Finally, and I think I've mentioned this before, I also value dupe labor enough that I'm willing to take a less-than-efficient method if it means they can spend more time doing things that I find more important. I could sustain about 14 dupes with a pair of ranchers doing nothing but grooming hatches all cycle... or I can feed 20 with one rancher spending half their day with one ranch of hatches and a farmer spend less than half their day fertilizing a Bristle blossom farm. With almost 50% more food at half the labor, for me it's no contest.
I wonder if part of it is that i play on No Sweat, and so that's distorting things a bit due to the reduced calories- because my single rancher def spends so little time caring for the hatches that they do other stuff. But just 16 hatches seem to be a calorie volcano. Though i will note i'm also passive-farming pacu, which means i can very easily produce massive quanities of surf'n'turf (The way i handle it, i ban my dupes from eating Meat, Pacu Fillets or Cooked fish - BBQ and Surf'N'Turf for higher need dupes are fair game).
I mean, mathing that out - each ranched hatch gives me a minimum of 64k calories over it's 100 cycle life span. Or it'll feed a dupe for 64 cycles off it's life span. So realistically, you need 3 hatches per 2 dupes (very Slightly more, actually)
Still. For how easy they are to set up, Hatch ranches are crazy. In the long run, wild Vole farming obviously is going to take over for meat production, but that's a late game thing you do when you have infinite burning hot sand raining form the sky and you need to do something with it.
Passive farming pacu is also kinda stupid good, honestly. Those things are stupid productive for the minimal effort of "Ensure your water tank is pacu accessible from your printing pod". (They're almost impossible to overcrowd, so they always make an egg, and at 25 cycle life span, you get the meat from them pretty fast passively)
Kinda wondering about scrapping even doing dreckos currently, and just going straight to full on plastic production via petroleum. Would probably let me kick in a third ranch for stone hatches, whcih means more coal and yet more egg volcano. Not that that's exactly necessary though. Would free up rancher time to ranch something else, but I've no idea what I'd ranch. Probably pokeshells, actually...
Yeah, I'm playing on Survival. Dupes only need 500kcal a cycle to survive in No Sweat, so a ranched hatch isn't feed a dupe 64 days per lifespan; it's feeding them for 128.
When every four hatches are feeding five dupes, I bet hatch ranches feel like infinite food.
I'm actually thinking I might be making things too easy with no sweat mode, because just doing a little reading - the parts of the game that are harder: Temperature management, oxygen, resource generation, are unchanged.
Although maybe morale might kill me without it being chill? I find food to be such an easy thing that I don't even really concern myself with it beyond just setting up the chain.
On second thought - Before I set that chain up, I may run out of initial food. Hmmmm.........
It's still pretty easy to get all the morale you need to specialize dupes as you want in Survival, though you might not be able to create omni-disciplinary Super Dupes until you have almost all the possible morale bonuses you can get.
As for food, even if you take new dupes at every opportunity, most maps will have enough muckroot and soon-to-be-harvest wild mealwood to extend the starting nutrient bars till at least cycle 7 or so, and once you have it down to pat you can start placing planter boxes at every open space by the start of cycle 3.
getting lime for steel is extremely annoying. been trying to ranch hatches but oof it's so slow, 14 hatches atm and it takes forever for enough to run the rock crusher, and you need to do it twice for enough lime to make steel.
idk how i'd even expand it, don't really have space to expand and my ranching dupe is almost there full time.
getting lime for steel is extremely annoying. been trying to ranch hatches but oof it's so slow, 14 hatches atm and it takes forever for enough to run the rock crusher, and you need to do it twice for enough lime to make steel.
idk how i'd even expand it, don't really have space to expand and my ranching dupe is almost there full time.
If you can crack open an oil biome, the fossils you mine can be turned to lime also.
getting lime for steel is extremely annoying. been trying to ranch hatches but oof it's so slow, 14 hatches atm and it takes forever for enough to run the rock crusher, and you need to do it twice for enough lime to make steel.
idk how i'd even expand it, don't really have space to expand and my ranching dupe is almost there full time.
The only thing that lays enough eggs to support a industrial scale steel production are tamed and regularly fed pacus, but that takes way too much algae to sustain for very long. The other ways mentioned (pokeshells and mining fossil) are better.
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DaimarA Million Feet Tall of AwesomeRegistered Userregular
I haven't tried seriously ranching them, but tame shine bugs pop out an egg in under two days so they can be a good source of food and lime.
I haven't tried seriously ranching them, but tame shine bugs pop out an egg in under two days so they can be a good source of food and lime.
If you want to get extra nutty, you can create a shine bug reactor. Turns out if you engage in some clever shenanigans, you can cram enough shine bugs into a 1x1 square to easily power multiple solar panels. Free power at the price of animal cruelty!
Another thing with eggs is off you're doing any serious ranching, setting up automated incubators helps a lot. Incubators only need to be powered on long enough for your rancher to come hug the egg. Plus you'll hatch eggs that much faster.
Or you could just crack them, but why waste free bbq?
My personal rule of thumb is one incubator per ranch. That's usually enough to keep a ranch topped up perfectly, at least for hatches. If you want I can post a screenshot of the setup and the automation for it.
Meanwhile, I'm happy - after some trial and error that included accidentally making things out of lead, I have a very nice steam vent tamer hooked up. Happily gives me a bunch of free geothermal power, the hot water it creates gets fed into my spom, and some extra automation feeds in extra water as needed to turn the rest of that tasty thermal mass into more power.
Untreated to this, dupes are banned from the oxygen box. Last I checked it had something like 20,000kg of oxygen per tile.
That's not a typo. This is what happens when you hook up a gas compressor to your spoms overflow, and your spom makes 3kg/s (i.e enough to sustain 30 dupes...I only have 15).
Guess it'll be useful when I get around to making liquid oxygen!
MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
I really need to get around to taming my cool steam geyser and it's neighbour the salt water geyser.
So far I've setup an insulated reservoir for my water geyser, tamed 3 iron volcanos and 1 gold volcano.
And I think I need to relook at power rooms. Originally they were a detriment because dupes would tune up unused petroleum generators, however they are no longer unused and my petroleum refineries are overheating due to their constant use. So something to decrease that will help. Especially now that I am planning on adding a 5th or 6th aquatuner.
Then I need to move my ranches out of my main base and optimize them, which means I can finally expand my roster over 16 dupes.
I really need to get around to taming my cool steam geyser and it's neighbour the salt water geyser.
So far I've setup an insulated reservoir for my water geyser, tamed 3 iron volcanos and 1 gold volcano.
And I think I need to relook at power rooms. Originally they were a detriment because dupes would tune up unused petroleum generators, however they are no longer unused and my petroleum refineries are overheating due to their constant use. So something to decrease that will help. Especially now that I am planning on adding a 5th or 6th aquatuner.
Then I need to move my ranches out of my main base and optimize them, which means I can finally expand my roster over 16 dupes.
And then finally start my space program.
For me, "taming" a cool Steam geyser has pretty much always meant "setting up the plumbing so it's the water used for the electrolyzer whenever it's erupting."
