Regarding the upcoming NatGas/FertSynth rework...

[Miravlix]

Bristle Berry is something like four times the output of mealwood.

 

Farming Station will make Bristle Berry even better and reduce the number of farm plots needed to feed dupes. Always look for efficiency when something involve dupes.

 

Cosmos has improved the challenge of survival mode., this is a good thing, if you can't handle it, use the sandbox mode.

[Lilalaunekuh]

2 hours ago, Miravlix said:

Farming Station will make Bristle Berry even better and reduce the number of farm plots needed to feed dupes. Always look for efficiency when something involve dupes.

Choose your poison: (If you want to opimize for dupe time, I think you will use auto-sweepers)

- Building a bigger bristle berry farm without a farm station and your dupes need to visit twice as much farm plots for the same food

(4 - 6 dupe interactions in 6 cycles to harvest and move two bristle berries and bristle berry seeds)

Using auto-sweepers: 2 Dupe interactions to harvest 2 brislte berry after 6 cycles using 240Kg of water

-Building a smaller farm and a farming station Now your dupes need to tend the crop each day

(10-12 dupe interactions in 6 cycle to harvest tiwce, tend 6 times and move the drops)

Using auto-sweepers: 8 Dupe interactions to harvest 2 bristle berry after 6 cycles using 120Kg of water + 30kg fertilize

 

=> Farming bristle berry using a farming station isn´t efficient dupe wise.

(My current base got spare water and spare dupe time, so not sure which way I will go here)

[TheExceed]

10 hours ago, Denisetwin said:

This.  Which also means I will no longer be ranching sage hatches.  I HATE the change.  I don't mind having to have a little offsetting power, but to me, once I get my whole power plant up and running in mid-game I don't want to keep messing around trying to get enough power to build the cool things I want to build!  That is NOT fun!    

I agree with this. Like tbh all power sources should have a possibility to be sustainable.
Right now, steam is a complicated process that is pretty difficult to recreate in survival (in my opinion)
Coal is renewable with stone hatches but has to be managed and takes a bit to set up.
Hydrogen has a geyser but gas geysers have too low of output to be useful and self-sufficient electrolyzer systems aren't reliable.
Petro gen is possibly if you want to spend the time and power heating oil to petro and wasting dupe time to turn oil into petro mechanically.
And now NG gen has a geyser but again too low of output for it to be useful and no longer self sufficient with the synth change. Sure you can boil oil into NGas but again takes power and time.

They're turning power into a huge micromanagement system rather than having them all self-sufficient in some way and leave it to the player to decide how to make their energy depending on what they'r given. Geysers mainly. If I find an early slush, I could set up a early Ngas system. If there were more ways to make the gases or increased geyser outputs.. Then this change wouldn't be so hard hitting to alot of people. 

Did it need a nerf, sure but not completely useless to the overall gameplay. If anything it could have been balanced so 1 generator could power the pump and x synths and have those x synth be able to produce enough NGas to keep it going. With maybe an additional 50-100w of energy. Something that would have to be made quite large for it to be of any potential benefit. But not where it is not even remotely possible to power itself.

[Lilalaunekuh]

13 minutes ago, TheExceed said:

I agree with this. Like tbh all power sources should have a possibility to be sustainable.

All are sustainable at the moment and just hatches need some micromanagement.

 

Solar:

- Just to much player and dupe interaction needed to clean the debris for a late game power source

- Can be setup so all debris will evaporate into space, but then you got a system consuming power ...

