Hey guys! I was wondering if anybody had some advice since I am new!

[Nightspawn]

Gday mates. I have recently discovered this gem of a game. My partner actually pirated it initially and after she had played it for a few hours I bought a copy for her and I. I don't believe in pirating games that you end out liking, pic included so you know I'm not pulling your leg. The main reason I am telling you all this is due to me wanting Klei to know that their game was so bloody amazing that I basically said shut up and take my money.

With that out of the way, I was wondering if anybody would be so kind as to offer me some advice. I did do some digging myself and learned what I could such as Chlorine killing germs, hence why I am dumping all of my polluted water into a room filled with chlorine. I know I am not the worst at this game judging from seeing people post online about lasting 30 cycles, that being said I am still struggling, mostly with water. My dupes live off of pickled lice so as to reduce the impact of how much water I use.

It may not look like I am using that much but that's due to me accidentally digging out a block underneath a bit of sand which sat underneath a pool of water, which proceeded to flood my base. I also built an insulated room to use a steam vent's water for my toilets and sinks, I built the pump and the room before breaking the hole in the top so my dupes didn't get too wet. 

I did that about 10 cycles ago so it looks as if I am going well but I am actually burning through tons of water and haven't ever gotten to the point that I have filtered it.

As for food, my farms are going to die soon due to pressure (which I am fixing with Co2 Produced by dupes) and then by either temperature or personal choice to not waste water.

I once dug into a natural gas geyser to use it for power and found out the hard way that relying on it was stupid, once I ran out of the natural gas that had already filled the geysers room, it couldn't power my gen anymore.

TLDR; 

Looking for advice on pretty much the 3 pillars of the game, power, water and food. Looking for long-term solutions as my goal is a self-sustainable base.

[catsRjerks]

some suggestions.

1. make rooms. Great hall, bedroom, plumbed toilets help a lot with stress.

2. don't promote your dupes until you're ready to satisfy their morale requirements. The job screen shows the morale requirements so have a look. Meal lice is good enough for tier 1 and 2 provided you have rooms for bonus stress relief.

3. pickled meal is useless. let em eat the raw meal lice. there's plenty of dirt on the map to last you a couple hundred cycles.

4. always use smart batteries. Part of the reason why imo you ran out of natural gas.

5. look up SPOM, mechanical filter, water lock etc. People have posted some really useful builds. You'll also want to cool your O2, so try to find some wheezeworts. or you can also use AETN from the extra H2 from electrolysers.

6. try to complete the missing ladder portions. the dupes move much faster and it'll save you a bunch of time. There's plenty of igneous rock so don't worry about running out.

7. Try to include a variety of power sources. Easiest is coal and hardest is steam turbine i think. It depends on who you ask.

8. For water, steam geysers are good. If you can find water geyser or slush geysers then it's a lot less troublesome.

9. For food, try to use as many natural plants as possible. there's plenty of sleetwheat on the map to feed 10-18 dupes if you use farmers touch. If you have to grow then bristle blossoms are best since dirt is plenty but still finite.

And finally try to make efficient pathways for your dupes. Use as little doors as possible (saves time), make level floors, try to grow your food in a sterile gas eg.CO2 etc. Try of get to the bottom of the map asap for fossils to make steel. The meteors are most likely wrecking your asteroid so you'll need the steel for bunker doors and tiles. Oh and never take flatulent dupes

Bunch of other suggestions but you'll likely find them on your own the more you play.

[Neotuck]

My best suggestion for you is by trial and error.

Find out where your difficulties are in your first colony and learn from them as you start new colonies.  

Feel free to ask other players whenever you get stuck here in the forums.  Everyone is real friendly here.

Don't be afraid to experiment and try thinking outside the box.  New and creative builds are being invented by players all the time and we enjoy sharing them

[Rebrait]

1. The chlorine don´t kill the water germs

2. Rooms!!!! in the room overlay(the bad on the top right) you can see the requirement for each room, it´s easy to make a bathroom(just put a door

3. All the Bathroom can use water whit germs, so you can usa a sieve and use that P.Water for there

4. Electrolise output O2 70ºC, you have to cold that

[hpongledd]

My suggestion is: run! As long as you are not addicted to this game, run! Because as time passes you will be it and after that its over.

[beowulf2010]

51 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

My best suggestion for you is by trial and error.

Find out where your difficulties are in your first colony and learn from them as you start new colonies.  

Let me take this suggestion a step further. Keep a log of each base with why the base died/was abandoned and 1 or 2 new things you tried that worked out well. 

For reference, I'm on my 27th base. 

Also, learn how bridges/valves/shutoffs/reservoirs work from a priority standpoint. You can do lots of cool things like unpowered cooling loops with bridge shenanigans. 

