An alternative to massive arrays of storage containers

[DaveSatx]

drop autoswept regolith into a magma chamber? (favorite)

use doors with automation to crush/move it?

i was considering using it to help boil oil but it cools off faster than i expected.

 

[Neotuck]

1 minute ago, DaveSatx said:

drop autoswept regolith into a magma chamber? (favorite)

use doors with automation to crush/move it?

i was considering using it to help boil oil but it cools off faster than i expected.

 

Not bad ideas but remember there is over 5 tons of regolith in every meteor shower!

Shove Voles (a bad pun for shovels) can eat tons from a single feeder

[DaveSatx]

1 minute ago, Neotuck said:

Not bad ideas but remember there is over 5 tons of regolith in every meteor shower!

Shove Voles (a bad pun for shovels) can eat tons from a single feeder

Hmm.  i had a though as well - the sheer amount of regolith would probably mean the sweepers run 24/7.

guess i'll need to tame some and kill the rest

[Neotuck]

Just now, DaveSatx said:

guess i'll need to tame some and kill the rest

They actually work better if left wild, just trap them in a metal room and use a sweeper to keep a feeder loaded

[DaveSatx]

4 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

They actually work better if left wild, just trap them in a metal room and use a sweeper to keep a feeder loaded

we are way off topic LOL 

why are they better wild? I like egg shells after all

[Neotuck]

2 minutes ago, DaveSatx said:

why are they better wild? I like egg shells after all

Voles are clever escape artists, if dupes can get in, voles can get out

You still get egg shells and meat, you just have to wait for them to breed wild, just don't rely on them as your primary source, they serve as a regolith dumping ground better

[crypticorb]

9 minutes ago, DaveSatx said:

we are way off topic LOL 

why are they better wild? I like egg shells after all

Shove voles are insanely good at escaping. There is no completely foolproof method of ranching them that doesn't involve relocating their eggs periodically, or wrangling them back into the cage.

Once escaped, you will never be able to be rid of a shove vole that has escaped, as they can burrow forever, and have free range to any surface in the asteroid. Not worth the risk.

I did some testing to find any foolproof method of containing them, and found a few things:

1. They can path through water freely, unlike dreckos. Water still kills them after a minute of immersion, but they can just waltz right through a waterlock.
2. They can hang upside down, like dreckos, which makes them incredibly difficult to catch or kill.
3. They burrow through any tile that is not refined metal, abyssalite, or neutronium. This includes any door not of steel, any normal tiles, any ore tiles, any liquid.
4. Unlike dreckos, they can easily make it through a door before it closes, even pneumatic doors. 
5. Suspended cages with any form of door will eventually result in an escape, as the drecko can make it through the door fairly easily, and can lay an egg on the underside of the enclosure, dropping the new egg to freedom.

Since shove voles can consume insane amounts of regolith while completely wild, and there are far better options for meat/egg, don't try to ranch them.

[Neotuck]

5 minutes ago, crypticorb said:

There is no completely foolproof method of ranching

My "foolproof" method:

But it's still more trouble than it's worth so better to ranch them wild

[DaveSatx]

6 minutes ago, crypticorb said:

Shove voles are insanely good at escaping. There is no completely foolproof method of ranching them that doesn't involve relocating their eggs periodically, or wrangling them back into the cage.

Once escaped, you will never be able to be rid of a shove vole that has escaped, as they can burrow forever, and have free range to any surface in the asteroid. Not worth the risk.

I did some testing to find any foolproof method of containing them, and found a few things:

1. They can path through water freely, unlike dreckos. Water still kills them after a minute of immersion, but they can just waltz right through a waterlock.
2. They can hang upside down, like dreckos, which makes them incredibly difficult to catch or kill.
3. They burrow through any tile that is not refined metal, abyssalite, or neutronium. This includes any door not of steel, any normal tiles, any ore tiles, any liquid.
4. Unlike dreckos, they can easily make it through a door before it closes, even pneumatic doors. 
5. Suspended cages with any form of door will eventually result in an escape, as the drecko can make it through the door fairly easily, and can lay an egg on the underside of the enclosure, dropping the new egg to freedom.

