Large Vacuum Rooms, A how-to in 10 easy steps.

[ruhrohraggy]

Need a big room with a vacuum, but get sick of waiting a bazillion cycles for that pump to get all the air out? I know I was...

Not anymore!

Why would we want a vacuum room you might ask? Well, one reason is the hydrogen condenser. Having a room large enough to work in is nice, and having a vacuum improves the efficiency of any condenser or heat system you might plan on building. Outer-space is nice and all that, but lets be honest, space sucks. (literally)

So, here we go...Here are 10 easy steps to a quick vacuum room with a water lock

1) Find a spot.

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2) Get to that spot

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3) Clear that spot out. Here, we space our ladders 8 tiles apart. Dupes can dig 4 up, and 3 down. This is one of the fastest *and least stressful* ways to clear space.

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4) Make your room.

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5) Prep your waterlock entrance.

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6) Auto-pitcher pump in some water until you fill the bottom, and then build a tile to seal it off.

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7) Build 2x pumps towards the center of the room somewhere, and use a high pressure vent out.

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8) Let them pump until the air pressure in the room is low, the color purple in your gas view should be enough.

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9) Deconstruct your 2 big pumps, construct 9 (or more) little ones, roughly evenly spaced. (Only 60 watts each woohoo!)

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10) Enjoy your vacuum. (1-2 cycles later)

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Bonus step) : clear out the room. (Or maybe, leave the ladders, oh well...)

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And presto, done!

 

 

 

 

 

[badimo]

Does this method always result in Colony Lost?

[ruhrohraggy]

2 hours ago, badimo said:

Does this method always result in Colony Lost?

Doing this, 50% of the time, you lose your colony all of the time.

[LookingForBaal]

Seems like a lot of work, I think I'll just wait eons for the pumps.

 

But! I did not know you could dig 3 down with ladders, I have made my ladder way too freaking close.

[Gurgel]

This is a nice trick. Thanks!

[Saturnus]

Hmmm... that's a very poor method in my opinion. I prefer to build a water lock first, and then dig out behind that. Much easier as everything you dig out behind the water lock is automatically a vacuum, so no need for pumps.

[ruhrohraggy]

2 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

Hmmm... that's a very poor method in my opinion. I prefer to build a water lock first, and then dig out behind that. Much easier as everything you dig out behind the water lock is automatically a vacuum, so no need for pumps.

I understand what you're saying.

But then you are limited to areas where everything is solid. Or you resort to getting liquids involved.

This method disregards all that, so you can make a vacuum room anywhere, any-time, any size, without using all that much brainpower, or in-game power.

[FutureJohny]

16 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

Hmmm... that's a very poor method in my opinion. I prefer to build a water lock first, and then dig out behind that. Much easier as everything you dig out behind the water lock is automatically a vacuum, so no need for pumps.

How do you deal with slime / bleach stone infested areas then?

[Craigjw]

1 hour ago, LookingForBaal said:

But! I did not know you could dig 3 down with ladders, I have made my ladder way too freaking close.

However, you can't easily remove the ladders afterwards with greater than 3 tiles height difference, as the dupes can't reach them.  By having the 3 tile height difference, you dupes can reach the row of ladders above, making disassembly a lot quicker and easier.

[LookingForBaal]

Just now, Craigjw said:

However, you can't easily remove the ladders afterwards with greater than 3 tiles height difference, as the dupes can't reach them.  By having the 3 tile height difference, you dupes can reach the row of ladders above, making disassembly a lot quicker and easier.

Ah yeah, maybe that is why I do it the way I do..

[Neotuck]

Another option is to dig the area out first

then fill the insides with tiles (careful not to entomb any one)

then after making your water lock deconstruct all tiles inside

 

[Craigjw]

This is the method I use and seems to be the most effective, although, I could be wrong...

[zzKratoszz]

This is great. I bet its 9 times faster than using 1 pump.

[Craigjw]

Just now, zzKratoszz said:

This is great. I bet its 9 times faster than using 1 pump.

lol.

I think the point is that a single large pump of 500g/s is slower than 9 small pumps at a total of 450g/s

[ruhrohraggy]

45 minutes ago, Craigjw said:

lol.

I think the point is that a single large pump of 500g/s is slower than 9 small pumps at a total of 450g/s

Much...muuuuuch slower. Because we want a perfect vacuum, and the gas wants to spread out. Your 1 pump isn't really being all that efficienct anyway as the amount of gas drops in the room. (Below 500 grams, lets say)

So, by spreading out a buncha mini pumps, we get the job done quick, with not very much power.

Basically the same wattage as sticking 1 normal pump in a corner. The mini-pumps also reduce your overall power consumption, since you're not running that 1 big pump inefficiently for god knows how many cycles.

And yeah, there are different ways to clear space. This is "One of the fastest". Meaning there are others...Definitely like...top 3 for sure.

The thing I like about the ladder bridges, is less micro to construct and clear space. I agree that it's a little harder to deconstruct though...