- Since shine bug just emit light when they are not overcrowded. it´s a lot micromanagement

- A bit of free power if you put one on each side of your printing pod (would like some downside attached to this)

=> using daylight: not reliable using and needs player interaction 

     using shine bug or the printing pod: reliable after setup and no dupe interaction needed (but low returns)

Steam:

-Needs a some tinkering but works as a real late game energy sources

=> reliable after setup and no dupe interaction needed

 

Coal:

-You can sustain a coal power plant using normal, sage or stone hatches for a infinite amount of time (sage hatches no eat dirt instead of fertilizer)

=> micromanagement needed to keep a specific hatch population alive

 

Petroleum:

- Usefull when you got all the plastic you need and still have to deal with some oil/petroleum

- Nice water supply

=> reliable after setup, but some dupe time is needed to at least run the petroleum generator itself

 

Hydrogen:

-Geyser are not really usefull

-Self-powering electrolyzer are not that hard to setup using automation.

(You can even build a self powering electrolyzer using just 2 pumps and a normal gas filter and one gas bridge)

-Hydrogen is now the best/only way to turn water into power

=> reliable after setup and no dupe interaction needed

 

Natural Gas / Methane:

-Geyser are not really usefull

-The oil refinery can sustain a full generator and is enough to keep your petroleum production running with some surplus power

-But if energy is your main goal, there is still nothing better than cooking some oil/petroleum into natural gas (and no dupe interaction)

-Fertilizer synthesizers are just a way to supplement your natural gas production. (Their goal should be making fertilzer not power)

-Now there is no way to directly turn polluted water into power anymore, but you can always clean your water and run it into electrolyzers instead.

=> reliable after setup and can be setup without a need for dupe interaction

 

TLDR:

- Solar energy using daylight isn´t a reliable engery source right now

- Dirt is the new fertilizer, when it comes to hatch food (Which should be worth more dirt or fertilizer ?)

- Hydrogen is the new way to turn water into power (just vent excess oxygen into space)

- Natural gas is still the best power source if your able to cook some petroleum.

- Geyser have a to low impact on possible solution to our energy needs

(Better geyser would encourage people to adapt more to the seed their playing)

[avc15]

Don't fixate on sage hatches, their 100% conversion rate is hidden behind some difficulty in getting slime, fertilizer, pdirt and dirt in the first place.

Feeding stone to regular hatches is probably a better short term choice.

[chemie]

7 hours ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

Choose your poison: (If you want to opimize for dupe time, I think you will use auto-sweepers)

- Building a bigger bristle berry farm without a farm station and your dupes need to visit twice as much farm plots for the same food

(4 - 6 dupe interactions in 6 cycles to harvest and move two bristle berries and bristle berry seeds)

Using auto-sweepers: 2 Dupe interactions to harvest 2 brislte berry after 6 cycles using 240Kg of water

-Building a smaller farm and a farming station Now your dupes need to tend the crop each day

(10-12 dupe interactions in 6 cycle to harvest tiwce, tend 6 times and move the drops)

Using auto-sweepers: 8 Dupe interactions to harvest 2 bristle berry after 6 cycles using 120Kg of water + 30kg fertilize

 

=> Farming bristle berry using a farming station isn´t efficient dupe wise.

(My current base got spare water and spare dupe time, so not sure which way I will go here)

You are missing all the dup delivery to the fertilizer maker and dup mining for phosphorite or large dreko farms to make phosphorite.

If you have a good water gesyer, farm stations no longer make sense.

[Grimgaw]

God forbid that dupes do anything. I'm building dupe vacation home here.

[Mariilyn]

It make sense to me that the fertilizer synthesizer would be used primarily for fertilizer production. 

I'm now thinking of building closed loops with showers and water sieve for dirt production.

[bountygiver]

6 hours ago, Grimgaw said:

God forbid that dupes do anything. I'm building dupe vacation home here.

1 second of dupe tending crops is 1 second they are not expanding the base

like water, dirt, etc. dupe time is also a resource, except it has a fixed output instead of something storable. If dupe time is really infinite we'd be using only manual generators.

[Grimgaw]

1 hour ago, bountygiver said:

If dupe time is really infinite we'd be using only manual generators.

And what exactly makes dupe time finite?

[trukogre]

1 hour ago, bountygiver said:

1 second of dupe tending crops is 1 second they are not expanding the base

like water, dirt, etc. dupe time is also a resource, except it has a fixed output instead of something storable. If dupe time is really infinite we'd be using only manual generators.

