The fully automatic compact omelette factory

[Saturnus]

This build has taken longer than I care to admit to get right because the time frames of critters are so long that it taken a lot of time to test after each change you make. Anyway, it's finally done.

The factory has two Pacus that are tame and fed algae constantly. In that state Pacus lay 13 eggs each in their life cycle. In this build 12 of these are cracked into raw eggs and then cooked into omelettes automatically without any dupe interaction at any stage.

This build will feed 5.36 dupes constantly with omelettes. So 3 of them is enough for 16 dupes.

Eggs left in a storage for 10 cycles will crack on their own as they lose vitality. That will pop out of storage compactors as raw eggs and egg shells. Raw eggs heated to 71C will be cooked on their own without the need of a grill into omelettes.

In this build the cooker is also the conveyor sorter but it is not the critical part of the build as you could use any area where you're certain to have 80-110C constant temperature to cook your raw eggs. For example an aquatuner cooler in polluted water. And the sorting doesn't necessarily have to take place in the cooker.

Also you don't have to extract the polluted dirt if you don't want to mess with it.

 

Automation

Spoiler

The automation is the most important part to get right. It has two separate water clock counters. The counter shut off valves are supplied by a 4 clock sensor array to send a 1s pulse to the shut off valve 4 times per cycle. This means for every cycle 40kg of water is dumped into the measuring cups.

A fed and tamed Pacu lays it's 13th egg, the last one at cycle 24.5. So the counter measures up 24 cycles at which point it shuts off the sweeper arm for that side meaning that the last egg isn't removed but is left to incubate. At cycle 29.5 when the egg is hatched the counter is reset but the sweeper arm is left turned off for another 200s to account for any errors.

Unfortunately that does mean the meat is left in the Pacu tanks for about 5 cycles which means it isn't fresh and therefore not suitable to make BBQ out off. So I'd just let it rot and turn into polluted dirt. 

NOTE: The 588kg sensor is used to reset the clock when a tame egg is hatched to start the system.

Correction notice: after several additional observation runs, setting the hydro sensors to 593kg and 488kg gives a more consistent result. With 478kg the 13th egg doesn't always drop because the feeder runs dry of algae before reproduction reaches 100%. With 488kg I have not observed a failure.

Wiring, plumbing and conveyors

Spoiler

Not much to say about any of these. Pretty straight forward really.

Not much else to say except that atmosphere in the fish tank area must be sterile. And that water temperature must be between 15C-25C as that is the liveable range of all 3 types of Pacus. I did try a build with 80C water to cook the raw eggs into omelettes directly but when eventually the last egg is a gulp fish egg then the system breaks down.

[Yoma_Nosme]

Wow! Great build(as usual)! The automation looks extremely complex, at least for me. Great you did it! I like how you implemented the good ol' water clock. Unfortunately the meat is wasted...

I will try to change and implement the waterclock you've used with another kind of farm...I don't really want to afford the huge amounts of algae they eat(greasy sons of brasses) and try to salvage the meat...

[Saturnus]

21 minutes ago, Yoma_Nosme said:

Wow! Great build(as usual)! The automation looks extremely complex, at least for me. Great you did it! I like how you implemented the good ol' water clock. Unfortunately the meat is wasted...

I will try to change and implement the waterclock you've used with another kind of farm...I don't really want to afford the huge amounts of algae they eat(greasy sons of brasses) and try to salvage the meat...

Cheers.

I don't see as a great loss to not harvest the meat. It's only 4000kcals per 29.5 cycle, so only enough to feed 0.1356 dupes but YMMV.

And true, they do suck up a lot of algae (237.2kg per cycle on average in this build) but you have to get rid of it some way, and this is a much better use than using it in deoxidizers as you get food... and if you convert the polluted dirt into polluted oxygen you get half the algae spent back as oxygen.

It also gives egg shells to make 16.27kg per cycle of steel.

[Yoma_Nosme]

11 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

...and if you convert the polluted dirt into polluted oxygen you get half the algae spent back as oxygen.

Oh yeah. Haven't thought of that! Thx

14 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

I don't see as a great loss to not harvest the meat. It's only 4000kcals per 29.5 cycle, so only enough to feed 0.1356 dupes

If you put it this way...all right...sold, where do I sign?

[crypticorb]

Excellent job as always. I love your ability to create incredibly compact, precise, and efficient designs, which is always something I aim for when making constructs. I'll have to report you to PETA about this for animal cruelty, though.