As long as it's below 70C when it reaches there it won't raise the output temp from the electrolyzers at all, and even if it is, water has a higher thermal capacity than oxygen + hydrogen, so it comes out as a net heat loss anyway.
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MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
I really need to get around to taming my cool steam geyser and it's neighbour the salt water geyser.
So far I've setup an insulated reservoir for my water geyser, tamed 3 iron volcanos and 1 gold volcano.
And I think I need to relook at power rooms. Originally they were a detriment because dupes would tune up unused petroleum generators, however they are no longer unused and my petroleum refineries are overheating due to their constant use. So something to decrease that will help. Especially now that I am planning on adding a 5th or 6th aquatuner.
Then I need to move my ranches out of my main base and optimize them, which means I can finally expand my roster over 16 dupes.
And then finally start my space program.
For me, "taming" a cool Steam geyser has pretty much always meant "setting up the plumbing so it's the water used for the electrolyzer whenever it's erupting."
As long as it's below 70C when it reaches there it won't raise the output temp from the electrolyzers at all, and even if it is, water has a higher thermal capacity than oxygen + hydrogen, so it comes out as a net heat loss anyway.
It's a bit near my base for letting residual heat escape to get it down from cool steam to hot water.
My plan so far is to pump the salt water into the same insulated chamber as the steam vent, heat it up using an aquatuner and using steam turbines to cool it down and use the 95°C water for things.
Added benefit of of purifying my salt water.
However I tried to be clever, and siphon of some water to run through the aquatuner to also output some cold water, with the idea that it'll be self regulating, only running when there's water available and not having to check both the temp of the heating chamber and the temp of the pipes.
But my pipe layout is getting more and more convoluted and eventually backs up and everything stops. Water flow gets a bit weird when the pipes intersect multiple input/output junctions even if it looks like it should work.
I really need to get around to taming my cool steam geyser and it's neighbour the salt water geyser.
So far I've setup an insulated reservoir for my water geyser, tamed 3 iron volcanos and 1 gold volcano.
And I think I need to relook at power rooms. Originally they were a detriment because dupes would tune up unused petroleum generators, however they are no longer unused and my petroleum refineries are overheating due to their constant use. So something to decrease that will help. Especially now that I am planning on adding a 5th or 6th aquatuner.
Then I need to move my ranches out of my main base and optimize them, which means I can finally expand my roster over 16 dupes.
And then finally start my space program.
For me, "taming" a cool Steam geyser has pretty much always meant "setting up the plumbing so it's the water used for the electrolyzer whenever it's erupting."
As long as it's below 70C when it reaches there it won't raise the output temp from the electrolyzers at all, and even if it is, water has a higher thermal capacity than oxygen + hydrogen, so it comes out as a net heat loss anyway.
It's a bit near my base for letting residual heat escape to get it down from cool steam to hot water.
My plan so far is to pump the salt water into the same insulated chamber as the steam vent, heat it up using an aquatuner and using steam turbines to cool it down and use the 95°C water for things.
Added benefit of of purifying my salt water.
However I tried to be clever, and siphon of some water to run through the aquatuner to also output some cold water, with the idea that it'll be self regulating, only running when there's water available and not having to check both the temp of the heating chamber and the temp of the pipes.
But my pipe layout is getting more and more convoluted and eventually backs up and everything stops. Water flow gets a bit weird when the pipes intersect multiple input/output junctions even if it looks like it should work.
Don't tap the cool Steam geyser at the source, but about 20-30 tiles below it after clearing a path for the condensing water to fall. The more matter it has to come into contact with/pass through (even if it's just air) to reach the pump, the more heat it will lose along the way. You can insulate the chamber for the whole thing, then during dormant periods you can either divert your cooling loop or have the hydrogen from your electrolyzer run by there in radiant vents before going to the hydrogen generator (which, with no physical output, is deleting 100% of the heat the hydrogen absorbed) so the insulation doesn't eventually make the cool steam stay as steam.
You can automate the tracking of the geyser's active/dormant period for the diversion with a liquid valve set to the average output per second (that is, the Per Second output during eruption times
the Eruption period divided by the Total eruption cycle) of the geyser and a pipe element sensor. Liquid valve will make sure the flow for the element sensor is constant, so you don't have it start and stop constantly (otherwise it's memory toggles and buffer gates and you having to constantly tweak the amounts/time to figure out what will work.)
If you have a screenshot of the pipe setup I'd like to see it. Are you leaving the salt that remains there until the geyser goes dormant, or are your dupes having to make due without table salt?
From top to bottom: Main base, industrial brick and it's cooling, Geothermal plant and main base cooling/geothermal cooling, and cool steam vent tamer (It's handling 3 cool steam vents with ease. Probably a bit overkill, but it means i've a very steady, very safe water supply).
Currently doodling around the map trying to unearth all the geysers, vents and volcanos and figure out what i've got to work with. So far LOTS of volcanos, and not much else - though 3 cool steam vents. Which are not as exciting as actual steam vents. Still, Water is sorted - there's a couple of polluted water geysers too, if i want to jam them into a germ-spinner for Even More Water.
Current plans are to scrap the petroleum boilers and build a real one using the volcano below my industrial brick, toy with making a Squeaky Lettuce Ranch since i have a chlorine geyser + salt water geyser already, finish strip mining the oil biome, maybe strip mine the frozen core (Wolframite!). Should probably find somewhere to put a real hospital in, just for insurance purposes. There's not really a lot of hot stuff on this map to scald dupes though (You know, it seems werid to me you can get dupes scalded, but there's no equivalent for exposing them to insanely cold temps - they just get hypothermia in which case, geez, just walk it off dupes).
I also want to tweak/expand the Dupe Gym, so i need to find space for that. Probably plug it in on the other side of the resedntial area? or just build it into the power plant, since that already exists. Kinda given up on having showers this time - all my dupes have 40+ morale thanks to decor bombing and a surf'n'turf diet, so showers would only be a way to turn dupe time into polluted water. Which i dont really need, so ???
I really need to get around to taming my cool steam geyser and it's neighbour the salt water geyser.
So far I've setup an insulated reservoir for my water geyser, tamed 3 iron volcanos and 1 gold volcano.
And I think I need to relook at power rooms. Originally they were a detriment because dupes would tune up unused petroleum generators, however they are no longer unused and my petroleum refineries are overheating due to their constant use. So something to decrease that will help. Especially now that I am planning on adding a 5th or 6th aquatuner.
Then I need to move my ranches out of my main base and optimize them, which means I can finally expand my roster over 16 dupes.
And then finally start my space program.
For me, "taming" a cool Steam geyser has pretty much always meant "setting up the plumbing so it's the water used for the electrolyzer whenever it's erupting."
As long as it's below 70C when it reaches there it won't raise the output temp from the electrolyzers at all, and even if it is, water has a higher thermal capacity than oxygen + hydrogen, so it comes out as a net heat loss anyway.
It's a bit near my base for letting residual heat escape to get it down from cool steam to hot water.
My plan so far is to pump the salt water into the same insulated chamber as the steam vent, heat it up using an aquatuner and using steam turbines to cool it down and use the 95°C water for things.
Added benefit of of purifying my salt water.