There's a massive gap between "god forbid dupes do anything at all. I'm building a vacation home" and "If dupe time is really infinite".  It sounds like you probably both understand the concept of dupe time being a resource reasonably well, but perhaps you're not aware of exactly what grimgaw is referring to with that quote, which is probably those people who have a phobia of having their dupes do anything at all for some reason, and who are surprisingly numerous.  I.e. those people who don't want to use cooking devices or petroleum refineries, etc.

 

29 minutes ago, Grimgaw said:

And what exactly makes dupe time finite?

Every second that passes, each dupe can only do one second of work.  That's what makes it finite.  (Once we take into account your presumably finite lifespan, and the finite number of dupes that a computer the size of the universe could run)  A finite number multiplied by a finite number is itself finite.  Now, you could stipulate that your descendants will carry on your game, but since current cosmological theory predicts a finite amount of time until the heat death of the universe, we're still left with finite dupe time.  (second addendum: no matter how quickly you run the simulation, as long as the simulation multiplier is finite, we're still left with finite-timetillheatdeathofuniverse * finite-simspeed * finite-dupequantity, and since two finite numbers multiplied are finite, three is also finite [since multiplication is associative, multiply one pair, then that product with the leftover.  by induction, the product of any number of finite numbers is also finite, just in case you think of more finite multipliers that i missed ]  So, we've stipulated that we transform the entire universe into a computer running your ONI game once we get the technology to do so, that the computer runs the game as fast as possible, and that your descendents continue playing the same game until the heat death of the universe, yet dupe time is still finite.   Good enough?

[avc15]

when you set more tasks for your dupe to do than they can actually complete, your base kind of falls apart.

[trukogre]

When you tell your dupes to deconstruct your entire base, your base literally falls apart.

18 minutes ago, avc15 said:

when you set more tasks for your dupe to do than they can actually complete, your base kind of falls apart.

As long as you have your priorities set correctly, your base will be fine.  if your priorities are wrong, and essential work doesn't get done, then your base will fall apart yes.  You can set all kinds of non-essential work to be done, as long as you set the priority low enough.

[Lilalaunekuh]

9 hours ago, chemie said:

You are missing all the dup delivery to the fertilizer maker and dup mining for phosphorite or large dreko farms to make phosphorite.

Ok that´s all stuff you can do without dupes and using a coupe of auto-sweepers.

(Build a wild drecko stable with balm lillies for phosphorite / use dirt from water sieves)

[Kabrute]

only sweep commands can make things fall apart

and mop

[WanderingKid]

So, I hate to just be a spoilsport and say "It's borked, you fix", so I spent a little time poking around the intertubes to see what I could come up with as alternate methods for 'mid game' NG production that could work.

So, it would appear that if you ignore the Petroleum chain, you get some interesting results in percentages.

https://www.socalgas.com/stay-safe/methane-emissions/sources-of-methane-emissions

https://www.climate-policy-watcher.org/methane-emissions/natural-sources.html

https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/stories/6-surprising-sources-of-methane

So, along these lines, I'd like to discuss a few alternate methods we could use to attempt to 'replace' the NG Midgame position that's fallen out of use due to fertilization synthesizers falling by the way side for a  couple of possible interesting mechanics that could replace it.

Some usual obvious items that fall out of the list just because of the volumes:

composting (Not enough Methane), Ocean Microbes (You'd need a HUGE ocean to notice), … errr, the rest can be played with because.... Space Termites!  I want SPACE TERMITES.

These are in no particular order nor interest levels, I got lazy.

1) The Arctic is starting to have a methane problem.

There's a ton of methane gas trapped under ice.  Allow the cold biomes to either have huge trapped pockets or something of that nature.  This would allow a player to establish a line to natural gas while already hunting for Wheezeworts in that phase of the game.  Something along the lines of an Oxylite deposit that offgassed Methane a bit at a time would work.