I have a couple questions:

1 hour ago, Saturnus said:

A fed and tamed Pacu lays it's 13th egg, the last one at cycle 24.5. So the counter measures up 24 cycles at which point it shuts off the sweeper arm for that side meaning that the last egg isn't removed but is left to incubate. At cycle 29.5 when the egg is hatched the counter is reset but the sweeper arm is left turned off for another 200s to account for any errors.

How much algae does a pacu need to be happy? I've had a few thoughts about limiting the amount given to a pacu to keep it just above starvation, because generating algae is resource and CPU intensive, depending on method.

1 hour ago, Saturnus said:

Unfortunately that does mean the meat is left in the Pacu tanks for about 5 cycles which means it isn't fresh and therefore not suitable to make BBQ out off. So I'd just let it rot and turn into polluted dirt.

Why is BBQ made from not fresh meat a bad thing? I've used nearly spoiled meat and peppernuts to make BBQ, and I can't recall any problems. The polluted dirt generation is a good thing, but BBQ sounds better.

 

When you inevitably run out of algae, and the pacu drops to a 1 egg per life cycle, is there any way to restart this system with a fresh egg from outside?

[Saturnus]

20 minutes ago, crypticorb said:

Excellent job as always. I love your ability to create incredibly compact, precise, and efficient designs, which is always something I aim for when making constructs. I'll have to report you to PETA about this for animal cruelty, though.

Cheers

20 minutes ago, crypticorb said:

I have a couple questions:

How much algae does a pacu need to be happy? I've had a few thoughts about limiting the amount given to a pacu to keep it just above starvation, because generating algae is resource and CPU intensive, depending on method.

Why is BBQ made from not fresh meat a bad thing? I've used nearly spoiled meat and peppernuts to make BBQ, and I can't recall any problems. The polluted dirt generation is a good thing, but BBQ sounds better.

When you inevitably run out of algae, and the pacu drops to a 1 egg per life cycle, is there any way to restart this system with a fresh egg from outside?

I've found that how many eggs a Pacu produce scales directly with how much you feed them. I've not experimented a great deal with feeding them less and seeing if it's a bell curve where a certain amount would get you the most eggs per algae spent though. I'll leave that up to others as it's an incredibly laborious task to observe them over 25 cycles and note the exact time an egg is laid.

The dupes seem to make a "yuck" emotion when they eat BBQ made from meat that is not fresh. I don't know if it has any effect or not on morale but since it's not a great amount of meat I just didn't bother really. But if you really want the meat just set the loader to also accept that. Not a huge problem.

There is room for exactly one storage container in each fish tank to get the process started in the first place, so yes, it can be restarted although you have to access it.

Note that you can manually disable the sweeper in each tank separately by activating the sweeper time out sensor (the one set at 478kg).

[Saturnus]

Here's a tip on how to access the build should you need to, and how you build it in the first place really. Take out these blocks and you have a water lock with access to both sides.

I also mentioned that the water needs to be between 15C and 25C. But how to cool down the water as there is no access to it and the sweepers, loader, pump, pacus themselves all give off heat so it will (incredibly) slowly heat up over time. Solution is simple. Cool down the algae that feeds the pacus before sending it to the factory.

[JukedByLife]

Very nice build, I'll have to bookmark this for later. Thanks!

[Mullematsch]

Would it not be better to transport the eggs somewhere else, let them hatch and then die off/kill them. Would that not give you more kcal in meat then you get in omelettes?  

[GrindThisGame]

The fact that eggs cook themselves at 70C+ is pretty fantastic. Your builds are always cool and crazy compact. Thanks!

[harmonium]

Wow this is clearly awesome man, i am like this when i see your image.

 

[Saturnus]

4 hours ago, Mullematsch said:

Would it not be better to transport the eggs somewhere else, let them hatch and then die off/kill them. Would that not give you more kcal in meat then you get in omelettes?  

On the contrary. Pacu eggs are 4kg each which means they're 2kg raw eggs each which turn into 5600kcals of omelettes. If you let the pacu grow up and turn into meat it's only 1kg of meat which is 1600kcals very low quality food on it's own or turns into 2000kcals of BBQ if cooked with pincha peppers. So making omelettes out of pacu eggs is far and away the better option.

