Learning curve

[idlihx10]

I've only started playing my first 20 hours or so of this game and what seemed pretty straightforward at first turned into a learning curve that gets deeper the more I play. It seems that a lot of advance layout planning is required from the start, so the difficulty actually does not ramp up gradually but you're hit by a crisis out of nowhere if you're not aware of the layout implications.

For example, I created terrariums to remove carbon dioxide but never knew that prolonged usage would produce toxic oxygen, or perhaps I'm missing something? My dirty water piles up at sinks but I have no idea how to change them for clean water or how to set the pipe layout to siphon dirty water into another area, which raises yet another question of do I need to dig a "special" dumping ground for waste water and gas? That's a ton of things for a beginner to pick up! I'd appreciate if anyone could point me to some good guides that address these issues. Thanks. 

[Neotuck]

I place deodorizers next to my wash basins and algae terrariums

[Sasza22]

1 hour ago, idlihx10 said:

I created terrariums to remove carbon dioxide but never knew that prolonged usage would produce toxic oxygen,

The terrariums don`t produce polluted oxugen. It`s the polluted water they produce. With a lot of terrariums you need to get rid of the polluted water, best to build a place where you will dump the water using a bottle emptier or 2 (one is sometimes too slowe for multiple terrariums).

The polluted oxygen is not a problem as long as you don`t mine the swamp biomes and spread germs to it. Dupes can breathe it normally. At the start it`s best to mine through the caustic biomes. The deodoerizer will clean the oxygen so build those once you get the research done.

1 hour ago, idlihx10 said:

My dirty water piles up at sinks but I have no idea how to change them for clean water or how to set the pipe layout to siphon dirty water into another area, which raises yet another question of do I need to dig a "special" dumping ground for waste water and gas?

Polluted water might be useful later in the game. You can use it for some plants or for the fertilizer synthesizer. You can also clean it with the sieve but it doesn`t remove germs so don`t use that water to make food (but you can feed it to plants when it`s cool enough).

1 hour ago, idlihx10 said:

That's a ton of things for a beginner to pick up! I'd appreciate if anyone could point me to some good guides that address these issues. Thanks. 

Just wait till you get your base to overheat. That`s the No.1 problem of new players. Keeping the base cool.

The game is a lot about trial and error. Managing crisises is the most fun thing about it (at least for me). Don`t be scared to start over. every time your colony ends in a disaster you know what went wrong and can avoid it the next time.

[chasinji]

1 hour ago, idlihx10 said:

That's a ton of things for a beginner to pick up! I'd appreciate if anyone could point me to some good guides that address these issues. Thanks. 

steam community is filled with bunch of them beside klei community forum here. go surfing yourself at Oxygen Not Included Guides

there are several helpful dummy guides:

getting started with ONI

ONI-surviving early game

ONI - Surviving the Mid-Game

Useful Construction Patterns

take some coffee. beware long written scripts.

[Oozinator]

2 hours ago, idlihx10 said:

That's a ton of things for a beginner to pick up!

That was the reason i liked ONI very much, from the beginning. All that testing and failing ^^

[DaveSatx]

3 hours ago, idlihx10 said:

I've only started playing my first 20 hours or so of this game and what seemed pretty straightforward at first turned into a learning curve that gets deeper the more I play. It seems that a lot of advance layout planning is required from the start, so the difficulty actually does not ramp up gradually but you're hit by a crisis out of nowhere if you're not aware of the layout implications.

This to me is part of the charm of this game!  When I think I've got a handle on what the game has going on something happens.  It's complexity allows what feels to me to be nearly emergent level interactions.  FYI, what I mean is the host of small things adding up, leading to unexpected actions when combined that are difficult to see ahead of time.  You have to learn and adapt

[Gurgel]

2 hours ago, Oozinator said:

That was the reason i liked ONI very much, from the beginning. All that testing and failing ^^

Yes. They really nailed that!

[clickrush]

Oh man I kind of envy you @idlihx10! You are still in that phase where everything can go to **** at any time. Sometimes quite literally. I still remember one time, where I first encountered a food poisoning outbreak. It was hilarious. Allthough I then completely overreacted for a while and developed an ONI equivalent of germophobia and tried to optimize everything towards cleanliness, because I didn't know how germs actually work.

