolyzer.

[Lifegrow]

You have overlooked one of the best pros of terrariums though - they're incredibly portable for those "extended co2 trenches" and can be used to give a welcome oxygen checkpoint of sorts  

Honestly - I normally avoid them like the plague unless I have a specific (lazy) need to slap one down for a bit of O2  

[Luminite2]

19 minutes ago, Lifegrow said:

You have overlooked one of the best pros of terrariums though - they're incredibly portable for those "extended co2 trenches" and can be used to give a welcome oxygen checkpoint of sorts  

Honestly - I normally avoid them like the plague unless I have a specific (lazy) need to slap one down for a bit of O2  

This is all I ever use them for. Before exosuits if I need to do something far away, make a quick rest stop for dupes to catch their breath.

[Yoma_Nosme]

First I use deoxy 99%. 

The 1%. I used to water them by pipe. If you regulate waterflow by valve and let it drip on floor they would suck it all up and since you need piping anyway...

Anyway dupes didn't have to water them.

[TheScaryOne]

It's way more efficient to just build a manual generator and plop down a smart battery and a deoxidizer to me. The amount of dupe chore running combined with water usage just makes them completely worthless. Like I said in my post, they really need to generate slime at a level to be semi-sustainable and comparable with other oxygen generation methods at a cost of size, efficiency, and pre-automation/shipping dupe labor.

A ton of terrariums, a few distillers, and some lights should be a functional low-heat low-power labor intense oxygen production and CO2 deletion loop.

[goboking]

They're a decent supplement to other means of oxygen production, but they're terrible as a primary source of breathable air or CO2 management.  A single algae distiller produces enough algae for six algae terrrariums (plus enough polluted water to irrigate six pincha pepper plants).  Those six terrariums provide enough oxygen to support two dupes.  So supplementing an electrolyzer with an algae distiller and an algae terrarium allows you to expand your colony from eight dupes to ten while providing a useful byproduct. 

However, as others in this thread have rightly pointed out, the water consumption of an algae terrarium is prohibitively high.  And even if you have an abundance of disposable water, the time it takes to deliver water to algae terrariums weighed against its marginal returns makes it a rather unappealing choice for anyone valuing efficiency.  If the water consumption was lowered and/or watering them could be automated then they'd be far more useful, but as is, they're outclassed by a host of other options.

[Jigsawn]

I'd like to see their water cost lowered a bit, but also have them be able to receive water via manual delivery or water pipes. That way you can still justify keeping them around in the midgame because the big time cost factor for delivery will be removed.

[Moggles]

32 minutes ago, Jigsawn said:

I'd like to see their water cost lowered a bit, but also have them be able to receive water via manual delivery or water pipes. That way you can still justify keeping them around in the midgame because the big time cost factor for delivery will be removed.

They can draw water from the surroundings so you can actually drip feed them using a valve and a vent if you make them a little pool to sit in.

[Supraluminal]

I don't know, I think the water consumption rate of terrariums (terraria?) pretty well dooms them at this point, full stop. Deoxydizers require very little dupe labor, so even automating terrariums doesn't do much to make them more competitive in the early/mid game.

The terrarium's modest algae efficiency advantage isn't compelling either. Under normal circumstances, it's easy to make it well past cycle 100 on deoxydizers with existing algae deposits in the vicinity of the starting biome. By then it shouldn't be a stretch to start distilling slime or using electrolyzers or something.

I don't even see how they're useful as a supplement or spot-fix either. Just run enough deoxydizers to produce a surplus of O2, if you fully pressurize your base they'll stop running without wasting anything. The CO2 scrubbing ability is absolutely negligible. For remote operations, like @TheScaryOne says, just use a single deoxydizer. Or pressurize all your tunnels, because it makes everything easier and kills slimelung to boot.

I think Klei needs to revisit the O2 system and figure out what niche they actually want terrariums to fill, then rework them and possibly the other O2 producers accordingly. Right now the other options are easy and effective enough that there's not really much of a hole for terrariums to plug anyway.

