Looking for Drecko ranching tricks

[WanderingKid]

So I've been tinkering around with Dreckos for a while and I've been trying a couple of different combinations out.  Now, the obvious thing for farming Dreckos is the want for mid-game plastics.  However, I've been tinkering around with a few configurations and none of them really seem to work to my liking.  The largest drawback for me has been wanting to use Mealwood in a Hydrogen filled space.

So, things I have tried and won't work:

• planter boxes are just useless all the way around.
• Eating from the tops of the plants doesn't work, they have to be on the surface of a farm tile.
• Trying to keep one layer of O2 on top of the mealwood, while layering Hydrogen above it.  Gets really fussy.
• Mealwood on top, a Hydrogen pit 'underneath' that the Dreckos can roam in.  Not bad, about 30-40% inundation rate, but takes a *while* to get a creature to come for grooming.  Side benefit is you can use this space to have a free base cooling system in it using a wort or two.
• Using open and/or closed doors to keep them from roaming too far afield.  They either walk in, or through, them.

So I've been wondering if anyone found any significant tricks to getting the them behaved in an optimized layout.  I'm starting to think a two ranch system may be needed for sanity.  One for laying the glossy dreckos, another to feed them from peppernut bushes, which requires a whole lot of infrastructure to keep them watered well.  Well, a lot for the early/mid game, anyway.  It looks like they're basically designed to be a 50/50 growth rate, using either O2 and dirt, or a chlorine/hydrogen mix.

Best case scenario, I *think*, would be a single layer of chlorine on the floor, a layer or two of O2 above it for breathing while grooming/shearing, and then a layer on top for the hydrogen so it doesn't leak all over the place.  However, that's a solid box room layout, which means you can't try to 'tighten up' their roaming range to speed up grooming them, and would be even more fussy to keep 'just right'.  Without having an O2 bar in the middle, though, you'll be leaking gases from one direction or another, and eventually a CO2 buildup would get in the way.

[Kabrute]

in my opinion you only need mealwood to create glossy dreckos not keep them alive so approach this from a 2 farm approach, 1 makes glossy dreckos, the other "raises" them

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Kabrute said:

in my opinion you only need mealwood to create glossy dreckos not keep them alive so approach this from a 2 farm approach, 1 makes glossy dreckos, the other "raises" them

If I am correct you also need hydrogen to grow their scales?

[Kabrute]

lemme be specific, raise dreckos on mealwood and glossy dreckos on pepper nuts

keep a drecko ranch just to farm glossy eggs, keep a gloss ranch for farming glossy scales

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Kabrute said:

lemme be specific, raise dreckos on mealwood and glossy dreckos on pepper nuts

keep a drecko ranch just to farm glossy eggs, keep a gloss ranch for farming glossy scales

Wait... You can actually feed glossy drecko's pepper nuts? Here I was thinking you could only feed them mealwood/bristle blossom.

[Kabrute]

1, yes, to make them climb up in hydrogen in the mealwood farm XD

balm lillies is the most resource efficient but i'm not in game right now and can't remember if scales grow in chlorine or not

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Kabrute said:

1, yes, to make them climb up in hydrogen in the mealwood farm XD

balm lillies is the most resource efficient but i'm not in game right now and can't remember if scales grow in chlorine or not

No, that I'm sure of: it does only in hydrogen. Still, that's doable too if you have a dual hydrogen/chlorine chamber with a one tile opening inbetween.

[Greep]

^ According to this glossy dreckos won't eat peppernut.  I think he meant balm lily, implied by his other post.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Greep said:

^ According to this glossy dreckos won't eat peppernut.  I think he meant balm lily, implied by his other post.

Yeah, I was actually using that guide as well. But according to Kabrute, it is possible they eat it and get the calories for it???

[Kabrute]

so, hydrogen filled room, door from left or top, insert enough chlorine for a floor layer for growing balm lilly, should easily support 1/3 the floorspace, while having 80% of the room space filled with hydrogen. 

works for reeds not for glossy, seems to be you  need a room with floor ridges for growing plants in sealed environment boxes while the rest of the room is hydrogen

concept Alpha

[PhailRaptor]

This is what Neotuck came up with a while back.  Switch the Airflow Tiles for solid ones, and you can probably compress the Chlorine or CO2 layer for a slightly smaller size and/or better "Hydrogen line" in the room.

 

[Soulwind]

I've been trying an H2/CO2 room.  CO2 wants to settle to bottom, so give it 3 tiles with mealwood farm plots and H2 wants to float above, so give it another 4 tiles.  The gas stays separated really well (I've actually got it open air to my base (in the CO2 area) and the H2 hasn't leaked at all, the mealwood grows, and the dreckos spend at least part of their time in H2.  They don't regrow scales at full speed, but it's usually adding only about 1 extra cycle to the regrowth.

A chlorine/H2 room would be a good thing for regular dreckos, but unfortunately the glossy ones won't eat balm lilly.  Still, the 2 ranch system with a mealwood room for breeding and a pure H2 room for scales might be a pretty good solution too.

[fishoutofwater]

My  glossy ranch. I use waterlock to keep CO2 mixing up with H.

20 tiles of mealwood are enough to sustain 8 dreckos, so i probably could have 2 tile high in H room so that dupe can pick up the eggs.