However I tried to be clever, and siphon of some water to run through the aquatuner to also output some cold water, with the idea that it'll be self regulating, only running when there's water available and not having to check both the temp of the heating chamber and the temp of the pipes.
But my pipe layout is getting more and more convoluted and eventually backs up and everything stops. Water flow gets a bit weird when the pipes intersect multiple input/output junctions even if it looks like it should work.
Don't tap the cool Steam geyser at the source, but about 20-30 tiles below it after clearing a path for the condensing water to fall. The more matter it has to come into contact with/pass through (even if it's just air) to reach the pump, the more heat it will lose along the way. You can insulate the chamber for the whole thing, then during dormant periods you can either divert your cooling loop or have the hydrogen from your electrolyzer run by there in radiant vents before going to the hydrogen generator (which, with no physical output, is deleting 100% of the heat the hydrogen absorbed) so the insulation doesn't eventually make the cool steam stay as steam.
You can automate the tracking of the geyser's active/dormant period for the diversion with a liquid valve set to the average output per second (that is, the Per Second output during eruption times
the Eruption period divided by the Total eruption cycle) of the geyser and a pipe element sensor. Liquid valve will make sure the flow for the element sensor is constant, so you don't have it start and stop constantly (otherwise it's memory toggles and buffer gates and you having to constantly tweak the amounts/time to figure out what will work.)
If you have a screenshot of the pipe setup I'd like to see it. Are you leaving the salt that remains there until the geyser goes dormant, or are your dupes having to make due without table salt?
Unfortunately I have already scrapped the setup a couple of cycles ago. I am rebuilding it bigger and more complex this time around. Will take a couple of more days since the expansion has come in conflict with a chlorine room and that always takes ages to pump out.
I am setting up an auto sweeper setup to move out the hot salt, but I am not sure if I am going to use it. I already have so much salt from just digging it out. And then there's still the subsurface ocean to deal with.
Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
edited October 2019
So I have 300 hours in this game.
And to give you an impression as to how resistant I am to learning new things I only now
now
Am building a base to use automation on a large scale.
300 hours
EDIT: Basically, I was finding it onerous to progress as I got further and further into stuff and realized I need to stop relying on my dupes for general labour. Started figuring out automation and then was like: "This could solve all my problems!"
Nova_C on
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
Also, I didn't know that you want to pump hot water into your electrolyzer because it releases at 70 degrees as long as the temp of the water is below 70 degrees. This changes everything about my current planned setup.
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DaimarA Million Feet Tall of AwesomeRegistered Userregular
Ok, so I still have 76 hours of playing to go before I have to figure out auto sweepers. I'll figure them out someday, maybe.
I really need to get around to taming my cool steam geyser and it's neighbour the salt water geyser.
So far I've setup an insulated reservoir for my water geyser, tamed 3 iron volcanos and 1 gold volcano.
And I think I need to relook at power rooms. Originally they were a detriment because dupes would tune up unused petroleum generators, however they are no longer unused and my petroleum refineries are overheating due to their constant use. So something to decrease that will help. Especially now that I am planning on adding a 5th or 6th aquatuner.
Then I need to move my ranches out of my main base and optimize them, which means I can finally expand my roster over 16 dupes.
And then finally start my space program.
For me, "taming" a cool Steam geyser has pretty much always meant "setting up the plumbing so it's the water used for the electrolyzer whenever it's erupting."
As long as it's below 70C when it reaches there it won't raise the output temp from the electrolyzers at all, and even if it is, water has a higher thermal capacity than oxygen + hydrogen, so it comes out as a net heat loss anyway.
It's a bit near my base for letting residual heat escape to get it down from cool steam to hot water.
My plan so far is to pump the salt water into the same insulated chamber as the steam vent, heat it up using an aquatuner and using steam turbines to cool it down and use the 95°C water for things.
Added benefit of of purifying my salt water.
However I tried to be clever, and siphon of some water to run through the aquatuner to also output some cold water, with the idea that it'll be self regulating, only running when there's water available and not having to check both the temp of the heating chamber and the temp of the pipes.
But my pipe layout is getting more and more convoluted and eventually backs up and everything stops. Water flow gets a bit weird when the pipes intersect multiple input/output junctions even if it looks like it should work.
Don't tap the cool Steam geyser at the source, but about 20-30 tiles below it after clearing a path for the condensing water to fall. The more matter it has to come into contact with/pass through (even if it's just air) to reach the pump, the more heat it will lose along the way. You can insulate the chamber for the whole thing, then during dormant periods you can either divert your cooling loop or have the hydrogen from your electrolyzer run by there in radiant vents before going to the hydrogen generator (which, with no physical output, is deleting 100% of the heat the hydrogen absorbed) so the insulation doesn't eventually make the cool steam stay as steam.
You can automate the tracking of the geyser's active/dormant period for the diversion with a liquid valve set to the average output per second (that is, the Per Second output during eruption times
the Eruption period divided by the Total eruption cycle) of the geyser and a pipe element sensor. Liquid valve will make sure the flow for the element sensor is constant, so you don't have it start and stop constantly (otherwise it's memory toggles and buffer gates and you having to constantly tweak the amounts/time to figure out what will work.)
If you have a screenshot of the pipe setup I'd like to see it. Are you leaving the salt that remains there until the geyser goes dormant, or are your dupes having to make due without table salt?
Unfortunately I have already scrapped the setup a couple of cycles ago. I am rebuilding it bigger and more complex this time around. Will take a couple of more days since the expansion has come in conflict with a chlorine room and that always takes ages to pump out.
I am setting up an auto sweeper setup to move out the hot salt, but I am not sure if I am going to use it. I already have so much salt from just digging it out. And then there's still the subsurface ocean to deal with.
Ah, I'm probably projecting my current Badlands base, where there are no tidepool biomes, no salt water geyser, and the metric fucktons of granite and rock have kinda diminished the size of the rust biomes I run across, so very little salt from that. I do have a chlorine geyser I can use for salt vines, but I've been using it for Squeaky puft ranching, since they were the type of puft I started with since there are no slime biomes (granted, I probably don't need them now that I have a full ranch of the dense Pufts I actually wanted, but on the other hand that clhorine geyser is right next to a gold volcano that would make a future farm setup difficult, and there is no nat gas geysers either, so I'm planning on liquifying the clhorine for gas grass/gassy moos as soon as I find them). I actually tried to get around this shortcoming with a map that also had subsurface oceans, but apparently the irregular oil feature and the Badlands trumps that, because most of the surface is oil biome, with a normal-sized tidepool and some badlands I was able to dig out for space travel.
The irregular oil has been interesting. Interestingly, it doesn't seem to prevent the standard oil biome at the bottom of the map, but instead adds it as a possible biome that can spawn above that, usually near the edges. This has meant that I've been able to set up a well and refinery pretty much right next to where the rockets are, as well as close to the CO2 geyser which, along with my petroleum generators, I'm raising Molten slicksters.