3 minutes ago, Moggles said:

They can draw water from the surroundings so you can actually drip feed them using a valve and a vent if you make them a little pool to sit in.

This is actually pretty neat and something I didn't know, but like I said I don't think it's enough to make them a useful option.

[PhailRaptor]

23 minutes ago, Moggles said:

They can draw water from the surroundings so you can actually drip feed them using a valve and a vent if you make them a little pool to sit in.

While this is true, if you have reached a point where you have not only reliable plumbing but also are using valves for specific purposes, you should already have Electrolyzers.  What are you still doing playing around with Terrariums?

[Mariilyn]

I'm 99% sure that they are supposed to output something else, but for some reason it is not implemented yet. I expect that they will eventually get reworked. The journal entry for algae says it produces oxygen when grown in Algae Terrariums. Assuming it goes through some kind of photosynthesis process, they could :

- require a small amount of CO2 and light to work properly 

- need only a first-time delivery of algae for colonisation of the terrarium and then possibly some form of tending or harvesting

- produce either more algae or some kind of food or nutrient (right balance to be determined).

So basically they could be used for farming and output a small amount of oxygen as a by-product. It would make more sense because they cannot compete at all with the deoxidiser. I also currently never use them, its like they aren't existing.

[goboking]

16 minutes ago, Supraluminal said:

I don't even see how they're useful as a supplement or spot-fix either.

Because they don't consume power, don't generate heat, and produce a valuable byproduct when used in conjunction with an algae distiller (which admittedly does consume power and generate heat).  Like I said earlier, they're not ideal, but they're not completely useless either.

[TheScaryOne]

3 parts slime breaks down into 1 part algae and 2 parts polluted water. Algae terrariums should return 2/3 of their water usage as slime, bringing a electrolyzers worth of terrariums (20) to 2kg/s water usage. Bump up the CO2 scrubbing by a factor of 10? This way you can't completely replace skimmers as 20 will still be 1/5 as effective as a single skimmer.

The niche will be a low power, low heat generation, reliably automated O2 system that uses more water that has other benefits, but requires additional refinement steps.

I'd maybe also knock them down to 22g/s O2 with a 100% bonus when in light. They should really require light.

[greggbert]

The best alternative to an algae terrarium is an UP/DOWN airlock at the bottom of your base.  Too much CO2?  Open the door for a few seconds and let it fall down below your base.  If you explore even a little under your base there will room for lots of C02 down there and the more you explore the more you can dump down there.

Eventually you will dig down to the slicksters and they will turn it into petroleum, problem solved.

 

[Supraluminal]

54 minutes ago, goboking said:

Because they don't consume power, don't generate heat, and produce a valuable byproduct when used in conjunction with an algae distiller (which admittedly does consume power and generate heat).  Like I said earlier, they're not ideal, but they're not completely useless either.

Lighting the terrariums also costs power and heat (generally). And the power/heat costs of a deoxydizer are extremely manageable for how much O2 they produce. I can't imagine any realistic situation in which I would rather build a few terrariums to make up a small O2 shortfall over just building another deoxydizer and letting it sit idle most of the time.

Obviously everything here hinges on the terrarium's water usage, but adjusting that by itself means you run the risk of simply turning the terrarium into the dominant option. I think the best approach is something like this:

34 minutes ago, TheScaryOne said:

3 parts slime breaks down into 1 part algae and 2 parts polluted water. Algae terrariums should return 2/3 of their water usage as slime, bringing a electrolyzers worth of terrariums (20) to 2kg/s water usage. Bump up the CO2 scrubbing by a factor of 10? This way you can't completely replace skimmers as 20 will still be 1/5 as effective as a single skimmer.

The niche will be a low power, low heat generation, reliably automated O2 system that uses more water that has other benefits, but requires additional refinement steps.

I'd maybe also knock them down to 22g/s O2 with a 100% bonus when in light. They should really require light.

Details aside, the point is to make terrariums and deoxydizers do significantly different things from each other so that each one has a truly distinct role in the game. Instead of always using one rather than the other, or even choosing one over the other based on the situation, you might reasonably want to use both at the same time.