[hegemontree]

1. Avoid building storages and filling them with things.  It eats up valuable dupe time and often pulls the resources further from where they will be used. https://www.geek.com/tech/amazons-prime-now-warehouses-randomly-stock-shelves-on-purpose-1668045/
2. For oxygen, electrolyzer is king; see SPOM.   
   1. I personally don't SPOM.  I run electrolyzers in the open, let the oxygen and hydrogen distribute naturally.  This method generates tons of hydrogen to be collected at the top of my base and is super power efficient since i only pump hydrogen not oxygen.  There is a bug that deletes gases which probably makes my water to O2 efficiency worse than spom, though my power usage is much less.  Electorlyzers heat up the air, so I water cool only my farm area.
3. To supply said electrolyzers acquire water through geysers and sieving polluted water.
   1. How pipes work: 
   2.  
4. Preserve naturally growing food plants as they require no input resources
5. Cooling is easy if you have a slush geyser, otherwise wheezeworts and aetn are the only non-exploity cooling. 
   1. Exploit-ish: Some buildings have fixed output temperatures which can be used to effectively cool.  I personally find this to be a fun mechanic, but it certainly may get patched.
   2. 

[Chipplyman]

1 hour ago, catsRjerks said:

Use as little doors as possible (saves time)

This is true. There's a happy medium though: build the door then set it to always open. An open door still works as a room boundary, but prevents delay waiting for it to open. The only good reasons I know of to keep a pneumatic door on the default "auto" setting are to contain critters, to (temporarily) halt loose items from falling, or if you want to set more complex access permissions. They can also act as a cheaper airflow tile, available earlier, but you might as well lock them when used this way. 

[ShadowOfALegend]

one simple phrase: failure is always an option

[Mr.Trueba]

My only suggestion is that you don't need to see any build in the forum while you play your first 5-6 colonies. 

Enjoy the game yourself, learn in your own way and only after that, come again to improve.

The game is better when you learn to play by yourself. (:

 

[Kabrute]

Liquid oxygen for fun, but also for processing sour gas into methane, useful for late game power production

[JahwsUF]

I wrote a couple of guides on Steam that might be useful: 

• Surviving the Early Game
• Surviving the Mid-Game

They're designed with long-term sustainability and modular base development in mind.

[Nightspawn]

On 9/26/2018 at 7:04 AM, catsRjerks said:

some suggestions.

1. make rooms. Great hall, bedroom, plumbed toilets help a lot with stress.

2. don't promote your dupes until you're ready to satisfy their morale requirements. The job screen shows the morale requirements so have a look. Meal lice is good enough for tier 1 and 2 provided you have rooms for bonus stress relief.

3. pickled meal is useless. let em eat the raw meal lice. there's plenty of dirt on the map to last you a couple hundred cycles.

4. always use smart batteries. Part of the reason why imo you ran out of natural gas.

5. look up SPOM, mechanical filter, water lock etc. People have posted some really useful builds. You'll also want to cool your O2, so try to find some wheezeworts. or you can also use AETN from the extra H2 from electrolysers.

6. try to complete the missing ladder portions. the dupes move much faster and it'll save you a bunch of time. There's plenty of igneous rock so don't worry about running out.

7. Try to include a variety of power sources. Easiest is coal and hardest is steam turbine i think. It depends on who you ask.

8. For water, steam geysers are good. If you can find water geyser or slush geysers then it's a lot less troublesome.

9. For food, try to use as many natural plants as possible. there's plenty of sleetwheat on the map to feed 10-18 dupes if you use farmers touch. If you have to grow then bristle blossoms are best since dirt is plenty but still finite.

And finally try to make efficient pathways for your dupes. Use as little doors as possible (saves time), make level floors, try to grow your food in a sterile gas eg.CO2 etc. Try of get to the bottom of the map asap for fossils to make steel. The meteors are most likely wrecking your asteroid so you'll need the steel for bunker doors and tiles. Oh and never take flatulent dupes

Bunch of other suggestions but you'll likely find them on your own the more you play.

Thanks a bunch! I saved your comment on a notepad for me to refer back to when I am playing the game later.

On 9/26/2018 at 7:39 AM, hpongledd said:

My suggestion is: run! As long as you are not addicted to this game, run! Because as time passes you will be it and after that its over.

It is too late for me my friend.

On 9/26/2018 at 7:17 AM, Neotuck said:

My best suggestion for you is by trial and error.

Find out where your difficulties are in your first colony and learn from them as you start new colonies.  

Feel free to ask other players whenever you get stuck here in the forums.  Everyone is real friendly here.

Don't be afraid to experiment and try thinking outside the box.  New and creative builds are being invented by players all the time and we enjoy sharing them

I actually have a tab opened with your sour gas refinery V2 because it seemed like a good insight to tons of Oxygen Not Included's various mechanics as well as something I want to get into at some stage.

