Raw Egg & Egg Shell Automation Question

[clickrush]

I'am planning to do a raw egg and egg shell production and have a few questions that are still unclear to me. Please note that I don't care wether producing those is efficient/necessairy/optimal, I just want to do it.

First of all I'am planning to do this with light bugs, since they seem easy to set up for this, require very little to feed and if I'am assuming right have the highest egg shell throughput, which is my first assumption: Is it true that the raw egg throughput is (roughly) equal to other critters and their egg shell throughput is higher since they produce more eggs/time that have less raw egg content?

The other part is the automation. If I understand correctly the following is a possible automation setup:

1. (max eggs produced - 1)  / critter-lifetime  = eggs to consume / critter-liftetime

2. delivery to storage (outside of stable) is SET by cycle water clock (critter-lifetime)

3. 'eggs to consume / critter-lifetime' counter water clock RESETs delivery to storage.

Is that about right or do I miss something here? It is easy to understand with just 1 critter but when I have a stable full of them then the production and the automation is still the same right?

[crypticorb]

You're considering using @Saturnus's automated egg system for lightbugs instead of fish?

I can't see why it wouldn't work. I've been wondering myself whether shine bugs or pacus were most optimal for making eggshell, as I have yet to set up a ranch for more than a supplementary food source or trash disposal in my current base.

[clickrush]

1 minute ago, crypticorb said:

You're considering using @Saturnus's automated egg system for lightbugs instead of fish?

I can't see why it wouldn't work. I've been wondering myself whether shine bugs or pacus were most optimal for making eggshell, as I have yet to set up a ranch for more than a supplementary food source or trash disposal in my current base.

Yes that is the gist of it. I just wanted to make sure I got everything right in my tiny brain.

[crypticorb]

Pacus drop 13 eggs in their lifetime, 12 that you can take for food/lime source.

I haven't ever ranched shinebugs in earnest, so I cannot say what their egg per lifespan rate is, but the eggs they produce are only 100g, compared to 2000g for pacu.

I've heard that shinebugs produce more eggshell than pacus from other posts, but I can't find anyplace where any hard data was presented.

[Saturnus]

Note that egg shells is half the weight of a fertilized egg. So a shine bug egg gives 100g of egg shells while a pacu egg gives 2kg of egg shells.

[clickrush]

5 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

Note that egg shells is half the weight of a fertilized egg. So a shine bug egg gives 100g of egg shells while a pacu egg gives 2kg of egg shells.

That's unfortunate. I thought only the raw egg is proportional to that.

[Soulwind]

Additionally, to get the really high rate of egg production, you have to tame the bugs and keep them happy (i.e. groomed).

That takes a lot of dupe time if you're trying for a huge number of bugs, which at 50g per eggshell you are going to need.

The thing with pacus that makes them worth it is that they don't need dupe time to groom, just room and food.

 

[PhailRaptor]

In addition to the eggshell mass issue, is the difference in taming between Pacu and other Critters.  Pacu do not become tame through Grooming.  They become tame from eating at the Fish Feeder.  I'm pretty sure this is the only reason @Saturnus's Auto-Omelette factory is effective -- it takes zero Dupe interaction to tame the Pacu, where as other Critters require Dupe interaction.

[Saturnus]

15 minutes ago, PhailRaptor said:

In addition to the eggshell mass issue, is the difference in taming between Pacu and other Critters.  Pacu do not become tame through Grooming.  They become tame from eating at the Fish Feeder.  I'm pretty sure this is the only reason @Saturnus's Auto-Omelette factory is effective -- it takes zero Dupe interaction to tame the Pacu, where as other Critters require Dupe interaction.

Correct. All other critter except pacus requires dupe interaction. At least if you can't live with them remaining wild.

An example where keeping wild critters are fine is a fully automated pincha pepper farm. 8 pincha peppers can get fertilized by 4 wild drecko living off 8 balm lilies. It's fairly easy to combine into a single room where sweepers pick up phosphorite excreted from the dreckos to fertilize the pincha pepper. Note that pincha pepper takes 8 cycle to mature after that they're ready to harvest for 2 cycles and in the withered state where they still can be harvested for 2 cycles before they drop the nuts on their own and regrown. So a total of a 12 cycles growth cycle meaning you only spend maximum 50% more polluted water growing the pincha peppers than if the dupes had to fertilize and harvest the plant. Given that dupes aren't on stand by all the time to harvest the plants my estimate based on observation is that you're really only spending about 30% more polluted water per pincha pepper nut. A very acceptable trade off considering the amount of dupe time saved in the long run. 

[Lilalaunekuh]

Does it always take 4 cycle for a crop to drop on it´s own ?

(If it is just for pincha pepper, how would be the times for the other plants ?)

[Neotuck]

6 hours ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

Does it always take 4 cycle for a crop to drop on it´s own ?

(If it is just for pincha pepper, how would be the times for the other plants ?)

take the total time crops grow and half that is how long it takes to drop

mealwood 3 cycle growth > 1.5 cycle to drop 

bristle blossom 6 cycle growth > 3 cycle to drop

sleet wheat 18 cycle growth > 9 cycle drop

you get the idea

-------------- EDIT --------------

I'm wrong, see @Saturnus reply

[Saturnus]

6 hours ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

Does it always take 4 cycle for a crop to drop on it´s own ?

(If it is just for pincha pepper, how would be the times for the other plants ?)

Yes. It takes exactly 4 cycles to drop from any plant, no matter the life cycle of the plant. 2 cycles in harvest ready state, and 2 cycles in withered state that can also be harvested. I've tested this to be correct with all plants. So automated farming heavily favours plants with very long growth cycles. Note that with wild grown plants it's exactly 16 cycles as each state is 4 times longer.

The automated growth cycle is therefore:

Mealwood: 3 cycles plus 4 cycles = 7 cycles (57.143% of total dirt lost) 
Bristle Blossom: 6 cycles plus 4 cycles = 10 cycles (40.000% of total water lost)
Mushroom: 7.5 cycles plus 4 cycles = 11.5 cycles (34.783% of total slime lost)
Pincha Peppers: 8 cycles plus 4 cycles = 12 cycles (33.333% of total PW and phosphorite lost)
Sleet Wheat: 18 cycles plus 4 cycles = 22 cycles (18.182% of total water and dirt lost)

Note that the lost figures is compared to the plant being harvested by a dupe the very instant it is ready to harvest. Obviously that is almost never the case especially later in the game where a lot of other tasks has higher priority. So in late game completely automated farming of plants with long growth cycles makes very good sense as it also clears the task from the scheduler to even consider.

6 hours ago, Neotuck said:

take the total time crops grow and half that is how long it takes to drop

mealwood 3 cycle growth > 1.5 cycle to drop 

bristle blossom 6 cycle growth > 3 cycle to drop

sleet wheat 18 cycle growth > 9 cycle drop

you get the idea

You should really test this because that is not correct. It always takes 4 cycles. And 16 cycles for wild grown plants. (See above).