"Best Strategies you use" conversation

[EpicAlex]

Hey, I got the idea to start a conversation with ONI players, new and experienced, to which we discuss how we play in our games and his we survive. Tell me how you survive, and with time I'll show how I play. I'll probably edit into the original post.

 

[Xenologist]

I've managed to survive something like 50+ cycles in this one colony  

Screenshots of minutes prior

It had a deoxidyxer as the main oxygen intake. No plumbed bathrooms, but a great hall and barracks. Lots of decor. And two dreckos

[Deshiba]

A small trick I use early game is to set up rooms ASAP:
- Cycle 1: Barracks & Latrine
- Cycle 3: Start research towards Advanced Research
- Cycle 4: Build a job board and start research towards Meal Preparation
- Cycle 6: Build mess tables around the printing pod and enclose it. (the portal gives 30 decor satisfying this condition for the mess hall)

In this way you have your 3 most basic rooms set up without even researching any decor. If you do a good job cleaning the floor in between your digging and building you won't have any morale/stress problems until you reach tier 4 jobs.

NOTE: you will have to build a specific room in another spot if you want a great hall, the printing pod counts as an industrial machine.

[chemie]

8 hours ago, Deshiba said:

NOTE: you will have to build a specific room in another spot if you want a great hall, the printing pod counts as an industrial machine.

No.  I have portal in my great hall.  You just need the portrait or statue requirement to make it GH vs messhall. 

[Lifegrow]

My number one strat - Keep telling myself over and over :

"It's early access, it's early access, it's early access..."

Makes those moments when something particularly derpy happens a lot more bearable  

[Hellshound38]

My strategy is to spend all my time starting new maps to look for a perfect seed.

This way my colony can never fail, because I never get past cycle 1.

[Deshiba]

1 hour ago, chemie said:

No.  I have portal in my great hall.  You just need the portrait or statue requirement to make it GH vs messhall. 

Interesting, I had a water cooler in my mess hall and it didn't convert. It's weird that you'd need a painting or statue since the pod gives +30 and the great hall requires +20...

Another thing that helps is starting with a Cook with cooking 5+, a scientist with learning +5 and an artist with art +5. That way you have everything you need as you can get farmers, miners and such trough the printing pod fairly easily (allthough with the reloading exploit it doesn't really matter)

[Nativel]

There alot of everything, tips, how to start, etc. You wont be able to find something like this any where, after all you'll become ship architect.

[chemie]

20 minutes ago, Deshiba said:

Interesting, I had a water cooler in my mess hall and it didn't convert. It's weird that you'd need a painting or statue since the pod gives +30 and the great hall requires +20...

Another thing that helps is starting with a Cook with cooking 5+, a scientist with learning +5 and an artist with art +5. That way you have everything you need as you can get farmers, miners and such trough the printing pod fairly easily (allthough with the reloading exploit it doesn't really matter)

Your artist only needs to be +2.  Learning +4 is like having interest in every job.

The portal might give decor but is not part of the check for a deco item.

[Jackblac]

44 minutes ago, Hellshound38 said:

My strategy is to spend all my time starting new maps to look for a perfect seed.

This way my colony can never fail, because I never get past cycle 1.

In a way to counter this I have started using a custom map. The nubion map from steam workshop has a total of 13 geysers. There is atleast one of each geyser and a few geysers have multiple ones. The map is also made so that you have loads of extra starting water, but you need to explore pretty far out for other stuff. The temperature differences are also huge compared to the normal map. The only downside is that the map has for example propane that you cant use for anything. This adds a bit more complexity and need to vent it to space if it gets in the way

[greggbert]

Couple of strategies I use:

 

1)  From the beginning make a tight seal on your oxygen-containing zone and keep it sealed, this will preserve algae and oxygen.  Don't oxygenate the entire neighborhood (my inner dad)

2) I never use terrariums.  I Create a horizontal door at the bottom of my base and when the dupes use it it drains a bit of CO2.   use that to dump CO2 for like the first 150 cycles, if it builds up too much in my base, opening the door for  a minute or so if too much CO2 builds up.  I just keep digging down further, eventually i hit slicksters and then CO2 = no problem.