On 9/26/2018 at 8:11 AM, beowulf2010 said:

Let me take this suggestion a step further. Keep a log of each base with why the base died/was abandoned and 1 or 2 new things you tried that worked out well. 

For reference, I'm on my 27th base. 

Also, learn how bridges/valves/shutoffs/reservoirs work from a priority standpoint. You can do lots of cool things like unpowered cooling loops with bridge shenanigans. 

Yeah I actually learned how to make a gas filter that is unpowered using bridges as well, it has to be primed but it is a start. That unpowered cooling loop sounds useful so I'll have to do some digging on how to get that setup, cheers for mentioning it mate.

On 9/26/2018 at 8:14 AM, hegemontree said:

1. Avoid building storages and filling them with things.  It eats up valuable dupe time and often pulls the resources further from where they will be used. https://www.geek.com/tech/amazons-prime-now-warehouses-randomly-stock-shelves-on-purpose-1668045/
2. For oxygen, electrolyzer is king; see SPOM.   
   1. I personally don't SPOM.  I run electrolyzers in the open, let the oxygen and hydrogen distribute naturally.  This method generates tons of hydrogen to be collected at the top of my base and is super power efficient since i only pump hydrogen not oxygen.  There is a bug that deletes gases which probably makes my water to O2 efficiency worse than spom, though my power usage is much less.  Electorlyzers heat up the air, so I water cool only my farm area.
3. To supply said electrolyzers acquire water through geysers and sieving polluted water.
   1. How pipes work: 
   2.  
4. Preserve naturally growing food plants as they require no input resources
5. Cooling is easy if you have a slush geyser, otherwise wheezeworts and aetn are the only non-exploity cooling. 
   1. Exploit-ish: Some buildings have fixed output temperatures which can be used to effectively cool.  I personally find this to be a fun mechanic, but it certainly may get patched.
   2. 

That picture is magnificent, I've saved it and kept a mental note of the fixed temperature outputs. Thank you for your knowledge, it will contribute to a society that (hopefully) won't have dupes sitting in a mesh room running manual gens and producing polluted water.

22 hours ago, JahwsUF said:

I wrote a couple of guides on Steam that might be useful: 

• Surviving the Early Game
• Surviving the Mid-Game

They're designed with long-term sustainability and modular base development in mind.

I'll head on over and check it out, sounds like my cup of tea!

Gotta say the community of ONI is amazing. Klei Should be very proud of it. Hopefully, I'll be the one answering someone on here at some stage.

[beowulf2010]

@Nightspawn, basic cooling loops are fairly easy.

1) Make the loop itself, making sure to have at least one bridge somewhere to force the direction of the flow. 

2) Have the new cooled liquid bridge into the loop so it will only put new stuff in when packets are either missing or not full. 

3) Make a Shutoff out of the loop just before the input bridge (you want new coolant to make most of the loop before hitting the exit Shutoff) and control that with either a temp sensor in the room or one of the Pipe temp sensor in the piece of pipe immediately before the Shutoff. This will drain coolant that is too warm. 

Optional) Put a Valve immediately after the shutoff to only drain part of the warmed packets. If you drain off only half of a 50C packet and refill it with a - 10C packet, it'll average to 20C and you won't be in danger of freezing things be accident. 

[thejams]

Regarding heat:

1) Insulate your base - the starting area has an optimal temperature range and enough space for the early-mid game.  Insulate the complete circle (press F3, and build the insulation inside the area that has a comfortable temperature).  Using insulating igneous rock tiles is good enough.

2) Insulate all big heat producers outside of the base - generators and even electrolyzers should be isolated from the dupe living area.  Early game support the ones that have to be inside like science stations and grills by planting a wheezewort or two next to them.

3) Don't bring warm stuff into the living area.  This is especially true for bringing in hot liquids, pumping even 40°C water into the living area is a quick road to heat death if you don't have access to substantial cooling.

Follow this basic rules, and you will buy yourself enough time to figure out the heat management game.

[Nightspawn]

8 minutes ago, thejams said:

Regarding heat:

1) Insulate your base - the starting area has an optimal temperature range and enough space for the early-mid game.  Insulate the complete circle (press F3, and build the insulation inside the area that has a comfortable temperature).  Using insulating igneous rock tiles is good enough.

2) Insulate all big heat producers outside of the base - generators and even electrolyzers should be isolated from the dupe living area.  Early game support the ones that have to be inside like science stations and grills by planting a wheezewort or two next to them.

3) Don't bring warm stuff into the living area.  This is especially true for bringing in hot liquids, pumping even 40°C water into the living area is a quick road to heat death if you don't have access to substantial cooling.

Follow this basic rules, and you will buy yourself enough time to figure out the heat management game.

I lost my first colony to bringing in steam vent water thinking I was so clever XD