The learning the game phase is probably the most exciting part of it all. If you still like the game after you figured out all the problems you'll just try out the same things in different ways or try to find optimisations, different strategies etc. which is fun as well but definitely not as exciting as completely getting wrecked by the game mechanics in the first couple of runs.

[Oozinator]

44 minutes ago, clickrush said:

...as completely getting wrecked by the game mechanics in the first couple of runs.

First time big water pool (tiles/pressure) breaking, or big frozen tons of CO² tawing/melting(suffocate).
Sitting in front of my monitor and watching temperature changes for ever (no sensors aviable).
Now with all those new materials, it's someway easy.

[idlihx10]

Thank you all for the helpful responses! Much appreciated with the guides chasinji.

16 hours ago, clickrush said:

Oh man I kind of envy you @idlihx10! You are still in that phase where everything can go to **** at any time. Sometimes quite literally. I still remember one time, where I first encountered a food poisoning outbreak. It was hilarious. Allthough I then completely overreacted for a while and developed an ONI equivalent of germophobia and tried to optimize everything towards cleanliness, because I didn't know how germs actually work.

The learning the game phase is probably the most exciting part of it all. If you still like the game after you figured out all the problems you'll just try out the same things in different ways or try to find optimisations, different strategies etc. which is fun as well but definitely not as exciting as completely getting wrecked by the game mechanics in the first couple of runs.

Well, I'm new to ONI but not to city builders where advance layout knowledge is crucial to planning that can have long term consequences. So my expectations aren't really different here. I'd actually prefer not to be wrecked simply because of a lack of fundamental mechanics knowledge as this would have wasted many hours of my time. Instead, the wrecking part should only come from things like random map generation, which is already part of ONI. Having the game's mechanics "figured out" so as not to waste time isn't the same as mastering the game by being able to adapt to almost anything the random map generator throws at you imo.

[chasinji]

25 minutes ago, idlihx10 said:

Much appreciated with the guides chasinji.

welcome aboard, captain. enjoy the game till last duplicant mush bar drop!

[badimo]

22 hours ago, idlihx10 said:

turned into a learning curve that gets deeper the more I play

This is a minor semantic point but ONI's learning curve is unlikely to become deeper the more you play.  That implies that you learn something and forget it (leading to regression).  Such an event happens when you learn a musical piece because you might master one part and then promptly forget another part that you had already mastered.  ONI's learning curve is more realistically portrayed as being very steep with periods of flatness (a steep learning curve actually means something is easy to learn).  You are experiencing a period of flatness.  As @clickrush said, that is the most fun part.

[idlihx10]

53 minutes ago, badimo said:

This is a minor semantic point but ONI's learning curve is unlikely to become deeper the more you play.  That implies that you learn something and forget it (leading to regression).  Such an event happens when you learn a musical piece because you might master one part and then promptly forget another part that you had already mastered.  ONI's learning curve is more realistically portrayed as being very steep with periods of flatness (a steep learning curve actually means something is easy to learn).  You are experiencing a period of flatness.  As @clickrush said, that is the most fun part.

I don't see it that way. If you're learning the fundamentals critical to survival, you're not going to forget them. That's for sure. A steep learning curve is exactly that, something that takes a while to learn. I acknowledge the fundamentals are not too hard to learn, but their sheer number and interconnections mean that yes, the learning curve will get steeper from this perspective as you reach higher tiers. This will then level off assuming a "standard" map with tons of resources and easily accessible oxygen and building space.

I think what you're referring to is mastering the game, which isn't about learning the fundamentals, but learning how to best adapt to whatever the random map generator creates for you. In other words, a pretty "standard" map as mentioned would mean a "flat" experience once you learn the fundamentals. But this will not always be the case due to the random map generation.

[babba]

ONI Learning Curve

[idlihx10]

Just now, babba said:

ONI Learning Curve

Yeah, eventually it will level off once you play enough just like any other game. Probably the only games that partially deviate from this experience are those that rely heavily on RNG like Xcom.