2) Semiconductor manufacturing.

So, your power plant... produces methane.  Rock on!  Okay, broken mechanic, but something could be done with it.

3) Rice

Yes.  Rice.  Apparently rice, depending on the cultivation method, specifically with VERY deep water for the roots, tends to mass produce methane that the rice can't recapture.  So, what about swamping out the reeds or something?

4) Termites.

Oh so very ONI: Different species of termites produce can produce between 0 and huge amounts of methane.  Expand that to the ridiculous, and instead of having beehives, we have termite hives!  Feed them mealwood, get Methane!

5) Ruminants (Dreckos)

Our livestocks produce a metric crapload (literally) of methane a year.  In particular, different types of ruminants can have excess methane due to feedstocks.  So, new drecko: Fartmaster Drecko (Or whatever... XD).  Finally a drecko we WANT to feed tons of those balm lilies to, and hey, new reason to ranch some more!

6) Manure and wastewater

Yup.  Us.  And some anoxic conditions that we generate.  It's got some value in... you guessed it... the polluted water we already were chewing to pieces.  However, all polluted water is not the same, so there'd need to be a few different water types.

7) Wetlands

About 1/4 of all global emmitions appear to be from wetlands, but it's compounded by a bunch of variables.  However: VERY WARM, type of substrate, and a few other items.  However, a farm tile made of Phosphorite, flooded with PH2O, and then farmed with some thing that REALLY wants to go in there and rot... I'm looking at you, Mealwood… could make for some interesting mechanics play of trying to get your Methane to the NGG without sucking up the PH2O while you're in there.

Work with me here, people!

SPACE. TERMITES.

[Kabrute]

AFAIK all methane is a bacterial byproduct(even termites) hence the methane build up under the ice Cap(theres a food chain down there).  We need a bioreactor to culture and grow microbes.

[Man in the Mist]

I have a better idea: Morb variants, in particular the Gassy Morb which produces NG instead of PO2.

[kuroko0820]

1 hour ago, Man in the Mist said:

I have a better idea: Morb variants, in particular the Gassy Morb which produces NG instead of PO2.

Did u ever consider flatuent duplicant XD

[WanderingKid]

2 minutes ago, kuroko0820 said:

Did u ever consider flatuent duplicant XD

Value is too low to be useful.  It's an annoyance instead of a usable trait.

[PhailRaptor]

2 minutes ago, kuroko0820 said:

Did u ever consider flatuent duplicant XD

The output rate is too low.  You'd need a fairly absurd number to run a single generator.

Morbs, on the other hand, have a pretty significant output.  But in order for that to work, they'd have to be reworked into a critter instead of being a thing that's there and can be produced but can't do anything else.

[Man in the Mist]

Thinking about it a bit, I could see how the variants would come about.  If the area around an outhouse is filled with a gas other than oxygen or carbon dioxide, it would have a chance of spawning a variant morb.

Gassy Morbs from Natural Gas
Floaty Morbs from Hydrogen
Clean Morbs from Chlorine

[Kabrute]

immersion therapy, stuffing a morb in a sealed environment should force it away from its native type over time, give it percentage chances like the egg chance but instead of laying an egg it becomes itself a new critter.

[Albryant]

9 hours ago, Man in the Mist said:

Thinking about it a bit, I could see how the variants would come about.  If the area around an outhouse is filled with a gas other than oxygen or carbon dioxide, it would have a chance of spawning a variant morb.

Gassy Morbs from Natural Gas
Floaty Morbs from Hydrogen
Clean Morbs from Chlorine

I'm not sure a clean Morb would work.  Aren't they described as being a somewhat sentient amalgamation of disease? Unless it became some sort of chlorine resistant variant, kinda like bacterial resistance.

Oh, wouldn't that just be so much fun to play with.  A chlorine resistant Morb putting out a new, highly aggressive form of slime lung that can survive through extreme environments.

[Kabrute]

Evolution!