You can also put a block at the first entry point onto the ladder bridge, and the dupes will run across the top of the ladders normally, as if on flooring. (They have to have something to stand on after jumping off the vertical ladder, to run across the top of ladder bridges)

 

50 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

Another option is to dig the area out first

then fill the insides with tiles (careful not to entomb any one)

then after making your water lock deconstruct all tiles inside

 

This seems good for small vacuum tasks. But I've done vacuum insulation before, and it's a royal pain to micro imo. I can't imagine how long it'd take to do a room of this size. Surely not 5-10 cycles, which is how fast I bet dupes could do this from start to finish with the mini-pump method.

[ishakaru]

Quote

This seems good for small vacuum tasks. But I've done vacuum insulation before, and it's a royal pain to micro imo. I can't imagine how long it'd take to do a room of this size. Surely not 5-10 cycles, which is how fast I bet dupes could do this from start to finish with the mini-pump method.

 

 

I'm not sure how you approached it, but it should take less total time... Assuming of course that digging the area is constant. If you're digging out the area first then building the room... yikes... you just tripled the work required before you even consider the micro aspect.

 

Unless you build the room in the jungle biome. Then the above method is faster. Due to the need to remove all slime first.

 

[ruhrohraggy]

3 hours ago, ishakaru said:

 

 

I'm not sure how you approached it, but it should take less total time... Assuming of course that digging the area is constant. If you're digging out the area first then building the room... yikes... you just tripled the work required before you even consider the micro aspect.

 

Unless you build the room in the jungle biome. Then the above method is faster. Due to the need to remove all slime first.

 

You kinda gave some thoughts there, but didn't really explain anything. Do elaborate sir.

Vacuum insulation is a 3 Tile wide build you start around your room. The various ways I've seen to do it, are a pain.

For example, the corner method...

And you have to do it 1 block at a time all the way around...Since if you try to skip, or go from the other end, you end up with a tile in the center and no way to get at it from the corner.

This idea of digging out vacuums relies on the place not being cleared out already, or it containing any slime / bleach stone / polluted ice etc...

My method lets you do it wherever you want...And if it's already cleared out, only takes a few cycles to get a nice big vacuum for all of that temperature sensitive stuff that needs doing.

If it isn't cleared out already, and doesn't contain any of that gas producing stuff...Then the other way seems easier, I guess...

 

 

[storm6436]

Corner method goes faster if you do it diagonally instead of one row at a time. 

[ruhrohraggy]

2 minutes ago, storm6436 said:

Corner method goes faster if you do it diagonally instead of one row at a time. 

And what if you want a square room, with a single tile vacuum insulating it...?

[storm6436]

3 minutes ago, ruhrohraggy said:

And what if you want a square room, with a single tile vacuum insulating it...?

Probably still be able to pull it off diagonally, it'd just be more complicated. And also enough of a pain in the ass my just-woke-up-no-coffee-yet self couldn't describe it properly now

 As a whole my playstyle differs from everyone elses as I tend to make things "harder" by playing a smidge more realistically. ie. Corner mining is valid, but water locks bug me.  I don't look down on folks who use them, as a physicist I just shake my head at the idea if you're not using viscogel to do them

[ruhrohraggy]

10 minutes ago, storm6436 said:

Probably still be able to pull it off diagonally, it'd just be more complicated. And also enough of a pain in the ass my just-woke-up-no-coffee-yet self couldn't describe it properly now

 As a whole my playstyle differs from everyone elses as I tend to make things "harder" by playing a smidge more realistically. ie. Corner mining is valid, but water locks bug me.  I don't look down on folks who use them, as a physicist I just shake my head at the idea if you're not using viscogel to do them

As a physicist, this game should bug you in it's entirety.

As a mechanical engineer, I just work with the rules I'm given, and try to make something useful.

And a liquid lock in real life is not totally infeasible. Gas transfer through water is a slow process. If you had a room cut off by a pool of water and pumped all the gas out, it would take a very long time for it to refill, especially if you waited until the dissolved o2 in the water also came out of solution, and you pumped that out as well.

[SackMaggie]

On 11/21/2018 at 6:46 AM, FutureJohny said:

How do you deal with slime / bleach stone infested areas then?

Build a new row under them and deconstruct floor of your vacuum and then rebuild it.

[Christophlette]

@ruhrohraggy : Good job on that mini tutorial.

There may be other solutions to the vacuum problem but still. I find this kind of tutorials very good for the game. The learning curve is very steep for a lot of players. I can only see the positive side for this kind of guide. Maybe we could make more and have a sticky so the sticky can reference a lot of small guides to help new players in search of help to progress ?

[Oozinator]

Large Vacuum Rooms, A how-to in 78963712736 easy steps..
 

[LetMeSearch]

On 21/11/2018 at 9:40 PM, ruhrohraggy said:

And a liquid lock in real life is not totally infeasible. Gas transfer through water is a slow process.

The problem here isn't gas moving through the water itself, but the vapor pressure dropping as you pump out the atmosphere, resulting in the water itself boiling off and making an (if thin) atmosphere consisting of water vapour in the evacuated room.