Early/Mid game power source recomendations

[Doc_O_Love]

I have been only playing for around 4 weeks, my first game went ok, was about cycle 200 or so when the rancher update came out, at which point I restarted. I have been lurking and reading lots of posts here which has prevented/saved me from myself. I have reached cycle 207 and have gone through the early power of Dup wheel, and coal. I am outgrowing my coal generation and need to progress to a new/larger power source. There is so much information available here that it can be hard to find a answer, and when it has been found does it still apply after the updates that have occurred since it was posted. any suggestions are welcome, I am currently playing in survival at this moment. 

Here is a list of the geysers I have found with their output

• Natural Gas: 62.79 g/s
• Natural Gas 57.7 g/s
• Cool Steam: 2363.3 g/s
• Polluted Water: 2102.98 g/s
• Hydrogen: 23 g/s

(For the numbers I used the information I found this on this thread https://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/88479-new-geysers-are-awful/?page=7)

Spoiler

On 3/19/2018 at 11:21 AM, Kasuha said:

It can be smoothed if you calculate the average flow, use a valve to limit the flow to the average value, and large enough buffer to cover the dry periods.

(205.8 * 174 / 626) * 152.7 / 215.7 = 40.49

40.49 * (215.7 - 152.7) * 600 = 1530522

This geyser has average output of 40.5 g/s and you need storage for 1.53 tons of gas to cover the dry period sustaining that supply. Assuming a room at 20 kg/tile when full and at least 125 g/tile when empty (to keep gas pump emptying it at maximum efficiency even near the end of draining), you need 77 tiles. A 9x9, 8x10, or 7x11 room fits the requirement. That's not even that big.

 

I did the math and the hydrogen vent is pretty useless for a reliable power source, the hydrogen generator needs 100 g/s to run.

I have read posts about massive natural gas generators with fertilizer makers but was a bit lost on how much resources they require.

Thanks in advance

 

The Doc.

 

 

[PhailRaptor]

The Hydrogen Geyser is rather weak, but you can use it as an emergency backup.  Connect the Hydrogen Generator to a Smart Battery via Automation, set the Battery to trigger the Generator at ~10ish % capacity remaining.  Combine it's reserves with the production from your Electrolyzer(s) and it might be a bit more effective.

About NatGasFertSynth loops...

Taking your 2 NatGas Geysers together, you should be able to sustain 2 NatGas Generators with 100% uptime.  This will produce 165 g/s CO2 and 135 g/s P-H2O.  You're 15 g/s short on P-H2O to run a FertSynth, a shortfall you can easily make up from your toilets alone, which will produce 20 g/s of NatGas (and Fertilizer).  You'll need 2 more FertSynths to run a 3rd NatGas Generator.  But you can easily get more P-H2O by dealing with the CO2.  Build a Carbon Skimmer, to consume 300 g/s CO2 and produces 1 kg/s P-H2O.  That's almost enough for 7 FertSynths, which would be another 2 NatGas Generators (and some left over).  Keep adding NatGas Generators, FertSynths, and Carbon Skimmers until your input and output of resources more or less balances out.

While it is now outdated due to the Geyser rework, this page on the ONI Wiki has a more in depth explanation with the old Geyser production calculations.  Otherwise, the framework hasn't changed.

https://oxygennotincluded.gamepedia.com/Guide/Natural_Gas_Geysers

[KittenIsAGeek]

16 hours ago, Doc_O_Love said:

I have been only playing for around 4 weeks, my first game went ok, was about cycle 200 or so when the rancher update came out, at which point I restarted. I have been lurking and reading lots of posts here which has prevented/saved me from myself. I have reached cycle 207 and have gone through the early power of Dup wheel, and coal. I am outgrowing my coal generation and need to progress to a new/larger power source. There is so much information available here that it can be hard to find a answer, and when it has been found does it still apply after the updates that have occurred since it was posted. any suggestions are welcome, I am currently playing in survival at this moment. 

<SNIP>

I did the math and the hydrogen vent is pretty useless for a reliable power source, the hydrogen generator needs 100 g/s to run.

I have read posts about massive natural gas generators with fertilizer makers but was a bit lost on how much resources they require.

Thanks in advance

 

The Doc.

 

 

For early to mid-game, I use coal and hydrogen.  I'm currently on cycle 190 with more power resources than I know what to do with.  My potential power production is 3kw using 2 coal generators and 1 hydrogen generator.  If all my power draw systems were running at once, I'd use about 2.2kw, but generally my average draw is a bit under 1kw.  I currently have 55 tons of surplus coal and about 1500kg excess hydrogen. 