Actually kinda bummed with the good luck I've had. I was expecting a challenge with water and heat, because two of the biomes with guaranteed water geysers or vents would be missing and no clay or p. Oxygen from swamp biomes meant I'd have to get all mine from deliberate p. Oxygen production using p water and dirt, but fairly soon into it I found a polluted water vent that effectively solved both issues; just make a massive wide pit under it with regularly placed deodorizers with auto sweepers to send the clay to the kiln, and since dupes can't get food poisoning from inhalation, I can pump out everything above a certain level and use it for whatever, just make sure to use only the water from the single cool steam vent for cooking or water coolers (or be ready to make the occasional curative tablet). Also, while they are a massive pain to dig through (especially when they've divided up your starting biome into a handful of mini biomes) the unique badlands biomes contain mineable Iron. Not Iron ore, but refined Iron, enough I largely haven't bothered with lead for wiring because even after starting up full scale steel production I always have more iron than lead.
Still, this does mean I'm getting further into space than ever before, while avoiding the annoying headaches that have stopped other bases short of that (like chronic brownouts because the base hinged on geothermal power that wasn't there anymore). Been experimenting with ways to clean up post-meteor regolith that doesn't involve making a massive automatic door rock cruncher (not because I think it's cheating, only that I don't want to deal with the massive building and automation setup) turns out auto-miners can't dig themselves out of regolith, and since they generate heat while they dig, need to be made out of steel and regularly put in something other than vacuum to cool down (because buildings, i.e. anything constructable that isn't a door or tile, only interacts with the matter in the tiles it physically occupies (the gas or liquid it's in, or solid if it's buried, but NOT other constructions within that tile) and (sometimes) it's contents for the purpose of heat transfer... and if their tiles only have vacuum, they don't lose or gain a single degree from transfer, regardless of the temp of what they are sitting on.) Granted, it doesn't need to be *that* cool when made out of steel, been using excess water from the steam vent (yeah, got one of those too) and it keeps them at or slightly above 100°C just fine (also, the vacuum loss isn't instant, nor does it suck away liquid as long as the tile it's isn't exposed, so I can just have the liquid vent directly above the miner with only a couple tiles at it's base with drywall.) Unfortunately, they can't mine through open bunker doors or airlocks either, or I'd stuff them in rooms that get filled with excess oxygen between meteor showers. Of course, they become perfectly viable with enough nobium or thermium; then the regolith that momentarily buries them until a nearby miner digs them out would be enough to "cool" them off and reaching their 575°C breaking point.
Ok, so I still have 76 hours of playing to go before I have to figure out auto sweepers. I'll figure them out someday, maybe.
What's giving you grief with em? Out at the moment, but I'll write up a simple crash course to them and the sort of things you can do when I get home
I just haven't played around with them much since the game hasn't forced me to, except for when I had to install a conveyor rail to unload my rocket.
Yeah, I spent a long time wondering how I was suppose to use them as well, but I've quickly warmed up to them with a little experimenting.
As for how they work: The auto sweepers pick up any solid on the ground in their range and move them to either a container or Conveyor Loader that is accepting it, a building or farming tile that needs it for production or repair, or a construction job, all of which must also be within range. They will also move items from one container (including conveyor receptacles) to a building or construction job, or to another container (including loaders) but in the case of containers, the second container/loader must have a higher priority than the first container/receptacle. Other than that, they will also obey sweeping rules (resources marked for sweeping get higher priority vs. the same resource not marked, will only load items marked for sweeping into sweep-only containers) They can also pick up resources on the other side of opened airlocks and bunker doors, and even closed pneumatic doors, but are blocked by any tile.
They are most commonly used in conjunction with conveyor systems, moving solids into a loader and picking them up from a receptacle (or ground if using a chute) and load it to it's final destination (or the next step to it) but they can be useful even by themselves. Specifically, they can be used to provide the "last mile" transportation from a nearby storage to the building or domesticated plant, which is usually an amount far less that what the dupes themselves can carry, leaving duplicants to only have to make the occasional bulk delivery of what could be several hundred kg of the needed resource and not have to bother with the moving the couple dozen kg (or less) that is actually being used at any given time from the container to the building in question. For some examples:
The phosphorite (which is actually delivered by chute with a conveyor system, but for the sake of explanation we'll pretend it was hand-delivered to a container) is applied by the auto-sweepers to the pincha peppernuts as needed, meaning the dupes only have to show up to deliver phosphorite by the hundreds of Kg to a container, and not come back again and again to take out just 3kg of phosporite to apply it to each pincha peppernut, meaning the the only time they need to every interact with the plants themselves is during harvest time, (which will be picked up by the auto-sweepers to place in the loader and delivered to the kitchen) and can spend their time doing other jobs and deliveries.
This autosweeper takes the gristle berry, BBQ and cooked fish from the electric grill and moves it over to the gas range for orders of Stuffed berry and Surf N' Turf, as well as raw egg from the egg cracker to the grill. Even using it for a short 4 tile trip like this streamlines the process, because A.) The dupe who might have otherwise done the delivery might not be a duplicant who can actually work the gas range, and B.) Even if they are, they might not realize that delivery means they can begin cooking before they are drawn away by another task.
As for conveyors themselves, They start with loaders, end in chutes or receptacles, and follow normal piping logic, with each packet being up to 20kg or a single egg. Loaders and receptacles can be used by dupes if set for manual use, but are better left to the auto-sweepers, because as with "last mile" usage, both are much smaller capacities than dupes can normally carry (loader is actually larger than a dupe that doesn't have supply skills can carry, but can still be a chokepoint for delivery if it's something you expect multiple dupes to be filling) and also can make managing storage unnecessarily complicated if the priorities aren't set right (I mean, you don't want a dupe to take out resources from a receptacle only to carry it back to the loader that delivered it there in the first place, right?) Chutes are the ideal endpoint for bulk deliveries, or to places that might not have an auto-sweeper for whatever reason, while receptacles are best used as a way to deliberately constraint transportation or when wanting to deliver to multiple locations without having to set up individual rail systems for each place; For example, since phophorite is also used for wheezeworts, I might replace that chute in my pepper farm for a receptacle and add additional conveyor rail past it to deliver any extra phophorite to a location closer to where I have planted wheezworts. Some examples of that:
This is something I often set up when I breach the oil biome. The sweep-only containers are for lead, fossil, iron, igneous rock and granite (I have the rocks there because that lets me do massive sweep orders without having to pick and choose each individual piece of debris, and I find the Sweep for type mod only slightly less cumbersome than that.) the bottom loader is for the resources I actually want, the top for junk. The priorities are set up like this:
So that when dupes load marked-for sweeping resources to the containers, the sweeper will first load the resources that I want, which go to a central location, before loading the rocks into the top one, which is set up to be blocked by anything still being sent from the bottom loader, by placing a conveyor bridge whose output is on the path the resources from the bottom loader takes. This means that any time I want to build a single tile of automation wire with lead, the dupe tasked with delivery will not have to travel all the way down to the oil biome for just 5kg of lead.
If you don't want to build loaders and rails for every possible resource that you might get from a room, you might have to set one of these up. Receptacle brings in resources from the space ship and other production sites, and then filters them to the places that need them; top loader is for refined carbon and lime to be delivered to where steel production is at (next to the slickster ranch where the coolant can be occasionally piped through to keep it over 100C for molten slicksters) while the bottom is for rare resources to the molecular forge and the mundane components to make endgame materials. When I tap my gold volcano, the gold from there would eventually be shipped to here to go to the forge for super coolant, as will reed fiber and abbysitte when I find a planet that'd be a good source of isoresin.