[jigggy2000]

Here is a somewhat convoluted design but bear with me !! it works! Read how it works below

Okay, down to  how it works. The drecko is trapped inside the ranch until the clock hits the end of the day. When that happens the doors ONLY open when the drecko steps over the middle plate. This insures the Drecko is on the floor rather than the walls (where it could potentially get out) when the doors open. He will be stuck in the middle tiles for this first stage. If his hungry he will go towards the meal wood at the bottom. Drecko's can jump 2 tile high blocks like dupes can. To get to the mealwood however he must first step on that plate next to the meal wood. Once he does this indicates he is now outside. Once he is done eating if he manages to step on the middle plate in the ranch again the doors close and he is trapped for the rest of the day.The plate under the door is to insure the Drecko doesn't get stuck. I've seen it get stuck on fast speed when the drecko is too fast and the door closes on top of it cause the door closes to slow (I wish the door hit box was instantaneous when closing and opening). The purpose of this design is supposed to maximise the amount of time the drecko is immersed in hydro gas. However I feel simpler designs are just as effective. Ive done no tests on what designs are better in keeping them in gas the most :\ 

I was mostly just messing around to see what I could come up with.

Just a tip though. You can keep glossy Dreckos glum and they still keep their tame scale growth of 33%. So once tame just disable the grooming station and they will eat less and not produce eggs, but still have boosted scales. This is what Kabrute meant with keeping one glossy drecko for only plastic and another for only eggs. 

Here is the circuitry of my design. I know it looks a bit complicated, but it works:

[JonnyMonroe]

I've not tried a proper drecko stable yet but I'm wondering... do they path through water? I'm thinking of a design that would use water locks to stop them pathing out.

[Neotuck]

8 hours ago, fishoutofwater said:

My  glossy ranch. I use waterlock to keep CO2 mixing up with H.

20 tiles of mealwood are enough to sustain 8 dreckos, so i probably could have 2 tile high in H room so that dupe can pick up the eggs.

how do you reach the eggs lade in the one tile high space?

[Soulwind]

28 minutes ago, JonnyMonroe said:

I've not tried a proper drecko stable yet but I'm wondering... do they path through water? I'm thinking of a design that would use water locks to stop them pathing out.

 Yes they will climb into the water lock and drown.  Hatches do the same.  You can add a pneumatic door to the edge of the water lock to prevent them getting in though

[Denisetwin]

12 hours ago, Soulwind said:

I've been trying an H2/CO2 room. 

This is what I use, I keep a pump going that keeps the C02 full and compresses the hydrogen to the top of the room so the mealwood grows well.  The Dreckos seem to make a circuit after they eat the mealwood at the bottom and so spend quite a bit of time at the top in hydrogen.

[jigggy2000]

Okay, okay. Sorry you won't need to read about my crazy design after this, PROMISE. I just needed to make an alteration.

I just changed how the pressure plate under the door is wired. The other way could get the dreko locked out if it decides to go left.

Now it is perfect!!

[Denisetwin]

12 hours ago, fishoutofwater said:

I use waterlock to keep CO2 mixing up with H.

oh this is seriously a good idea and I'm using it!!

[BionicSandwich]

21 hours ago, Kabrute said:

lemme be specific, raise dreckos on mealwood and glossy dreckos on pepper nuts

keep a drecko ranch just to farm glossy eggs, keep a gloss ranch for farming glossy scales

whats funny is you can use regular dreckoes to farm glossy eggs, and use glossy dreckoes to farm regular eggs to keep both populations up.

[WanderingKid]

21 hours ago, fishoutofwater said:

My  glossy ranch. I use waterlock to keep CO2 mixing up with H.

20 tiles of mealwood are enough to sustain 8 dreckos, so i probably could have 2 tile high in H room so that dupe can pick up the eggs.

How are you able to get them to do that U-Turn for grooming?  I'm sure I'm missing something in the picture, but I can't place it.

[fishoutofwater]

14 hours ago, Neotuck said:

how do you reach the eggs lade in the one tile high space?

Can't reach it, I just let it hatched.

I build too much farm tile, thats why I can only have one tile for dreckos to roam in that area.

 

1 hour ago, WanderingKid said:

How are you able to get them to do that U-Turn for grooming?  I'm sure I'm missing something in the picture, but I can't place it.

I don't know about U-turn but they can drop down if being called for grooming.

[moose6434]

Obviously LOTS of room for improvement here. But this design has been working for me. The pen on the left is better than the one on the right. It's only 87 tiles, so there's room to expand it out and add more mealwood. I haven't pumped hydrogen into the top yet - and it would halt the growth of the mealwood on the top, but I think they would be fine with just the middle ones. 

Ignore the farm tiles on the floor. That was my test to see if they could eat mealwood without standing on the tile - they can't.

[Carnis]

 

Loved fishoutofwaters solution.

Not to start or hijack a new thread as this old one has a lot of good solutions to a problem I didn't know I had.

I think the attached solution resembling a mammalian lung segment (the lower drecko stable pictured) works perfect for any number of glossy dreckos.

Its essentially 3 parts:

a) Top left bronchiae with hydrogen, that maximize surface area for growing scales while minimizing roomtiles to fit more plants & dreckos. You can add or remove airflow tiles according to your hydrogen pressure. You must build it from right to left, as light gasses like to go top-left.

b) Garden, shearing, grooming + a single WW to keep it under 30. We have insulated it towards the hot biome on the left, no insulation towards base on the right. Important to dig a hole for the WW or it will sometimes move hydrogen out.

c) An oxygen gas-vent to maintain normalised pressure, to keep the hydrogen from escaping. If some hydrogen escapes.. you can replace airflow tiles with normal tiles to increase hydrogen pressure as a failsafe.