[Glassyfo]

1 hour ago, Saturnus said:

On the contrary. Pacu eggs are 4kg each which means they're 2kg raw eggs each which turn into 5600kcals of omelettes. If you let the pacu grow up and turn into meat it's only 1kg of meat which is 1600kcals very low quality food on it's own or turns into 2000kcals of BBQ if cooked with pincha peppers. So making omelettes out of pacu eggs is far and away the better option.

Isn't the benefit of bbq mainly morale, not calories? I have mine set to be exclusively for astronauts.

[Saturnus]

46 minutes ago, bleeter6 said:

Isn't the benefit of bbq mainly morale, not calories?

Not sure how that's relevant to the discussion. What is your point?

Maybe I should clarify my confusion here. Why would you even consider using algae to breed tame pacus for meat? That is just a waste of algae. If you're farming pacus for meat, don't waste algae on them.

And omelettes are pretty high quality food by itself. +3 bonus compared to +2 of gristle berries or fried mushrooms. In fact with decent decor and recreational options you don't need any higher quality food than omelettes... ever. And you don't even get that -2 Athletics penalty from BBQ. 

[SackMaggie]

If I make just 1 set of automation (1 water clock and pulse) and route the output (red arrow) to all factory it will be scale able (blue zone) without building automation for each of them? correct ?

Like this ?

[Chipplyman]

28 minutes ago, SackMaggie said:

If I make just 1 set of automation

The pacus would have to all be on the same cycle. Having an old and a young crowded pacu in the same tank might self correct eventually? 

[SackMaggie]

1 minute ago, Chipplyman said:

The pacus would have to all be on the same cycle. Having an old and a young crowded pacu in the same tank might self correct eventually? 

I also hope for that pacu to self correct. Because this system is very precise.

[Saturnus]

2 hours ago, SackMaggie said:

If I make just 1 set of automation (1 water clock and pulse) and route the output (red arrow) to all factory it will be scale able (blue zone) without building automation for each of them? correct ?

Like this ?

Maybe. I build the double tank set up because it's the most compact you can possibly make it and still have individual control should something go wrong. As illustrated above if happens and an egg isn't dropped from one of the pacus you can relatively easy go back in the appropriate side and correct the problem (and with a little extra automation and a storage compactor in each tank you don't even have to open it up for it )

But by all means experiment away  

[Saturnus]

Here's the solution to fix issues without even opening up the system.

When you build the system you probably had storage compactor inside each tank to even get eggs in there in the first place in a survival game. That's why there's room for them.

You set these to 4kg and to not have the annoying red symbol set it to something that will not appear inside normally like seeds.

Should you have a fault that means that either pacu hasn't dropped an egg there will almost certainly be at least one egg in the central storage compactor as it takes 10 cycles before an egg cracks into a raw egg on it's own.

So you set the storage compactor in the tank affected to accept the type of egg you need, and because the limit is 4kg, only one egg will be moved. Then you disable the sweeper arm using the sweeper arm time out toggle (the 488kg hydro sensor), and drop the egg from the storage compactor. And finally when the egg hatches you use the counter reset switch and remember to toggle the sweeper arm time out toggle back on.

[Nxf7]

On 10/29/2018 at 12:55 AM, Saturnus said:

And true, they do suck up a lot of algae (237.2kg per cycle on average in this build) but you have to get rid of it some way, and this is a much better use than using it in deoxidizers as you get food... and if you convert the polluted dirt into polluted oxygen you get half the algae spent back as oxygen.

Do you know a method that I don't? Because some rudimentary testing shows that p-dirt off-gasses extremely slowly.

[SackMaggie]

4 hours ago, Nxf7 said:

Do you know a method that I don't? Because some rudimentary testing shows that p-dirt off-gasses extremely slowly.

I think it depend on how much you have in stack. If you have 20t in compactor and drop it then it off-gasses pretty fast (but you might not have 20t polluted dirt anyway).

[TheRealKillface]

I've never had eggs in my supply, guess I will switch from Berry Sludge to omelette. Thanks!

[SackMaggie]

@Saturnus Do you have an updated version of this with new critter sensor ?

[ishakaru]

I think I'm doing the math wrong. 237.2kg/cycle algae requires 31.62 pufts and 2 distillers. Which means 1581g pO2/s. Need 6.98 compactors (8 for safety) off gassing. Which only accounts for 12.5% of the pO2 you need.  

 

Now I haven't looked at puft ranching yet... but it seems to me that would dwarf the out put of the 2 fish...

[Sigma Cypher]

Fantastic!  Thanks for this it's brilliant.  More absorbing than watching an _actual_ aquarium.