Dirt and phosphorite come in from the receptacle to be placed in the fertilizer synthesizer. when the fertilizer is produced, it is placed either in the loader, or since it's backed up with full receptacles at the other end, into the storage, which functions as overflow for all three solid resources. Since the synthesizer doesn't require any duplicant interaction other than delivery, I can leave it in an air-tight room that allows me to pump out the nat gas the synthesizer makes for a little RoI in power; the only reason the door is there is because of a piping snafu that lead to the synthesizer breaking when delivered a bunch of clean water by mistake.
I'm sure ZombiePenguin has much more impressive examples, as I don't normally take the effort to optimize things as much as I could (the fact the egg cracker still sees use attests to that) but I hope those can provide ideas on how you can use it until in the meantime.
I'm sure ZombiePenguin has much more impressive examples, as I don't normally take the effort to optimize things as much as I could (the fact the egg cracker still sees use attests to that) but I hope those can provide ideas on how you can use it until in the meantime.
Nah, you covered most of what i was going to cover honestly!
I would point out that despite what they claim, they draw very little power in practice, since it's only while they're active. I have a network that's got 5k worth of stuff plugged in, and it's never overloaded once despite only using conductive wire.
What i will do is point out some good uses for them.
One: I often have a long shaft from the top of the map to the bottom. It's usually right by the entrance to my base. Net result: Dupes tend to drop shit down it when they get interrupted for whatever reason (Shift change being the obvious issue). So a autosweeper and a conveyor loader at the very bottom, with a long rail that goes up to a chute right over my central quantum storage lock? Easy rescue of stuff. This is epsecially great in the early game when your'e just breaking into biomes or other unbreathable areas - dupes will drop a LOT of stuff when they have to go catch their breath.
Two: Saving dupe time on repitivie tasks. Specifically, things like putting fresh sand into a water filter, or refilling critter's food. The critter feeder can only hold a tiny amount of food, and hatches are some HUNGRY fellows. You caan loose a lot of dupe time to trying to keep that stocked. Easy solution: A medium priority storage locker set to hold whatever the critter's food is, in range of a sweeper. Critters eat food form the dispenser, autosweeper reloads it, and dupes make much fewer trips to refill the locker than they would to refill the feeder. Later on you can just put receptacles in to cut out dupe time entirely. Similarly, lockers with sand in them next to a water filter, and a conveyor loader set to accept the polluted dirt and ship it somewhere useful (Mine's just dumped into my organic storage which is kept under water, so it never offgases).
A third use: Making your critter farms insanley productive. Critters get a nasty debuff that shuts down reproduction entirely when there are more critters + eggs in a ranch than fit. (Each critter needs 12 tiles of space - some need less, like i think pacu only need 8 tiles? pufts may be similar). And dupes can take a very long time to pull eggs out. THis means most ranches can only hold 8 critters, and they make a LOT of eggs, fast. Easy fix? A loader mounted right by the wall, with the conyveor rail inside the wall. Sweeper will grab eggs and get them out of the room the moment they're laid, which keeps your ranches at maximum egg production. Then you can easily ship eggs to a drowning room, or similar.
So on and so forth. Anywhere where there's likely to be a repetitive task that would eat up a lot of dupe time, sweepers can help.
Like, look at my industrial brick picture upthread - all those kilns? Kept fed by an autosweeper, which also ships all the ceramic back into my base when i need it. Coal is shipped in, Dupes bring clay as needed since i fel that setting up a second rail for that was going to be a mess (hence, storage locker for hte clay.) all the lime and refined carbon gets sent up a level to my refineries, ready for use. Plastic is moved into storage the moment it's created (And the storage tells the plastic makers to shut down when i have enough of a reserve), excess is shipped off to base - or if i wanted, a tweak of the priorities and plastic will be shipped straight to my base. Sweepers are in my main pool of water, collecting all the debries my wild pacu make, and shipping filets and egg shells to where i need them.
All this by autosweepers - which leaves my dupes free to build, strip mine areas, and do other tasks.
I think I saw one automated setup to sweep eggs and drop them in a one-tile water pit covered by a locked mesh door.
If the eggs were needed, dupes could reach them through the door. If not, they eventually hatched into a critter who'd then evolve into their final form of meat, which would be swept up.
I haven't quite figured out how to do this yet though, and I can't find the video where I saw the design.
I think I saw one automated setup to sweep eggs and drop them in a one-tile water pit covered by a locked mesh door.
If the eggs were needed, dupes could reach them through the door. If not, they eventually hatched into a critter who'd then evolve into their final form of meat, which would be swept up.
I haven't quite figured out how to do this yet though, and I can't find the video where I saw the design.
The way that's done is by having the conyvor chute deliver the eggs straight into the water - as long as the door's closed and there's enough water, the critters will drown. My setup is way more complicated, and i'm not sure it's more complicated to any real benefit. It is less gamey however (I feel like eggs should not hatch underwater unless they're water based critters, you know?).
Once I'm set up to cook meat, is there any point to keeping an egg cracker around?
Mainly so if you need to, you can smash eggs you dont want to hatch. Like if you're farming Pinches, there's no easy way to kill them - So you might want to smash their eggs. (Frankly, i'd just create a drop pit for them and let the jerks starve). It just gives you an extra way to dispose of excesss eggs. Honestly, it costs 2 tiles, i dont think it's a big cost to keep one somewhere in your base.
If it does, I will replace the coolant with something else and actually use that cooling for something useful
Might need an automation overview as well.
One thing I noticed is that the bypass for the aquatuners when they aren't running might be too long relative to where it reconnects with the loop. You're going to have some water stuck there the first time they are shut off for whatever reason, which *could* be a problem if you keep adding water to the line.
Do conveyors work like pipes, or what? Can I set up a kind of loop and materials will send themselves to the receptacle I set to receive them, or will I have to set up separate networks for eggs, building materials, etc?
It's a moot point at the moment because I only have one dupe who can build this stuff. I'd been ignoring operating for the most part because level 2 was about tuning power generation, and I've got power to spare thanks to two natural gas geysers. So my designated cook is now also the only dupe who can build conveyors.
Do conveyors work like pipes, or what? Can I set up a kind of loop and materials will send themselves to the receptacle I set to receive them, or will I have to set up separate networks for eggs, building materials, etc?
It's a moot point at the moment because I only have one dupe who can build this stuff. I'd been ignoring operating for the most part because level 2 was about tuning power generation, and I've got power to spare thanks to two natural gas geysers. So my designated cook is now also the only dupe who can build conveyors.
There isn't any sort of filter system you can set up, no. You'd have to either set separate conveyor systems for each material or material type, or create a sort of "distribution center" where everything collected in one or more rooms is sent to a room where auto sweepers sort them into separate loaders that send everything to where it needs to go.
