Early game builds

[TheEvilMango]

What do u guys focus on building in the early parts of the game? Personally I go for spom, bathroom and power source.

[KittenIsAGeek]

There's a lot of algae in the starting biomes.  Unless I'm terribly short, early game I use Doxydizers.  My first focus is some out houses, then some air, then some food.  Then as time goes, I refine things.  I try to get a plumbed bathroom set up fairly early and my next project after that is better food than mealwood.

I started this game with pessimistic dupes that easily get sick, so I'm going kinda slow. I'm at cycle 50 and still on mealwood and deoxidizers.   However, I'm just about ready to start ranching and I've got the framework set up for a SPOM of some sort.  I really should have started mushrooms sooner, but it took me quite a while to get some slime that wasn't a health hazard.

[crypticorb]

I rely on algae with deoxydizers early game, sometimes as late as cycle 100 if I'm lazy or busy securing other resources.

Early game, I focus on a permanent bathroom sieve loop, food storage, and base organization.

[Technoincubus]

Do not build wash basings, you are perfectly ok until sinks

Do not build terrariums- you have a lot of aglae but terrarims suck aglae like crazy and deox is much more effective.

Rely on coal power until SPOM

Beeline to rock granulator and smart battery - that'll conserve you A LOT of coal.

[Neotuck]

1 minute ago, Technoincubus said:

Do not build wash basings, you are perfectly ok until sinks

That depends on the difficulty, if you set immune systems to "weak" or "miserable" then not having wash basins can make your dupes sick real fast

2 minutes ago, Technoincubus said:

Do not build terrariums- you have a lot of aglae but terrarims suck aglae like crazy and deox is much more effective.

Not sure where you got your math but...

Deodorizers convert algae to O2 at 91% efficiency where as terrariums convert algae to O2 at 133% efficiency (more if you include light and deodorizers) 

11 minutes ago, Technoincubus said:

Rely on coal power until SPOM

Are you implying SPOM provides enough net gain power that you no longer need coal to power your colony? 

[KittenIsAGeek]

1 hour ago, Technoincubus said:

Do not build wash basings, you are perfectly ok until sinks

Do not build terrariums- you have a lot of aglae but terrarims suck aglae like crazy and deox is much more effective.

Rely on coal power until SPOM

Beeline to rock granulator and smart battery - that'll conserve you A LOT of coal.

I build wash basins as soon as I build my out houses.

Terrariums have the highest oxygen production efficiency in the game.  Depending on how you set them up, they can operate with almost no dupe interaction.  I think I had 9 terrariums that ran with 15 seconds of dupe activity (total, for all 9) every 2.25 cycles.

Coal power is awesome.  I still use it late in the game.  And yes, a smart battery is definitely necessary to get the best out of your coal generator.

[Cipupec2]

4 hours ago, TheEvilMango said:

What do u guys focus on building in the early parts of the game? Personally I go for spom, bathroom and power source.

As I gain experience I have changed my approach many times, but i'd say that early on your map layout/specifics are the driving force behind my decisions.

[Oni Noob]

4 hours ago, TheEvilMango said:

What do u guys focus on building in the early parts of the game? Personally I go for spom, bathroom and power source.

For early game around below cycle 100, I focus on securing first the mealwood. Once its secure I start upgrading to berry or mushrooms

[KittenIsAGeek]

Just now, Cipupec2 said:

As I gain experience I have changed my approach many times, but i'd say that early on your map layout/specifics are the driving force behind my decisions.

Well said.  There have been some maps where I've had to runs like mad to get electrolyzers up and running because there was almost no algae.  And other times there has been so little water that I've done everything I can to get every little bit of oxygen out of my algae.

[tzionut]

In my usual game i build toilets, oxygen (algae dezoxidizer first then electrolizer) and food (first mealwoods, then mushrooms, then bristle berry) then build whatever i want. In my current game i rush metal forge and steel for covering the top void area whit bunker tiles for no regolith input,

After i finish it, i will build my fishtank , separat apartment for my 8 dupes, each whit fishes view, my buffer natural gas reservoir, my buffer hydrogen reservoir, and in this game (because i find a chlorine vent) i will play whit gas moo and gas grass, my power plant (and this time i will use the transformers), and in the end i will use all my magma for power generation   

[PhailRaptor]

Cycle 1 for me is always spent throwing together an Outhouse/Wash Basin in a Latrine.  Usually not much time left over after that, just enough to dig across horizontally to where I like to put my bedrooms.  Cycle 2 is usually split between my pair of Deoxidizers, 2 Tiny Batteries (spaced for Smart Battery replacement later), Research Station, and Manual Generator, as well as (hopefully) finishing my first Barracks for 4.  But depending on where the Copper deposits are in relation to excavation, the Barracks may not be finished.  If not, that's the first thing that happens on Cycle 3.  After the Barracks, the Researher gets started working towards Farm Tiles (now much easier since that tech does not require red points anymore), while the other 2 (possibly 3, depends what's available from the Printer at this point) start digging down.  3 tight layers, first one for the soon-to-be-available Farm Tiles for Mealwood, and 2 more down for early to mid game Storage.  The bottom layer will have a different Ladder interface, so a Mesh Tile can be placed as a landing pad for dropped materials.  This is where the timeline starts breaking down, because after the choice on Cycle 3 of whether to take a new Dupe or ooze the lot, your available manpower is variable.