3)   Always dig down for slime.  Arrange for CO2 or chlorine to fall into the slime pit.  If you're always digging down into slime, and your pit is full of CO2 or chlorine your guys will hold their breaths while diggging the pit and not get slimelung.

4)  I always build on a grid with 4 tiles between levels.  That way when I connect things they always match up.  If necessary I will tiles to push liquid up to get the water to fit in that grid also.  (Water will always stay contained without leaking in a cistern with a 1 tile thick bottom if it's 4 tiles high max) If want a long narrow room like a farm I just make the ceiling 2 or 3 tiles thick.  If I need a high room it's always exactly 9 tiles high.

5)  Connect drecko ranch to elecrolyzer room with air vents side by side.  Then you have 2 rooms with hydrogen on top and oxygen at the bottom. 

6)  Shine bug ranches make lots and lots of eggs, but they're not good eatin'.   I create an empty compactor in most rooms.  I set it to shine bug eggs, and then reset it as soon as they are delivered.  The shine bug eggs fall on the floor, hatch and float around my base in large numbers making my decor very high once I get up to royal or higher.

7) When I have water I want to cool, I will set up compactors in the water set to a max fullness of about 10% of normal with sweep only turned off.  The dupes will fill them with ice/snow the ice melts and cools the water.  Once it melts they will re-fill automatically.

8) I make sure all my dupes master the gopher job before I give them another job, courier also if I can afford it.  That extra carrying capacity really comes in handy.

9)  I try to get my dupes to idle at least once every 3 cycles to make sure they're not too backlogged.

10)  I have one compactor on each floor by the ladder set to priority 5 with Filtration, Cultavable soil, and minerals, set to sweep only.  Then I have a large bank group of "long term storage" compactors set the same exact way further away from my base, like way below or above.  If I want to clear the floor
   A) I find the compactor on the same level, set it to 6, then 
   B) do the sweep command. 
   C) When the compactor is full I cancel the sweep command on any remaining debris.
   D) Then I unmark the full container so it dumps its contents on the floor, and set it back to 5.
   E) Then I go to one of my "Long term storage"  containers set one that's half full to 7 and one that's empty to 6
   F) Then I give the sweep command and they haul everything to "long term storage".
   G) Then I set everything back to 5.

It's a lot of manual steps but you can clear a ton of debris this way very fast cycle-wise.  Dupes are very efficient if you force them to use a nearby compactor, and they are better at hauling things long distances if the stuff they're hauling is in one big pile all together first.

11)  My last tip.  To prevent hypothermia if you don't have suits or clothes, put construction and digging in the cold biome to priority 4 and they never seem to stay there long enough to get sick.  Also when you first start building in the cold biome tunnel to the top of it and dig/build down into it, rather than from bottom up or sides.   Solves a few problems and seems to stay cold longer that way.  
 

[ShadowOfALegend]

1. regular hatches are your best friend and can no only eat away at any undesirable resource but can net you coal which not only can fuel your power needs but also net you refined carbon which is used in the production of steel

2.don't be afraid to play around with automation especially early in the game as it's a means to make the systems more efficient

3. take it slow; better to set up a plan and take your time to implement your strategy and that way you can  devote time to research and building the foundations around your base infrastructure

[Moggles]

As soon as possible I rush the first three dupes to be mastered as gofers. No matter what other jobs they are doing the permanent bonus to carry capacity early game really speeds up some tasks.

[Sasza22]

When building first rooms where my dupes will spend most of their time like barracks, latrines and the new downtime room i first dig the room and a room above it and below it. Then i start making the floor tiles beginning from the top rooms. That causes the debris to fall down and eventually end at the bottom of my base so i don`t need to sweep the rooms. It`s saving me a lot of time.

Early on i use 2 ration boxes. One close to the dining room with higher priority but reduced capacity to apporximately one meal per dupe. The other one is at the bottom of the base in sterile atmosphere. This way most of my food doesn`t spoil but dupes don`t have to waste donwtime time to walk all the way to the bottom for the food.