You can do a loop for a single material type and use receptacles to keep things evenly distributed though. Fort example, sand is used in deodorizers, water sieves, and the glass forge, which for various reasons are often distributed around your base and not in a single location. Instead of attempting to have the sand your dupes store from digging or crushing rocks get distributed into X number of loaders and go mad trying to make sure each location gets the sand it needs, you can instead create a loop where the sand will fill up receptacles on the path before moving on, and you can adjust how much stays in each location by having a storage container within range of the sweeper that's set to the amount you want on hand.
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MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
A tip on autosweepers is that they automatically load machines as well. So you can use them to run kilns, deodirizers, water purifiers, fertilise plants etc without dupe labour.
I assume autosweepers aren't smart enough to pass materials between themselves? So if I want them managing a farm I've got to make at least two, then come up with a way to make sure both of them can get the resources they need.
I'm sure I'll figure this out, but I won't be able to experiment with them until I can get a few more dupes trained up (experimenting with one dupe is waaay too slow to bother).
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MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
If it does, I will replace the coolant with something else and actually use that cooling for something useful
Might need an automation overview as well.
One thing I noticed is that the bypass for the aquatuners when they aren't running might be too long relative to where it reconnects with the loop. You're going to have some water stuck there the first time they are shut off for whatever reason, which *could* be a problem if you keep adding water to the line.
The automation is simple; Right aquatuner is on when the oil layer is below 130°C and its coolant can handle another pass. It's basically my primer to keep the oil nice and toasty.
Left aquatuner is on when the oil temp is below 150°C (and when there's water to be cooled, though that's not really "automated")
I've also added some automation to check that if the water temp is above 140°C (might change that to 150) or the air pressure is below 2KGs to pump in some salt water from my salt water geyser.
You're right about the auqatuner bypass though, and I'm not sure I even need it? This isn't a traditional cooling loop so if the aquatuner isn't running, water doesn't really need to circulate. And with my salt water coming in, there shouldn't be a situation where the aquatuner isn't running when there's water available in the pipes.
That won't solve the issue with it backing up though since my water input far exceeds my cool water output.
I'm also going to add a 3rd steam turbine.
You'll notice that my steam turbine overflow is outputting to the same resiviour as my cold water, and that's because I don't need to water to be cold, just not steam. If I wanted just cold water I can just loop my steam turbine output back into my steam room.
In hindsight the water resivour might have been a bad idea, because it equalizes the water temp so you don't get any cold water output for several cycles, then suddenly 5 tons worth, and then back to just hot water output. Will see if that becomes a problem.
I assume autosweepers aren't smart enough to pass materials between themselves? So if I want them managing a farm I've got to make at least two, then come up with a way to make sure both of them can get the resources they need.
I'm sure I'll figure this out, but I won't be able to experiment with them until I can get a few more dupes trained up (experimenting with one dupe is waaay too slow to bother).
They do not, but if you let them overlap one tile you can drop off the material there and they can both grab it.
Autosweepers will grab materials from storage contrainers to load machines, but not to ship off. I'm not sure if there's a priority on whether it'll load storage contrainers or loaders first though. Might be something to look at, that way you can make a chain and keep a set amount of materials at each location.
I assume autosweepers aren't smart enough to pass materials between themselves? So if I want them managing a farm I've got to make at least two, then come up with a way to make sure both of them can get the resources they need.
I'm sure I'll figure this out, but I won't be able to experiment with them until I can get a few more dupes trained up (experimenting with one dupe is waaay too slow to bother).
They do not, but if you let them overlap one tile you can drop off the material there and they can both grab it.
Autosweepers will grab materials from storage contrainers to load machines, but not to ship off. I'm not sure if there's a priority on whether it'll load storage contrainers or loaders first though. Might be something to look at, that way you can make a chain and keep a set amount of materials at each location.
Loader needs to be a higher priority than the container for the sweeper to move resources between the two. This is actually kind of useful, since you can then use the loader as an overflow for when storage is full. (To, say, send it deeper into your storage area, or to a place that uses that resourse, but only in small amounts and/or not set up to be dupe-accessible.) Not sure what the behavior is when both are the same priority though.
While they can't hand resources to each other, you can create a relay system with sweepers using unpowered automatic dispensers, which IIRC is actually faster and cheaper on power than loaders for large amounts over a relatively short distance. This is because sweepers can move up to 1000kg of stuff at a time, which a loader would have to spend 6kj of power dividing it into 50 20kg as it sends it out, when (rough estimate napkin map) an autosweeper relay could move that stuff about 100 tiles with just a little less power and time.
So, I just had a weird problem to have; generating too much power:
You see, I don't usually put a temp gauge in the steam chamber of my cooling loops because I figure even with the turbine connected to a smart battery it will run often enough to delete the heat. However, between 3 nat gas generators, 3 petroleum generators, 5 coal, a second cooling loop, and the two turbines running off the steam vent, it, ah, didn't. And the steam got so hot it melt the lead wiring I used. Which inadvertently saved the aqua tuner from breaking, but it still meant I had to break into it an fix the wiring before everyone starved to death, because that loop was the thing keeping the mealwood the glossy drecko eat and bristle blossoms everyone else eats cool enough to grow.
Now the active point is set to 95% of battery capacity, at least until the inside is back under 150°C. And I'm probably going to disable a couple generators in the meantime, until I get the liquid Hydrogen and O2 loops set up.
So, I just had a weird problem to have; generating too much power:
You see, I don't usually put a temp gauge in the steam chamber of my cooling loops because I figure even with the turbine connected to a smart battery it will run often enough to delete the heat. However, between 3 nat gas generators, 3 petroleum generators, 5 coal, a second cooling loop, and the two turbines running off the steam vent, it, ah, didn't. And the steam got so hot it melt the lead wiring I used. Which inadvertently saved the aqua tuner from breaking, but it still meant I had to break into it an fix the wiring before everyone starved to death, because that loop was the thing keeping the mealwood the glossy drecko eat and bristle blossoms everyone else eats cool enough to grow.
Now the active point is set to 95% of battery capacity, at least until the inside is back under 150°C. And I'm probably going to disable a couple generators in the meantime, until I get the liquid Hydrogen and O2 loops set up.
And this is part of why i feed my dupes on meat products =P. I still need to break into my geothermal plant and get the liquid lead in there out. Does sound similar to issues i ran into with my industrial block - When running at full capacity, the steam turbines could not delete heat fast enough. So i've upgraded it to have a monstrous 8 turbines, and that seems to be working. Also means i get a LOT of power out of it when it's running full tilt. Or, at least enoguh power to break even.
Also i'm starting to think Glossy Dreckos are a waste of time. Passive plastic production IS nice, but it's also something you can rush pretty easily - even an oil refinery can easily supply a couple of plastic presses, and those vomit out plastic at a startling rate. I'm not sure though, it's one i'm still figuring out - the passive production is nice. But wether it's worth the dupe labor time, not to mention drecko ranches being a right pain in the butt to optimize, that i'm not so sure. I think they're going to become something i setup later?
Right now i'm trying to figure out volcano taming before i broach space - my base is having a few power issues. Or rather ,it's getting close to - it's sitll power postive/power netural i ngeneral, and the battery bank i built is doing wonders to smooth things out, but it's not really going to handle any extra load, and it's still chewing up all my natural gas and hydrogen, rather than stockpiling like i was before.
