Early game power+other

[pg13]

You may have come into this thread thinking I'm going to submit some sort of OP early game power solution, I'm actually asking for advice, I stopped playing at the automation upgrade and came back into the game in the cosmic update, I mean who wouldn't?
Since then I've started 4 or 5 colonies and I quit on them by the cycle 200. The thing is I'm very picky and don't want to keep playing if things don't go my way or even if I don't like the layout of something. So the reason I quit on them were following:

-In one of them I tried making the coal module in the middle of the base, similar to what Brothgar did in his current playthrough, and I ended up using all my cool water by the cycle 180 ish, with no power to power the aquatuner to cool it down somehow

-In other one I was playing and everything was going alright, but I didn't know critters now have age, and so all of my hatches died and I couldn't make a coal/meat farm, which raises a question, if we don't pay attention to it could all the critters on the map die and leave us without options to make infinite phosphorite, dirt, coal etc.? If so this need to be fixed somehow imo

So my questions are, what are your power solutions in the beginning of the game, why are geysers (hydrogen and nat gas) so underpowered right now that they couldn't run continuously even like 3 generators even if you get lucky with the geyser, and for the love of God, could someone submit a low power water cooling solution I am desperate for some cool water. Thanks

[leoroy]

10 minutes ago, pg13 said:

 if we don't pay attention to it could all the critters on the map die and leave us without options to make infinite phosphorite, dirt, coal etc.? If so this need to be fixed somehow imo

Wild critters lay at least one egg before dying (if not confined nor glum).

[Prince Mandor]

Low power - what about some radiant or granite pipes throw multiple Wheezeworts?

Critters now practically immortal - they put one egg even if their live is totally miserable. Just do not eat their eggs, and they survive indefinitely.

 

What is "beginning of game" for you? Two hamster wheels first, two hydrogen generators (one of them for electrolyzers only), after that, one or two coal generators and this is enough for most practical purposes. Nat gas generators up to geyser's capacity, if you found some geysers.

[nvzboy]

Well you can actually go a long way just using the threadmills. and a bit of power from the coal generator. I actually find power to be in a better place now, you actually have to manage the resources and cannot just rely on a single powersource to carry you through the entire game like previously.

When it comes to cooling: Use wheezeworts, the aquatuner displaces heat but doen't actually remove it.

I don't really have a low-power water cooling solution that doesn't involve building pipes across your entire base. I guess you wish to use that cool water for bristle berries or sleet wheat? Try dusk caps first, there is plenty of slime on the map, enough to provide food till you have the infrastructure to cool water for bristle berries.

[AnotherBoris]

Roughly speaking, the electolyzer produces enough energy and heat. The evaporator of Polluted Water spends all its energy for oxygen pumping, but instead absorbs all heat and produces cold oxygen.

In the first case, one Manual Generator is enough to store energy in the form of hydrogen reserves, in the second one you need more Manual Generator, but the system absorbs heat. And if you still put the heat-generating buildings inside the Oxygen Emitter, then he will eat with pleasure and their warmth too

[WanderingKid]

1 hour ago, pg13 said:

-In one of them I tried making the coal module in the middle of the base, similar to what Brothgar did in his current playthrough, and I ended up using all my cool water by the cycle 180 ish, with no power to power the aquatuner to cool it down somehow

-In other one I was playing and everything was going alright, but I didn't know critters now have age, and so all of my hatches died and I couldn't make a coal/meat farm, which raises a question, if we don't pay attention to it could all the critters on the map die and leave us without options to make infinite phosphorite, dirt, coal etc.? If so this need to be fixed somehow imo

So my questions are, what are your power solutions in the beginning of the game, why are geysers (hydrogen and nat gas) so underpowered right now that they couldn't run continuously even like 3 generators even if you get lucky with the geyser, and for the love of God, could someone submit a low power water cooling solution I am desperate for some cool water. Thanks

Coal Module:  I use a few wheezeworts and some hydrogen on top of the battery bank, it keeps everything cool even with 3 coal generators.  It keeps everything reasonable.

For citters, I usually try to make sure a wild one gets put into a pen for later, since all wild creatures should respawn one of themselves before they die.  Bugs were getting a bit notorious for their suicidal tendencies near water, so that got fixed.  The overall concern should only happen now if you tame, then starve, all of a creature.

Hydrogen geysers are low power because they're very strong for the little Hydrogen that's needed to keep their Electrolizers running, so they're balanced towards that.  The geyser is just some extra to play with.  NG Geysers just got a bit of a buff, so a geyser should always be able to provide a single generator enough gas.  Coal should be your goto power in the early game though.

If you want to cool some water, I recommend you stick some 2000kg set compactors into your water.  They'll cool it down slowly but surely.  Using them, I barely need to use my Aquatuner, and that's only when I get a little loopy with heating.  I'll snag some pics of it if you like, but they're really handy.