Since shove voles can consume insane amounts of regolith while completely wild, and there are far better options for meat/egg, don't try to ranch them.

can they fly or like dreckos are they 'land' bound

[Neotuck]

1 minute ago, DaveSatx said:

can they fly or like dreckos are they 'land' bound

they don't fly but can crawl on any surface like a drecko

[babba]

1 hour ago, crypticorb said:

Yes and no. You can stack up debris infinitely, it will divide into 24 ton separate items, never forming a tile. I've created an automation monstrosity that auto-sorted materials into neat piles, but abandoned it due to lag.

There are only two times where debris can turn into a solid tile:

1. State change: most obvious in dirt cookers or volcanoes, when a block of liquid becomes solid, or a piece of debris with a mass >200kg changes state, it will form a solid block, and absorb any debris of the same type into the newly formed tile.
2. Falling/forming blocks: most obvious with sand, snow, or regolith. When regolith tiles fall or are shat out by shove voles, they absorb any regolith debris into the newly formed tile.

 

That's a really nice build, I had a look into your linked design. Yeah, anything with automation drags down the games frame rate. A shame really, I guess that quite a lot of people either scrap or simplify their designs due to the impact on to the games frame rate/game speed.

[crypticorb]

5 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

My "foolproof" method:

But it's still more trouble than it's worth so better to ranch them wild

What's the purpose of the pneumatic doors near the bottom?

Do you use a 3s/0.1s automation loop to drop the eggs on the island, or do you have to manually incubate a few and let the rest turn into cracked eggs inside the offloader?

[Neotuck]

Just now, crypticorb said:

What's the purpose of the pneumatic doors near the bottom?

the whole room was too big to be a stable so I added the doors to bring it to 96 tiles

(probably could have just shrunk the island)

3 minutes ago, crypticorb said:

Do you use a 3s/0.1s automation loop to drop the eggs on the island, or do you have to manually incubate a few and let the rest turn into cracked eggs inside the offloader?

manually is better as leaving the eggs loose gives the other voles the "expecting/overcrowded" stat

[tzionut]

Quote

Shove voles are insanely good at escaping. There is no completely foolproof method of ranching them that doesn't involve relocating their eggs periodically, or wrangling them back into the cage.

Once escaped, you will never be able to be rid of a shove vole that has escaped, as they can burrow forever, and have free range to any surface in the asteroid. Not worth the risk.

I did some testing to find any foolproof method of containing them, and found a few things:

1. They can path through water freely, unlike dreckos. Water still kills them after a minute of immersion, but they can just waltz right through a waterlock.
2. They can hang upside down, like dreckos, which makes them incredibly difficult to catch or kill.
3. They burrow through any tile that is not refined metal, abyssalite, or neutronium. This includes any door not of steel, any normal tiles, any ore tiles, any liquid.
4. Unlike dreckos, they can easily make it through a door before it closes, even pneumatic doors. 
5. Suspended cages with any form of door will eventually result in an escape, as the drecko can make it through the door fairly easily, and can lay an egg on the underside of the enclosure, dropping the new egg to freedom.

Since shove voles can consume insane amounts of regolith while completely wild, and there are far better options for meat/egg, don't try to ranch them.

This is real, and i might add another advice. When transferring the egg to the enclosure, if you have - 60 degrees let the egg reach the - 59 degrees in the receiver or loader before releasing it in the iron trap. Until now i lose 3 eggs before realizing what was the problem. If you release the egg in the cage and it have let say 30 degrees, and the cage have -60, the egg will go raw and you lose a wild shove vole. 

[PhailRaptor]

Sudden random thought -- What about Transit Tubes?  The wall intersection Tube tile, what material is it made from?  Are Shov Voles able to dig through it?

[tzionut]

Quote

Sudden random thought -- What about Transit Tubes?  The wall intersection Tube tile, what material is it made from?  Are Shov Voles able to dig through it?

I didn't try this yet but i tell you from now that yes, they will go trough. 

[suicide commando]

Hmm.. I've yet to see any shovers escape from my ranch I set up, and it's a pretty ordinary ranch, except for the fact that the walls are made of steel as well as the pneumatic door..

Also if one escapes, why would that be an issue? If they're tame, it's not like there will be a shortage of eggs in the ranch, only from a performance standpoint can I see a problem, as that escaped vole will path and do stuffs, which needs CPU.