So current plans are to tame the volcano by my base for a Petroleum boiler, and figure out taming the 2 copper volcanos next to each otehr, the iron volcano ,and the gold volcano i have on the map - mainly to try and turn them into geothermal power sources, rather than to actually get the materials out of them. though, obviously, i ideally do both, probably through some sort of of conyevor loop through diamond mounted againt a steam room. or something. This game is complicated!
For me, Glossy Dreckos seems like an obvious thing to do. Yeah, setting up their pen correctly is a pain, but when it's done, you're getting plastic for dirt and no power, rather than water (which IMO is more valuable than dirt) and the power to run the polymer press *and* the mandatory cooling loop to keep the plastic from instantly melting into naphtha as soon as it comes out (or an AETN that's not too far out of the way to pipe the petroleum to; mealwood isn't quite the same, since I've been able to keep the temp steady in many cases mixing in wheeseworts, which use the phosporite the dreckos already make) And since I can set it up long before I actually *need* plastic for anything, I usually have more than enough stockpiled for my initial steam turbines and transit tube by the time I'm ready to build them.
As for taming metal volcanoes, the trick for pre-space is automated airlocks. Brothgar actually did a new video recently about making a universal volcano tamer using automated doors to "transport" the metal or rock in question so it doesn't become a solid block you have to mine out and still be in a place you can reach that keeps the chamber airtight:
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It's still pretty easy to get all the morale you need to specialize dupes as you want in Survival, though you might not be able to create omni-disciplinary Super Dupes until you have almost all the possible morale bonuses you can get.
As for food, even if you take new dupes at every opportunity, most maps will have enough muckroot and soon-to-be-harvest wild mealwood to extend the starting nutrient bars till at least cycle 7 or so, and once you have it down to pat you can start placing planter boxes at every open space by the start of cycle 3.
idk how i'd even expand it, don't really have space to expand and my ranching dupe is almost there full time.
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If you can crack open an oil biome, the fossils you mine can be turned to lime also.
The only thing that lays enough eggs to support a industrial scale steel production are tamed and regularly fed pacus, but that takes way too much algae to sustain for very long. The other ways mentioned (pokeshells and mining fossil) are better.
If you want to get extra nutty, you can create a shine bug reactor. Turns out if you engage in some clever shenanigans, you can cram enough shine bugs into a 1x1 square to easily power multiple solar panels. Free power at the price of animal cruelty!
Another thing with eggs is off you're doing any serious ranching, setting up automated incubators helps a lot. Incubators only need to be powered on long enough for your rancher to come hug the egg. Plus you'll hatch eggs that much faster.
Or you could just crack them, but why waste free bbq?
My personal rule of thumb is one incubator per ranch. That's usually enough to keep a ranch topped up perfectly, at least for hatches. If you want I can post a screenshot of the setup and the automation for it.
Meanwhile, I'm happy - after some trial and error that included accidentally making things out of lead, I have a very nice steam vent tamer hooked up. Happily gives me a bunch of free geothermal power, the hot water it creates gets fed into my spom, and some extra automation feeds in extra water as needed to turn the rest of that tasty thermal mass into more power.
Untreated to this, dupes are banned from the oxygen box. Last I checked it had something like 20,000kg of oxygen per tile.
That's not a typo. This is what happens when you hook up a gas compressor to your spoms overflow, and your spom makes 3kg/s (i.e enough to sustain 30 dupes...I only have 15).
Guess it'll be useful when I get around to making liquid oxygen!
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So far I've setup an insulated reservoir for my water geyser, tamed 3 iron volcanos and 1 gold volcano.
And I think I need to relook at power rooms. Originally they were a detriment because dupes would tune up unused petroleum generators, however they are no longer unused and my petroleum refineries are overheating due to their constant use. So something to decrease that will help. Especially now that I am planning on adding a 5th or 6th aquatuner.
Then I need to move my ranches out of my main base and optimize them, which means I can finally expand my roster over 16 dupes.
And then finally start my space program.
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For me, "taming" a cool Steam geyser has pretty much always meant "setting up the plumbing so it's the water used for the electrolyzer whenever it's erupting."
As long as it's below 70C when it reaches there it won't raise the output temp from the electrolyzers at all, and even if it is, water has a higher thermal capacity than oxygen + hydrogen, so it comes out as a net heat loss anyway.
It's a bit near my base for letting residual heat escape to get it down from cool steam to hot water.
My plan so far is to pump the salt water into the same insulated chamber as the steam vent, heat it up using an aquatuner and using steam turbines to cool it down and use the 95°C water for things.
Added benefit of of purifying my salt water.
However I tried to be clever, and siphon of some water to run through the aquatuner to also output some cold water, with the idea that it'll be self regulating, only running when there's water available and not having to check both the temp of the heating chamber and the temp of the pipes.
But my pipe layout is getting more and more convoluted and eventually backs up and everything stops. Water flow gets a bit weird when the pipes intersect multiple input/output junctions even if it looks like it should work.
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Don't tap the cool Steam geyser at the source, but about 20-30 tiles below it after clearing a path for the condensing water to fall. The more matter it has to come into contact with/pass through (even if it's just air) to reach the pump, the more heat it will lose along the way. You can insulate the chamber for the whole thing, then during dormant periods you can either divert your cooling loop or have the hydrogen from your electrolyzer run by there in radiant vents before going to the hydrogen generator (which, with no physical output, is deleting 100% of the heat the hydrogen absorbed) so the insulation doesn't eventually make the cool steam stay as steam.
You can automate the tracking of the geyser's active/dormant period for the diversion with a liquid valve set to the average output per second (that is, the Per Second output during eruption times
the Eruption period divided by the Total eruption cycle) of the geyser and a pipe element sensor. Liquid valve will make sure the flow for the element sensor is constant, so you don't have it start and stop constantly (otherwise it's memory toggles and buffer gates and you having to constantly tweak the amounts/time to figure out what will work.)
If you have a screenshot of the pipe setup I'd like to see it. Are you leaving the salt that remains there until the geyser goes dormant, or are your dupes having to make due without table salt?
From top to bottom: Main base, industrial brick and it's cooling, Geothermal plant and main base cooling/geothermal cooling, and cool steam vent tamer (It's handling 3 cool steam vents with ease. Probably a bit overkill, but it means i've a very steady, very safe water supply).
Currently doodling around the map trying to unearth all the geysers, vents and volcanos and figure out what i've got to work with. So far LOTS of volcanos, and not much else - though 3 cool steam vents. Which are not as exciting as actual steam vents. Still, Water is sorted - there's a couple of polluted water geysers too, if i want to jam them into a germ-spinner for Even More Water.
Current plans are to scrap the petroleum boilers and build a real one using the volcano below my industrial brick, toy with making a Squeaky Lettuce Ranch since i have a chlorine geyser + salt water geyser already, finish strip mining the oil biome, maybe strip mine the frozen core (Wolframite!). Should probably find somewhere to put a real hospital in, just for insurance purposes. There's not really a lot of hot stuff on this map to scald dupes though (You know, it seems werid to me you can get dupes scalded, but there's no equivalent for exposing them to insanely cold temps - they just get hypothermia in which case, geez, just walk it off dupes).
