Algae as a resource 'Disease'

[Darkarma]

One thing I find odd is how there are algae blocks that some how grew and spread throughout your asteroid yet terrariums some how use up algae instead of producing more. How does that stuff reproduce?

The Algae Deoxidizer should be more efficient and give a person more of a reason to use algae at cost, while growing it would be a better passive but somewhat risky proposition. Sure you can grow it and hey free O2!- but you run the risk of spreading algae to other resources and having it growing unchecked... like in your water supply or overtaking your sewage area, or clogging pipes. I know from my own real life experiences that algae will grow in complete darkness and in supposedly clean pipes. Put that outbreak disease system to good use for things other than your dupes. Also gives the water purifier some extra purpose!

Its a tenacious organism.

Make it an intermediate tutorial that teaches players how they'll eventually be dealing with slimelung with less risk. Between food poisoning and slime in terms of difficulty.

Large algae oxygen farms should be a useful but double edge  sword. If it gets out of hand and not properly cared for it can screw up your entire biosphere either with an overabundance of oxygen, dehydration, plumbing, or potentially spawning ooze or slime monsters if it gets too far.

Also might be a fun thing to experiment with different algae strains... hm? Though this might be for another update.

Ideally in my mind, an algae terrarium is a bit odd in general. How does it work? Why does it eat Algae? Instead you should be creating a separate pool of water which you introduce algae into it and a light source. That would be better. From there its a matter of carefully monitoring it for proper usage.

 

The Terrarium in general:

Rather than getting rid of the object the Algae Terrarium, it could be used to generate starter seeds of algae that you can create oxygen producing pools with. Basically the poor man's genetic engineering kit for dupes. Potentially part of the crop splicing tech tree?

For higher end farming also, unlock the tech that can make algae edible! Then you can switch your terrarium's production goal to edible algae rather than pool algae.

Another option is using the Terrarium to breed specialty strains of algae for other environments than standard water. Give your researching dupes something extra to do!

[The Plum Gate]

I just watched some algae melt into dirt in a very hot biome. I'm thinking it grows on dirt or that dirt is a part of its schema - which is why I'm surprised that the deoxidizer doesn't produce dirt as a byproduct. I'm keeping an eye on the area to see what slime turns into when it's over heated.

[Botaxalim]

Can someone confirm this, algae producing/multiple/convert on neigboor tiles?

[Michi01]

6 hours ago, Botaxalim said:

Can someone confirm this, algae producing/multiple/convert on neigboor tiles?

I'm pretty certain that algae (currently) can't spread to other tiles. Slime used to do that in older versions of the game (even before its alpha was released).

[Darkarma]

1 hour ago, Michi01 said:

I'm pretty certain that algae (currently) can't spread to other tiles. Slime used to do that in older versions of the game (even before its alpha was released).

Might be  a fun mechanic to play with i think. Make the asteroid regenerative to a point?

[Kasuha]

4 hours ago, Darkarma said:

Might be  a fun mechanic to play with i think. Make the asteroid regenerative to a point?

Geysers already regenerate water and some gases.

[Mjello]

Terrariums could make algae from dirt or clay.

Algae make oxygen in deoxidizer.

In general I like the idea of plants making oxygen and consuming co2. And need light to do so.

I have a map with a mushroom farm where co2 just disappear faster than my dupes can breathe it out, but I don't think they consume co2. Rather that it is some mysterious game mechanic or bug I can't explain. Anyone else experiencing this? Maybe I should upload it as a bug.

[brummbar7]

6 hours ago, Mjello said:

I have a map with a mushroom farm where co2 just disappear faster than my dupes can breathe it out, but I don't think they consume co2.

Do you have wheezeworts or multiple adjacent airlocks?  Both will destroy gases, though wheezeworts from what I understand are just on loading the game.  Screenshot of farm?

[Mjello]

6 hours ago, brummbar7 said:

Do you have wheezeworts or multiple adjacent airlocks?  Both will destroy gases, though wheezeworts from what I understand are just on loading the game.  Screenshot of farm?

No. No funky stuff at all. I can't figure out what is happening. It just drains away into the right corner where there is some sand and sandstone. If I build walls it seems to stay there.

[Michi01]

11 hours ago, Mjello said:

No. No funky stuff at all. I can't figure out what is happening. It just drains away into the right corner where there is some sand and sandstone. If I build walls it seems to stay there.

Can you upload a screenshot of your mushroom farm?

[Mjello]

8 hours ago, Michi01 said:

Can you upload a screenshot of your mushroom farm?

I missed a door. That was most of it. Thankyou. The rest was gas compression because of increasing gas pressure. Definitely nothing to do with walls.

But I can't seem to replicate the issue where it all disappeared... I've seen it before with hydrogen in a closed loop liquid oxygen maker.
Maybe that issue is gone too.

[brummbar7]

51 minutes ago, Mjello said:

I missed a door. That was most of it. Thankyou. The rest was gas compression because of increasing gas pressure. Definitely nothing to do with walls.

But I can't seem to replicate the issue where it all disappeared... I've seen it before with hydrogen in a closed loop liquid oxygen maker.
Maybe that issue is gone too.

So I don't know if you are aware of this, but heavier gases tend to move downward (obviously) but also heavily rightward.  This is why your farm has two levels of CO2 on the right, and two levels of oxygen on the left.  It's sucking in oxygen through that gas tile at the upper left.  Meanwhile, the CO2 is actually piling up on the right side, and overflowing up that ladder and out.   If that vent to the right side of the farm is meant to deliver CO2, you should put that vent on the left side.  That way the CO2 it delivers will flow across the farms, rather than just building up on one side like it is now.  Put the mesh tile on top somewhere in the middle, to let the oxygen out.  Also have a couple gas tiles below the vent, so the CO2 can immediately descend to the bottom level.  Right now it would have to move halfway to the right before it could move down, so the left side of the bottom level would still not fill with CO2.  The rightward migration bias is a real pain I wish Klei would fix. 

[Mjello]

12 minutes ago, brummbar7 said:

So I don't know if you are aware of this, but heavier gases tend to move downward (obviously) but also heavily rightward.  This is why your farm has two levels of CO2 on the right, and two levels of oxygen on the left.  It's sucking in oxygen through that gas tile at the upper left.  Meanwhile, the CO2 is actually piling up on the right side, and overflowing up that ladder and out.   If that vent to the right side of the farm is meant to deliver CO2, you should put that vent on the left side.  That way the CO2 it delivers will flow across the farms, rather than just building up on one side like it is now.  Put the mesh tile on top somewhere in the middle, to let the oxygen out.  Also have a couple gas tiles below the vent, so the CO2 can immediately descend to the bottom level.  Right now it would have to move halfway to the right before it could move down, so the left side of the bottom level would still not fill with CO2.  The rightward migration bias is a real pain I wish Klei would fix. 

Yeah I kind o noticed but sometimes it flows just right like this. This is the design I ended up with that works. The door still destroys co2 but other than that I don't think anything goes missing. Once it has been full it does not gather to the right anymore.

[Kasuha]

On 9. 9. 2017 at 4:30 PM, brummbar7 said:

Do you have wheezeworts or multiple adjacent airlocks?  Both will destroy gases, though wheezeworts from what I understand are just on loading the game.  Screenshot of farm?

Wheezeworts appear to not destroy gases anymore. I didn't give it a thorough test yet but my few cooling chambers suggest so.

[The Plum Gate]

Ok, so recently I watched a very hot biome melt early game slime biome material - algae and slime, into dirt.

So both have dirt in their chain of composition.