My next step is always to build the central framework of what will be, for the foreseeable future, the living space.  The layer above the Printer Pod will become the Great Hall.  The makeshift Kitchen will be across the Ladder column from there.  Set up some auxiliary Latrines while I work on setting up the bathroom recycling loop for the Bathroom.  Spend some time digging down to make room for the CO2 that will be building up as this occurs, and making sure to mine out any Algae I find along the way, but also avoiding to dig out any wild growing Mealwood and Bristle Blossom where possible for the resource free food.  All this digging and spreading should have revealed the entire starting biome, and some distance outward into the surrounding ones.  If a Geyser is visible in this space, whether it's one of the 4 exposed or a bricked over, that will likely be my next priority.  Ideally that Geyser will be one of the exposed Steam, but a bricked over Water would be just as good.  This will become the source for a SPOM, built under the Storage level.  But for the design I use, that means 4 Wheezeworts, which means more exploration along the Abyssalite veins to reach Ice Biomes to harvest them.

Once that's squared away, the bathroom loop (if it's finished) will need attention again, since it is a positive system (produces over time) an is likely going to back up and stop working soon if an outlet does not exist.  It's not a large amount of excess, but it will scale with Dupe population, per cycle.  In the short term, set up a reservoir for collection while you decide what to do with it.  Could be a supplement to Bristle Blossoms, for example.  But don't let your Dupes cook with it, or fill Water Coolers from it, unless you disinfect it first, because it will have Food Poisoning in it.

From there you're getting into mid-game, where you start setting up things like Ranches for Hatches (Coal) or Dreckos (Reed Fiber, Plastic), farms of Mushrooms or Bristle Blossoms first and Sleet Wheat later.  Locating the 1 or 2 exposed NatGas Geysers for use producing power.  Digging down toward the Oil Biome to harvest Diamond and Oil/Petro for use as thermal transfer mediums, and Fossil for use in creating Steel.  Once you get a moderately large cache of Steel, dig up the last bit toward the Surface, and start blocking it with Bunker Tiles or Bunker Doors.  Etcetera.

[thejams]

2 hours ago, Neotuck said:

Are you implying SPOM provides enough net gain power that you no longer need coal to power your colony? 

Theoretical maximum 270W per 10 dupe SPOM, enough to significantly reduce the coal use.

This is a single SPOM, 8-10 dupes, providing around 230W surplus average 24/7.

Now true, most of the produced power goes into powering itself (~70%) but the ~130 kJ per cycle surplus sure helps.  And with some planning it's easy to set it to run optimal while always maintaining a reserve to ensure the spom runs 24/7.  Like this no waste cycle

[Sasza22]

After the basics (2 deoxydizers, toilets, barracks) i set up my mealwood (often skip the musher and live off muckroots). Then after i can do farm tiles i make a bigger mealwood room that i will change into a drecko ranch later.

Then i start digging around to find vital resources (cool steam geysers, AETN, Nat gas geysers) and set up the coal generators. I set up my electrolizers next to the closest AETN, them my nat gas gen outside the base, finally radiant pipes through an ice biome to cool the geyser water.

Plumebed toilets an showers after i got my water secured and cool.

[Daxterr]

Wtf is a spom???

[Pagox]

3 minutes ago, Daxterr said:

wtf is a spom???

 

[Daxterr]

WTF . Who thought it was a good idea to make that picture? I'm goona have nightmares now.. Thanks for the answer anyway

[PhailRaptor]

36 minutes ago, Daxterr said:

WTF . Who thought it was a good idea to make that picture? I'm goona have nightmares now.. Thanks for the answer anyway

Well, Halloween is only a couple of days away....

[babba]

20 hours ago, TheEvilMango said:

What do u guys focus on building in the early parts of the game? Personally I go for spom, bathroom and power source.

Neutronium:D

My honest answer to the question - To keep the games frame rate speed up...

[Nemisis311]

17 hours ago, Technoincubus said:

Do not build wash basings, you are perfectly ok until sinks

Do not build terrariums- you have a lot of aglae but terrarims suck aglae like crazy and deox is much more effective.

Rely on coal power until SPOM

Beeline to rock granulator and smart battery - that'll conserve you A LOT of coal.

Interesting, this is a very different beginning than my approach. I tend to, unintentionally, have the same pattern each game. I guess it's just what I'm comfortable with, as it's worked flawlessly every time.

• Cycle 1 goal is bathroom bonus, 3 outhouses 3 wash basins, and I research compost as soon as I start seeing Pdirt pop up.
• Cycle 2 goal is bedroom bonus.
•  -edit- guess I should specify cycle 3-10 is generally setting up power, dropping water pools down into a large one if I can, getting research placed, and scouting out my bubble exterior in hopes of spotting really hot (geyser) or really cold (cold biome) locations.
• I pretty much ignore oxygen until it starts dropping into the 600g range, then immediately set up an oxidizer (I keep my base closed off and very small).
  - They did buff the terrariums back in (I believe) April, I have heard they are much better now, but that is just what I have read. I do now set up 2 in the bottom of my base once CO2 builds up, before I can get the carbon room set up.
• I do not touch coal gens, ever. Maybe much much later in the game for the petroleum production area.
  - Instead I immediately research deodorizers and gun it straight out in search of a steam geyser and cold biome, while researching what I need for the geyser containment and SPOM setup. The slime isn't *really* that deadly unless you aren't paying attention to your dupes immune systems (or hit a slimebomb...).
• After that I search for a Nat gas geyser and start working on a legitimate power/transformer setup for the base.
• I then worry about my bathroom loop and taking care of CO2.

After that it's generally smooth sailing; I can take my time and do whatever I want without worry of oxygen or power.

[ColBBQ]

Dig like crazy from muckroot and mealwood seeds

Three outhouses, Microbe musher for mush bar to create diarrhea and continue to create/close off outhouse for morbs.

Research farm/grill for pickled mealice and grisled berries, deodorizers for clay and to scrub PO2 from 30 morbs and find chlorine to filter freshly "used" oxygen from slimelings to pump back into the base.