[fishpear]

You say it is in the early game, so just let the duplicants run the wheel. Later you can make use of natural gas geysers or hydrogen geysers (if there are any). Later and later, after you ranch enough animals to get enough egg shell, you can build solar panel in the cosmic as many as you want. 

So solar panel is the final solution, and before that, any ways to make electricity is OK, but they are not meant for long.

Another solution for eternal power in the later game is the shine-bug-solar-panel generator:

1.Make sure you ranch enough (100+) shine bugs

2.Use the critter lure with phosphorite to attract them to your solar panel.

3.Remember, leave the entire structure open (i.e leave a hole to the wall), to make sure the shine bugs do not feel overcrowded

[Oozinator]

Just now, fishpear said:

...So solar panel is the final solution, and before that, any ways to make electricity is OK, but they are not meant for long.

Another solution for eternal power in the later game is the shine-bug-solar-panel generator:

1.Make sure you ranch enough (100+) shine bugs

2.Use the critter lure with phosphorite to attract them to your solar panel.

3.Remember, leave the entire structure open (i.e leave a hole to the wall), to make sure the shine bugs do not feel overcrowded

1 = lol
2 + 3  = 1

[pg13]

Thanks, a lot of good advices, I now know how to cool the coal generators but to get rid of the CO2, I used a few algae terrariums but they use so much water and leave PH2O behind and the carbon skimmers also use so much water, is there any other better ways? For the geysers I've also noticed my dupes dont want to analyze them or they do it extremely slowly and I was kinda getting unlucky with them all the time, also I've tried doing everything from 3 to 12 dupes and I don't know how many is a sweatspot, what do you usually do?

edit: where do you put your critter farms, inside of your main base, or somewhere on the outside since hatches don't care about atmosphere or temperature (or do they?), I usually put them inside of the base but it seems kind of like a waste of space since they are so big

[Prince Mandor]

11 minutes ago, pg13 said:

Thanks, a lot of good advices, I now know how to cool the coal generators but to get rid of the CO2, I used a few algae terrariums but they use so much water and leave PH2O behind and the carbon skimmers also use so much water, is there any other better ways? For the geysers I've also noticed my dupes dont want to analyze them or they do it extremely slowly and I was kinda getting unlucky with them all the time, also I've tried doing everything from 3 to 12 dupes and I don't know how many is a sweatspot, what do you usually do?

By "use water" you mean "convert to polluted water". Put some deodorizers, and let polluted water became oxygen.

But really, just dig deeper. At first it allow CO2 just move down, leaving your base. And later you found some useful monsters down there, with ability to convert CO2 to oil or petroleum, so your CO2 became your power again

[Sevio]

@pg13 I personally have avoided coal generators for most of my games due to the heat and co2 produced, I try to avoid building a carbon skimmer at all so I can feed all that Co2 to slicksters later. (and make my cool starting water last longer) So my early power is two hamster wheels for a long time, until I get some open-air electrolyzers with automatic hydrogen filtering set up.

(Left Atmo sensor is Below 2000 g, right Atmo sensor is Above 600 g)

These save you the power cost for pumping the oxygen and once they're stabilized, you don't need to filter the hydrogen with a gas filter anymore. That turns electrolyzers from barely power-positive to a pretty big surplus.

When I automate the hydrogen generators, that provides me with enough surplus power that I almost don't need the hamster wheels until I start running high power stuff like the metal/oil refinery or an aquatuner.

[pg13]

1 hour ago, Sevio said:

@pg13 I personally have avoided coal generators for most of my games due to the heat and co2 produced, I try to avoid building a carbon skimmer at all so I can feed all that Co2 to slicksters later. (and make my cool starting water last longer) So my early power is two hamster wheels for a long time, until I get some open-air electrolyzers with automatic hydrogen filtering set up.

(Left Atmo sensor is Below 2000 g, right Atmo sensor is Above 600 g)

These save you the power cost for pumping the oxygen and once they're stabilized, you don't need to filter the hydrogen with a gas filter anymore. That turns electrolyzers from barely power-positive to a pretty big surplus.

When I automate the hydrogen generators, that provides me with enough surplus power that I almost don't need the hamster wheels until I start running high power stuff like the metal/oil refinery or an aquatuner.

well you don't need the left atmo sensor since the electrolyzer only works up to 1800 pressure, right? and I avoid putting atmo sensors under my pumps since they create a vacuum for a short amounts of time when they work , so the sensor might be acting a little funky, otherwise I always used similar design along with a few strategically placed wheezes for some cooling

[Sevio]

6 minutes ago, pg13 said:

well you don't need the left atmo sensor since the electrolyzer only works up to 1800 pressure, right? and I avoid putting atmo sensors under my pumps since they create a vacuum for a short amounts of time when they work , so the sensor might be acting a little funky, otherwise I always used similar design along with a few strategically placed wheezes for some cooling

You're right the left atmo sensor isn't needed. I used to have it set to 1600 g or below, to try and avoid letting the electrolyzer overpressure too much. I'm not sure if that still wastes power or not.