For coal, its very important to hook them up to smart batteries as soon as you can. Generally I use hamster wheels until I get the research and resources to build smart batteries simply because of the waste heat and burned coal.  My next step is to wrangle up some hatches and feed them sand and/or sedimentary rock.  This holds me off until I can get my electrolyzers up and running.

If you build your electrolyzer using the natural properties of gas separation (hydrogen rises, oxygen sinks) then you can design a system that uses less power to run than the potential power of hydrogen that it produces.  This is not an insignificant amount, especially with an engineer keeping the generators tuned up.  On cycle 190, I'm running almost exclusively off hydrogen power. I have not opened up any geysers or vents yet.

The big drawback to hydrogen power at this point is keeping my electrolyzers going.  Currently I'm producing an average of 600Kg/cycle of oxygen.  My dupes are not breathing that much.  My current design stores the excess -- however mistakes were made and at the moment, the extra oxygen is useless to me.

Here's a screenshot of my power room.  I need to re-design it, but you get the idea.

[chemie]

I get to coal and off hamsters ASAP...like cycle 10 or 15.  Then smart battery/coal can last as long as needed.  I then ride it to Nat gas and use as backup or peak demand.  Petroleum gen seems now to be good mid game option due to low hatch coal production and new geysers being hard to find or dormant NG.

[sybrwookie]

Is getting to coal that fast really worth it?  I've found putting coal further away from my main base helps with controlling the crazy amount of CO2 coming out, which is far more difficult to do that early on.  Also, how many things do you really need to power that early?  If you're running research, 1 oxidizer, and not a whole lot else, then early on, aren't you going to be burning through a ton of coal to keep the generator going before you get smart batteries and need to keep feeding it, thus taking up a bunch of resources and time?

 

My current base got up to around cycle 100 on 1 hamster wheel and 1 large battery as I was spending most of my time trying to find geysers to make power/water easier (at which point, I set up coal quite far away since that's where I found water and was going to be spending a ton of energy).

[KittenIsAGeek]

I never really have a problem with CO2.  It always gets used. During the early cycles, just dig out area under your base.  Once you hit cycle 15 to 20 you should be able to construct a room and vent system to store the CO2 in until later when you want it for 'shrooms and slicksters.  Also, if your generator only runs when you need power, you won't get that much CO2.  The primary reason for switching over is that my dupes spend far too much time switching between tasks and hamster wheels to get anything done.

[sybrwookie]

But until you have Smart Batteries, the only way to control that is to set your Coal Generator to be refilled at times, there's no "run at times" option.  So the only thing I can think of is you're rushing to get Smart Batteries, which then means you're also going to have to rush to get the Rock Granulator (since I can't imagine you're rushing the Metal Refinery....).

So now we're up to pushing tech in that direction, dealing with more CO2 earlier than otherwise needed, mining more coal early on than otherwise needed, and burning through coal faster than otherwise needed, all just to avoid some time on a hamster wheel?  I mean I get advancing, it just seems like a large price to pay just to advance that fast on that one front.  I'd rather spend the time exploring to hope to find geysers and build based on what I can find.

[KittenIsAGeek]

Its not a rush, really.   By cycle 10 to 15 I've got most of first and second tier research done.  You "waste" a little bit of metal using the rock granulator, but the newer maps have more metal (and later there's volcanoes).  I don't build my coal generators until I have the smart batteries ready, and I've never had problems with running out of coal or excessive CO2.  Often just digging out a small starting area gives enough coal for a dozen cycles if you're not running the genny continually.

My usual research pattern:

• Basic farming -- Food
• Advanced research (JOBS!!!)
• Power Regulation -- Small batteries give off too much heat for the power they hold
• Plumbing/Sanitation/Decontamination -- mesh tiles to improve quality of life, and deoderizers for the bathrooms
• Interior Decor/Artistic Expression -- Dupes get way too stressed early in the game.
• Automatic Control/Generic Sensors -- Smart batteries
• Internal Combustion -- Power!

Usually that'll be by cycle 12 with 4 dupes if at least one is a good researcher.  After that, I start working on whatever is most pressing at the moment. Often the farming tree followed by liquid tuning or temperature modulation.  

You said that you'd "rather spend the time exploring to find geysers."  That's cool, you can do that -- but I tend to wait for geysers until I can handle the heat issues they bring along.  Besides, you can explore faster when your dupes aren't running home to charge the batteries.

[sybrwookie]

Cool, thanks for that breakdown.  As for the running back to charge, I usually have around 7-9 dupes.  I'll keep around half in the base to do basic stuff, farming, research, power, cooking (if I'm up to that) w/e, and the other half is sent out digging.  The half sent out digging get stressed, I swap which half is which so they can become less stressed.  So no one has to run back to handle power, they just hang around relaxing on a hamster wheel lol