I use briar bluff as decor and an early warning that temperature gets high in a room. When i see it wilt i know i need to provide some cooling and/or better insulation. It can also be replaced by a wheezewort when it happens.

When i get my power system going i lead my main heavi watt powerline just outside my base and build a separate transformer for each floor. The transformers are outside the insulation layer so they don`t heat up the base. Later that should provide enough power for the auto sweeper system without overloading the grid.

[EpicAlex]

On 8/10/2018 at 2:15 PM, Hellshound38 said:

My strategy is to spend all my time starting new maps to look for a perfect seed.

This way my colony can never fail, because I never get past cycle 1.

Ok. Being honest here, mate. I have a little sticky note on my computer where I just write seed numbers whenever I find a good seed. Generally, I add it either in Sandbox mode and I'm f***ing around. I mean! Testing some things and I dig.up the Geysers and they're something worth while, like a gold volcano. Or Ill add it when I'm in survival mode and there's a lot of free and easy oxygen that helps early game. May not have the best geysers, like a chlorine geyser near your base. But there's that little tangent of mine

[Deshiba]

On 10-8-2018 at 6:49 PM, chemie said:

No.  I have portal in my great hall.  You just need the portrait or statue requirement to make it GH vs messhall. 

Welp! Actually the printing pod gives 30 decor, easily filling the 20+ requirement for a great hall. I guess there's a "decor" tag that is required for it to trigger? Seems like a bug to me.

[CherryHavoc]

 

On 8/10/2018 at 6:33 PM, Lifegrow said:

My number one strat - Keep telling myself over and over :

"It's early access, it's early access, it's early access..."

Makes those moments when something particularly derpy happens a lot more bearable  

I've played fully released games that were far less polished and complete than ONI is. I'm amazed it's still in early access.

[Dracian]

Am I the only one to use the Printing Pod as a free, temperature neutral and permanent light source in order to have access to Bristle Blossoms early ?

Frankly, I never had trouble having a dupe that add 4+ Creativity to make 20+ Decor Paintings...

[RonEmpire]

On ‎8‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 1:11 AM, Deshiba said:

- Cycle 6: Build mess tables around the printing pod and enclose it. (the portal gives 30 decor satisfying this condition for the mess hall)

21 hours ago, Deshiba said:

Welp! Actually the printing pod gives 30 decor, easily filling the 20+ requirement for a great hall. I guess there's a "decor" tag that is required for it to trigger? Seems like a bug to me.

It's for mess hall only.  won't make it a great hall.

Mess Hall doesn't need any décor.

[Coolthulhu]

Hatch "boxes" should be tall and not wide. 7 tiles wide (not counting walls) is perfect, because you can cover it all with a single sweeper to ensure maximum egg production.

Try to make your stables in such a way that critters can only occupy a very small part of it, while is inaccessible to them and only "pads" the area. Water lock (for pufts), high ceiling, sections only reachable by ladder. That way critters won't waste dupe time by walking to the station.

[tove96]

14 hours ago, Dracian said:

Am I the only one to use the Printing Pod as a free, temperature neutral and permanent light source in order to have access to Bristle Blossoms early ?

Frankly, I never had trouble having a dupe that add 4+ Creativity to make 20+ Decor Paintings...

I honestly never thought of this. Well, I know what I'm doing now.

[smcjones]

I have had a lot of trial-and-error with this game but I am feeling like I'm starting to get the hang of some more thoughtful strategies.

I am not sure if this will be nerfed or not but I realized that immediately assigning all my dupes to tier 1 jobs didn't really put a dent on their morale.  They also retain all of the skills.

I build barracks immediately, get everyone to be miners, and clear out a big swath of buildable space early on.

When the miner skill maxes out, I switch to architect, then when that maxes out, I switch everyone to gofer.

Once they max out all three of those, I go on to Tier 2 jobs like researcher.

Fun fact, your dupes always get +4 strength if you assign them as gofer then as groundskeeper. 

I am currently nearing cycle 100 using this strategy. Everyone carries a bunch of stuff, everyone can mine most materials, many dupes can create (sort of bad) artwork, and everyone is prepared to mine everything when I promote them.