The right sensor is set to above 600 g so it should never go funky even if it were in vacuum, and it makes sure the pump never pulls packets smaller than 500 g. If you didn't limit your hydrogen pump based on pressure, it would waste huge amounts of power.

[Prince Mandor]

41 minutes ago, pg13 said:

well you don't need the left atmo sensor since the electrolyzer only works up to 1800 pressure, right? and I avoid putting atmo sensors under my pumps since they create a vacuum for a short amounts of time when they work , so the sensor might be acting a little funky, otherwise I always used similar design along with a few strategically placed wheezes for some cooling

AFAIK air pump pumping from left bottom corner, so placing sensor under right side of the pump is OK, pump create vacuum only under left corner

[onlineous]

14 hours ago, nvzboy said:

Well you can actually go a long way just using the threadmills. and a bit of power from the coal generator. I actually find power to be in a better place now, you actually have to manage the resources and cannot just rely on a single powersource to carry you through the entire game like previously.

You can, but only late game if you 'abuse' the game mechanics by turning crude oil directly into natural gas.

 

13 hours ago, WanderingKid said:

If you want to cool some water, I recommend you stick some 2000kg set compactors into your water.  They'll cool it down slowly but surely.  Using them, I barely need to use my Aquatuner, and that's only when I get a little loopy with heating.  I'll snag some pics of it if you like, but they're really handy.

The aquatuner is a late game building anyway. Until I tap into the oil biome, I tend to minimize power consumption and run my base on the coal mined from the map and one or two hamsterwheels. If I find a natural gas geyser I'll definitely use it, but apart from that you can run quite a decent base on a coal generator and some hamsterwheels. Things to avoid: tube systems, liquid tepidizer, aquatuners and don't use too much thermo regulators. Make sure gas pumps are automated to only work if there is enough liquid / gas available. Don't use active cooling unless strictly necessary, there are cooling systems for your whole base that don't use more energy than the energy of a few liquid shutoffs. 
I would not recommend using an aquatuner to cool down water. Use a anti-entropy thermo nulifier(something, like that anyway, I don't want to start up the game) or wheezeworts if possible.

In my base I don't use the aquatuner anywhere. I could understand using it in a polluted oxygen - liquid oxygen converter, but if you use clever ways of pre-cooling a thermorequlator can convert quite big amounts of polluted oxygen into liquid oxygen. Another benefit of using the thermoregulator: an aquatuner has small fault margins. If the system ceases for a certain period of time it could result in broken pipes, wrong gasses in wrong places and other inconveniences. The thermoregulator with hydrogen is really easy to use and could cease for a 1000 cycles and still be restarted without any hassle. 

 

[ShadowOfALegend]

I currently am using a single coal generator automated with a smart battery tied with AT's to convert CO2 into oxygen and also have most of my heat production in the same area until i can find an adequate supply of wheezeworts to set my cooling up

[BlueLance]

On 07/07/2018 at 12:27 AM, pg13 said:

So my questions are,

1. what are your power solutions in the beginning of the game,

2.why are geysers (hydrogen and nat gas) so underpowered right now that they couldn't run continuously even like 3 generators even if you get lucky with the geyser, and for the love of God,

3.Could someone submit a low power water cooling solution I am desperate for some cool water. Thanks

I numbered your statements;

1. I am a sad person, I use a hamster wheel until I research coal and smart batteries, then I use coal until I can build my electrolyzer set-up which runs my entire base several hundred cycles after, since it doesn't take too long to do that research I still class it as early.
2. Nat gas geysers are still fine, and hydrogen geysers are too, Think of them as more of a top up system, not a means to an end. Sure some can be god tier, but if its not it is still a free resource that you can make use of. Gone are the days where a single geyser has massive output.
3. If you need to cool a large amount of water then its up to yourself, your two options are to either absorb as much heat into polluted water and then put it through a sieve to get a 40c output, or bite the bullet and run an aquatuner build and sacrifice three dupes to run on wheels. (Unless you have other means to power it)

On 07/07/2018 at 3:45 PM, onlineous said:

You can, but only late game if you 'abuse' the game mechanics by turning crude oil directly into natural gas.

You don't have to abuse that! My base is hydrogen powered. Although I do have a seperate grid at each geyser which does power itself.

[onlineous]

1 hour ago, BlueLance said:

You don't have to abuse that! My base is hydrogen powered. Although I do have a seperate grid at each geyser which does power itself.