[Moggles]

3 hours ago, PhailRaptor said:

While this is true, if you have reached a point where you have not only reliable plumbing but also are using valves for specific purposes, you should already have Electrolyzers.  What are you still doing playing around with Terrariums?

I'm not I was just stating a fact that they can be fully automated. I haven't built one since mid 2017.

[trukogre]

6 hours ago, TheScaryOne said:

It's way more efficient to just build a manual generator and plop down a smart battery and a deoxidizer to me. The amount of dupe chore running combined with water usage just makes them completely worthless. Like I said in my post, they really need to generate slime at a level to be semi-sustainable and comparable with other oxygen generation methods at a cost of size, efficiency, and pre-automation/shipping dupe labor.

A ton of terrariums, a few distillers, and some lights should be a functional low-heat low-power labor intense oxygen production and CO2 deletion loop.

If you're only using the terrariums for a cycle or two, it's less running to use the terrarium over building and then destroying all that.  If I'm building the terrariums for the long term, I'd rather just build a long wire rather than build that manual generator/battery.  I almost never use a terrarium, but I use remote manual generator deoxidizers even less..perhaps I should give them a try.

[TheScaryOne]

Deconstructing them is an late game thing. It's a fairly small amount of resources and the smart battery allows you to turn it on or off with just a small piece of automation wire. Pre smart batteries I just used smalls and disabled the generators.

[Gnarmaw]

I think algae terrariums should be reworked to produce algae and O2, even made a formula for it based on real life photosynthesis:

In game the ratios would look like this:

100g of CO2 + 40g of water -> 72.23g of algae + 67.77g of oxygen

And it would require light to work

 

[TheScaryOne]

My plan above would generate 2kg/s of algae after using distillers, which will more than makeup for the 600g/s used by the 20 terrariums, giving you 1.4kg/s of algae. The slime could also be readily used to feed a mushroom farm, since I would make the slime generated be germ-free, unless fed germy water.

[Machenoid]

Make the algae pile a farmable plant instead of a building.

Delete the original algae box building as it is now and just turn the majority of the graphic into a plant; remove the box from the graphic in order for it to appear appropriate for a wild version.

As it is now Algae would look like this if it was a plant:
 

Spoiler

 

Wild Growth: Lifecycle [0.0 Cycles]

Air Pressure:

• 1g - 10,000g

Atmosphere:

• Carbon Dioxide

Body Temperature:

• 15 - 75^*C

Illumination:

• Light

Additional Domestic Growth: Lifecycle [0.0 Cycles]

Irrigation:

• Water 180Kg Cycle

Fertilization:

• Algae 18Kg cycle

Information

• Decor: -10 (Radius 2 tiles)
• Effect: Oxygen: +40g/s
• Effect: Carbon Dioxide: -333.33mg/s

 

In order to make this "plant" actually work properly i would suggest:

• Produce algae (for a net-gain only with farmers!) as a product when a harvest is ready, likely within 5 cycles of domestic growth but never with wild growth to prevent a cost-free algae production. In the wild, it's just a pile of algae and should drop as such. Edit - Unlike other plants, the algae pile should "die" when it's harvested, needing replanting. It could also produce a small amount of slime, in order to promote the player advancing the tech tree to deal with it.
• The algae "plant seed" can only be produced through the microbe musher. Algae in, algae seeds out.
• Reduce amount of water used per cycle to a 2 digit number or lower.
• Increase amount of carbon dioxide eaten to at least one whole gram instead of milligrams.
• Remove direct oxygen production completely and let the algae deoxydizer do the work instead. This, in conjunction with the microbe musher producing seeds, prompts the player towards making an initial wire network that uses much more of the early research tree.

Get electricity so you can produce microbe-mushed algae seeds, get farming to plant those algae seeds, get decor to grow those algae seeds, get large batteries and gas pumps to move Oxygen and CO2 around while keeping the lights on for the night. Use the liquid pump tech to automate relocating distant water closer to the farm. Use power switches to manage power drain and circuit overloading between all the devices on the network. Get the jobs board unlocked so you can reliably maintain your algae supply with skilled farmers.