[badimo]

2 hours ago, idlihx10 said:

A steep learning curve is exactly that, something that takes a while to learn.

I am sorry to be so particular but this is a common misconception that is entirely incorrect.  I invite you to independently research what a "Learning Curve" is so you understand the concept.  Once you do, you can re-read my post and I think you will understand what I am stating.  This is my last post on the subject.  Best of luck to you in your ONI adventures!

[SackMaggie]

Learn from your mistake or take shortcut from other people guide.

[greggbert]

The learning curve is indeed rough.  When you play the game there are about 10 crisis points that you need to plan ahead for and you will die if you don't see them coming.  This is similar to Don't starve where you have to plan for the next season before it comes or you will die.

From what I can tell the first 10 crisis points (and solutions) are:

1) Oxylite runs out (Build AlgaeDeoxidizer)
2) Polluted Dirt (out of the way room and specialized container to store P-Dirt)
3) Polluted Water from Hand Wash sink (Out of the way room and specialized cistern for p-water)
4) Dupes spending too much time on treadmill generator (Need coal generator)
5) CO2 Buildup (Seal up base, Algae deoxidizer creates pressure and CO2 should get pushed out lower doors to area underneath base) 
6) circuits overload (start using transformers and heavy-watt)
7) Run out of Map Water (Switch from Liceloaf to Mushrooms, Start filtering P-Water, pause research)
8) Run out of algae (start using electrolyzers)
9) Run out of coal (Hatch farm and/or Natural Gas generation)
10) Base starting to overheat (insulation and cooling methods)

 

Most of these crisis have killed me at least once, so keep plugging away!  If you can plan how to handle each crisis before it happens, I think you will be successful!

 

 

[babba]

I would like to add

11) Run out of game speed

[greggbert]

14 minutes ago, babba said:

I would like to add

11) Run out of game speed

Awww don't be that guy.

[idlihx10]

4 hours ago, badimo said:

I am sorry to be so particular but this is a common misconception that is entirely incorrect.  I invite you to independently research what a "Learning Curve" is so you understand the concept.  Once you do, you can re-read my post and I think you will understand what I am stating.  This is my last post on the subject.  Best of luck to you in your ONI adventures!

I'd invite you to do the same. It simply means the rate (emphasis on this word) that you gain new skills or progress. I already contextualised that this varies depending on whether it's regarding a "standard" map or more challenging one depending on random map generation. Learning (emphasis) how to deal with a "standard" map would obviously be relatively faster than learning (emphasis again) how to adapt to almost every map scenario aka mastering the game.

[idlihx10]

4 hours ago, greggbert said:

The learning curve is indeed rough.  When you play the game there are about 10 crisis points that you need to plan ahead for and you will die if you don't see them coming.  This is similar to Don't starve where you have to plan for the next season before it comes or you will die.

From what I can tell the first 10 crisis points (and solutions) are:

1) Oxylite runs out (Build AlgaeDeoxidizer)
2) Polluted Dirt (out of the way room and specialized container to store P-Dirt)
3) Polluted Water from Hand Wash sink (Out of the way room and specialized cistern for p-water)
4) Dupes spending too much time on treadmill generator (Need coal generator)
5) CO2 Buildup (Seal up base, Algae deoxidizer creates pressure and CO2 should get pushed out lower doors to area underneath base) 
6) circuits overload (start using transformers and heavy-watt)
7) Run out of Map Water (Switch from Liceloaf to Mushrooms, Start filtering P-Water, pause research)
8) Run out of algae (start using electrolyzers)
9) Run out of coal (Hatch farm and/or Natural Gas generation)
10) Base starting to overheat (insulation and cooling methods)

 

Most of these crisis have killed me at least once, so keep plugging away!  If you can plan how to handle each crisis before it happens, I think you will be successful!

 

 

I think these scenarios can be sumed up as need to know what room/equipment position layouts work best for many scenarios and prioritizing duties. I found that many things need constant maintenance like tending to farms or watering terrariums. If the layout is optimized and you combine that with the atheletics trait, it helps a lot. I really enjoy the challenge and am quite sure it'd take a while before I'm able to master this game. So more hours of fun!