So far so good...

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I've also started building terrerriums on the same level as a very small polluted water well (with mesh flooring and a bunch of drains). This I sieve and then use in my bathrooms.

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Finally, I have an Algae distiller that feeds pincha pepper plants, submerged in chlorine. I just started doing this so I will update this if my pepper plants start getting slimelung. I do use ore scrubbers but sometimes they don't catch all the germs (might be a bug), and putting the slime in a storage container submerged in chlorine means it pretty quickly turns into polluted oxygen.

---

My next project is going to be to design containers for my gasses outside of my base, wall them off, and pipe all gasses into it until I have created a vaccuum. In this way I hope to be able to create secondary bases and/or farming sections connected by transport tubes. This is particularly slow going with slime mining and chlorine being constant pests. 

My games tend to fall apart around cycle 150~200

[RonEmpire]

22 hours ago, Dracian said:

Am I the only one to use the Printing Pod as a free, temperature neutral and permanent light source in order to have access to Bristle Blossoms early ?

Frankly, I never had trouble having a dupe that add 4+ Creativity to make 20+ Decor Paintings...

I used to do this before they nerfed the airflow tile.   Light no longer shines through the airflow tile.   So now you only get light in the bottom if you cover up the top.  I don't like to grow stuff on the bottom since I use the printing pot light and décor for the massage table and hamster wheel. since dupes spend a lot of time there might as well give them increase in stress relief.

It's just easier to make a container and store the shine bug egg as a means to drop off shine bug (I empty the egg out of the storage for it to hatch) and close off the area for bristle blossom.

[Miravlix]

Don't make the world one big room.

 

Create a smallish living area that you keep at low temperature and with O2. My starter base is the core biome and easily supports food and living space for 16 dupes, would be more before the latest updates, but I've found it helpful to invest in 1 shower and toilet for each dupe and that takes up a lot of the space now. I usually use CO2 "air locks" for access to the rest of the world or to an internal chlorine cleaning room.

 

The rest of the world is ExoSuit only so I don't really care that my power area is cooking at 70C and I don't seem to run into heat issues in 1K+ cycles with most machines and with smart batteries my O2 production creates tons of spare hydrogen for powering cooling, so I had to insulate my oil to keep it from freezing when using it as coolant for metal making.

 

O2 is so easy to make out of PO2, so it ends up being the primary gas in the world.

Chlorine is a tricky gas, because it hates transferring heat, so machines in it has a hard time, so I try to store it out of the way. I do power a few cleaners with it at the entrance to the non suited living area.

I never seem to have enough CO2, so it always get used up. (Dirt is gold!)

I don't really care about free H in the world, the 4 or maybe it's 5 electrolyzers create enough spare H to power my 3 ATNS, after they self power the O2 setup, so it ends up slipping out into space.

NatGas is good for power, but you will be using the gysers for sustained power, but you might as well grab it while you gather CO2 and Chlorine  as they all fall to the bottom.

 

Space is hot as hell, the material coming in, so be very careful going up and activating comets until you have a decent steel production going. The gas usually suck up heat ending up over the temperature that pumps can operate, so you can't even pump it into space to get rid of the heat, 

[tove96]

I accept dupes as fast as the printing pod can spit them out. Then I set the new dupe on a special death march schedule where they get no sleep and no food and work until they die. Free labor for the cost of a bit of oxygen. Of course, the mourning stresses my dupes a bit, but it's not really a problem. The mourning status is easy to get rid of. I've seen people complaining about stress being harder to manage now, but I have no idea what they're talking about.

I keep the dupes that are particularly good. 5+ learning is a must and a bit of athletics is nice too. I see it as a positive if a dupe has the flatulent trait. I have a pump at the bottom of my base to gather up their "production" for the natural gas generators. 

As for food production, one trick I use is that I avoid removing naturally growing plants. They grow slower in the wild, but I don't have to worry about water and fertilizer. Wild pincha pepperplants in particular can yield huge amounts with basically no effort. Balm lilies are an exception of course, since they only require chlorine anyway.