I don't completely understand how you do that. In a late game base I tend to have tube systems and those use a lot of power. I'm currently in late midgame and use the whole hydrogen creation from the electrolizers used to provide 8 dupes with oxygen. Apart from that I have somewhere around 2 natural gas generators running constantly (I have 3 but they turn of sometimes). I really can't imagine how that kind of power could only come from hydrogen, without venting a lot of oxygen in space (which would be wasteful, but could be done). Another way of not abusing natural gas creation by heating crude oil is making use of solar energy, but that is even more late game than a crude oil boiler.

[BlueLance]

17 minutes ago, onlineous said:

I don't completely understand how you do that. In a late game base I tend to have tube systems and those use a lot of power. I'm currently in late midgame and use the whole hydrogen creation from the electrolizers used to provide 8 dupes with oxygen. Apart from that I have somewhere around 2 natural gas generators running constantly (I have 3 but they turn of sometimes). I really can't imagine how that kind of power could only come from hydrogen, without venting a lot of oxygen in space (which would be wasteful, but could be done). Another way of not abusing natural gas creation by heating crude oil is making use of solar energy, but that is even more late game than a crude oil boiler.

You only have 8 dupes, so your consuming less oxygen than me, I don't vent it out into space (I still have not seen the surface XD) 

Attached is a post about what is on my power grid inside my previous base, I forgot to add 4 of the tube loader things (I dno what they are called) but the power they drain is not that massive since only one dupe goes through them at a time. 

My current base is not as big yet, but I plan to double the tubes as I have two of each stable, so I need 2 of them for each puft enclosure (1 for chlorine 1 for polluted oxygen)

 

Current Base has;

• 2 Aquatuners
• 4 Elextrolyzers
• 4 Liquid Pumps
• 8 Gas Pumps
• 14 Sweeper Arms
• 22 Conveyor Loaders
• 24 Exo Suit Docks
• 3 Liquid Shut-Off Valves
• 3 Electric Grills

I think that is everything. All of this is connected to my power grid which contains 2 Hydrogen gens, 2 Nat Gas Gens (Not connected and no gas) and 2 Coal Gens, They have dust.

It is all down to how often things get used though I found, I will post a picture tonight! I set an alarm on my phone since i usually forget to.

[onlineous]

It might have to do with my tube system that gets used a lot (every movement out of my base is done using the tube system).

Apart from that I have one gas pump running constantly (to pump natural gas from my oil boiler system) and two thermoregulators running constantly (1 to condense polluted oyxygen and 1 to condense excess natural gas to methane. Those 3 systems would already (nearly) max out 1 hydrogen generator.

[BlueLance]

Yeah if you were to constantly have to charge those things it would be a relatively large power drain, even more so if your dupes hop out just to hop back in to pick up something

[BlueLance]

@onlineous

That's my main power grid

[Sevio]

7 hours ago, onlineous said:

It might have to do with my tube system that gets used a lot (every movement out of my base is done using the tube system).

I tried building a tube system once in cosmic and ran into a problem: You cannot cross ladders with a tube system! Since my main way down to the oil biome is with ladders and fire poles, how do you manage to have both ladders and tubes in the base to access areas?

I'm aware dupes can climb a 1 tile gap between ladders but it seems... wrong to have to do that. Every other type of pipe can cross ladders (and many other buildings) but not this one.

[onlineous]

On 9-7-2018 at 3:10 PM, BlueLance said:

Yeah if you were to constantly have to charge those things it would be a relatively large power drain, even more so if your dupes hop out just to hop back in to pick up something

I prefer not to waste dupe time. I have one central transportation hub close to my main facilities and everything is done from that.

On 9-7-2018 at 10:53 PM, Sevio said:

I tried building a tube system once in cosmic and ran into a problem: You cannot cross ladders with a tube system! Since my main way down to the oil biome is with ladders and fire poles, how do you manage to have both ladders and tubes in the base to access areas?

I'm aware dupes can climb a 1 tile gap between ladders but it seems... wrong to have to do that. Every other type of pipe can cross ladders (and many other buildings) but not this one.

That's indeed how it's done. But indeed, skipping pieces of ladder feels a bit like cheating.

[BlueLance]

25 minutes ago, onlineous said:

I prefer not to waste dupe time. I have one central transportation hub close to my main facilities and everything is done from that.

That's indeed how it's done. But indeed, skipping pieces of ladder feels a bit like cheating.

Every other type of pipe can also go through walls, buildings etc. The only exception is Heavi Watt Wire, which is unable to go through walls.

Also fair game to not wasting dupe time  everyone has their own way and thats how it should be!! I must admit though when they change direction mid pipe it makes me laugh and cringe