I also want to tweak/expand the Dupe Gym, so i need to find space for that. Probably plug it in on the other side of the resedntial area? or just build it into the power plant, since that already exists. Kinda given up on having showers this time - all my dupes have 40+ morale thanks to decor bombing and a surf'n'turf diet, so showers would only be a way to turn dupe time into polluted water. Which i dont really need, so ???
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Unfortunately I have already scrapped the setup a couple of cycles ago. I am rebuilding it bigger and more complex this time around. Will take a couple of more days since the expansion has come in conflict with a chlorine room and that always takes ages to pump out.
I am setting up an auto sweeper setup to move out the hot salt, but I am not sure if I am going to use it. I already have so much salt from just digging it out. And then there's still the subsurface ocean to deal with.
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And to give you an impression as to how resistant I am to learning new things I only now
now
Am building a base to use automation on a large scale.
300 hours
EDIT: Basically, I was finding it onerous to progress as I got further and further into stuff and realized I need to stop relying on my dupes for general labour. Started figuring out automation and then was like: "This could solve all my problems!"
Ah, I'm probably projecting my current Badlands base, where there are no tidepool biomes, no salt water geyser, and the metric fucktons of granite and rock have kinda diminished the size of the rust biomes I run across, so very little salt from that. I do have a chlorine geyser I can use for salt vines, but I've been using it for Squeaky puft ranching, since they were the type of puft I started with since there are no slime biomes (granted, I probably don't need them now that I have a full ranch of the dense Pufts I actually wanted, but on the other hand that clhorine geyser is right next to a gold volcano that would make a future farm setup difficult, and there is no nat gas geysers either, so I'm planning on liquifying the clhorine for gas grass/gassy moos as soon as I find them). I actually tried to get around this shortcoming with a map that also had subsurface oceans, but apparently the irregular oil feature and the Badlands trumps that, because most of the surface is oil biome, with a normal-sized tidepool and some badlands I was able to dig out for space travel.
The irregular oil has been interesting. Interestingly, it doesn't seem to prevent the standard oil biome at the bottom of the map, but instead adds it as a possible biome that can spawn above that, usually near the edges. This has meant that I've been able to set up a well and refinery pretty much right next to where the rockets are, as well as close to the CO2 geyser which, along with my petroleum generators, I'm raising Molten slicksters.
Actually kinda bummed with the good luck I've had. I was expecting a challenge with water and heat, because two of the biomes with guaranteed water geysers or vents would be missing and no clay or p. Oxygen from swamp biomes meant I'd have to get all mine from deliberate p. Oxygen production using p water and dirt, but fairly soon into it I found a polluted water vent that effectively solved both issues; just make a massive wide pit under it with regularly placed deodorizers with auto sweepers to send the clay to the kiln, and since dupes can't get food poisoning from inhalation, I can pump out everything above a certain level and use it for whatever, just make sure to use only the water from the single cool steam vent for cooking or water coolers (or be ready to make the occasional curative tablet). Also, while they are a massive pain to dig through (especially when they've divided up your starting biome into a handful of mini biomes) the unique badlands biomes contain mineable Iron. Not Iron ore, but refined Iron, enough I largely haven't bothered with lead for wiring because even after starting up full scale steel production I always have more iron than lead.
Still, this does mean I'm getting further into space than ever before, while avoiding the annoying headaches that have stopped other bases short of that (like chronic brownouts because the base hinged on geothermal power that wasn't there anymore). Been experimenting with ways to clean up post-meteor regolith that doesn't involve making a massive automatic door rock cruncher (not because I think it's cheating, only that I don't want to deal with the massive building and automation setup) turns out auto-miners can't dig themselves out of regolith, and since they generate heat while they dig, need to be made out of steel and regularly put in something other than vacuum to cool down (because buildings, i.e. anything constructable that isn't a door or tile, only interacts with the matter in the tiles it physically occupies (the gas or liquid it's in, or solid if it's buried, but NOT other constructions within that tile) and (sometimes) it's contents for the purpose of heat transfer... and if their tiles only have vacuum, they don't lose or gain a single degree from transfer, regardless of the temp of what they are sitting on.) Granted, it doesn't need to be *that* cool when made out of steel, been using excess water from the steam vent (yeah, got one of those too) and it keeps them at or slightly above 100°C just fine (also, the vacuum loss isn't instant, nor does it suck away liquid as long as the tile it's isn't exposed, so I can just have the liquid vent directly above the miner with only a couple tiles at it's base with drywall.) Unfortunately, they can't mine through open bunker doors or airlocks either, or I'd stuff them in rooms that get filled with excess oxygen between meteor showers. Of course, they become perfectly viable with enough nobium or thermium; then the regolith that momentarily buries them until a nearby miner digs them out would be enough to "cool" them off and reaching their 575°C breaking point.
What's giving you grief with em? Out at the moment, but I'll write up a simple crash course to them and the sort of things you can do when I get home
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I just haven't played around with them much since the game hasn't forced me to, except for when I had to install a conveyor rail to unload my rocket.
Yeah, I spent a long time wondering how I was suppose to use them as well, but I've quickly warmed up to them with a little experimenting.
As for how they work: The auto sweepers pick up any solid on the ground in their range and move them to either a container or Conveyor Loader that is accepting it, a building or farming tile that needs it for production or repair, or a construction job, all of which must also be within range. They will also move items from one container (including conveyor receptacles) to a building or construction job, or to another container (including loaders) but in the case of containers, the second container/loader must have a higher priority than the first container/receptacle. Other than that, they will also obey sweeping rules (resources marked for sweeping get higher priority vs. the same resource not marked, will only load items marked for sweeping into sweep-only containers) They can also pick up resources on the other side of opened airlocks and bunker doors, and even closed pneumatic doors, but are blocked by any tile.
They are most commonly used in conjunction with conveyor systems, moving solids into a loader and picking them up from a receptacle (or ground if using a chute) and load it to it's final destination (or the next step to it) but they can be useful even by themselves. Specifically, they can be used to provide the "last mile" transportation from a nearby storage to the building or domesticated plant, which is usually an amount far less that what the dupes themselves can carry, leaving duplicants to only have to make the occasional bulk delivery of what could be several hundred kg of the needed resource and not have to bother with the moving the couple dozen kg (or less) that is actually being used at any given time from the container to the building in question. For some examples:
The phosphorite (which is actually delivered by chute with a conveyor system, but for the sake of explanation we'll pretend it was hand-delivered to a container) is applied by the auto-sweepers to the pincha peppernuts as needed, meaning the dupes only have to show up to deliver phosphorite by the hundreds of Kg to a container, and not come back again and again to take out just 3kg of phosporite to apply it to each pincha peppernut, meaning the the only time they need to every interact with the plants themselves is during harvest time, (which will be picked up by the auto-sweepers to place in the loader and delivered to the kitchen) and can spend their time doing other jobs and deliveries.
This autosweeper takes the gristle berry, BBQ and cooked fish from the electric grill and moves it over to the gas range for orders of Stuffed berry and Surf N' Turf, as well as raw egg from the egg cracker to the grill. Even using it for a short 4 tile trip like this streamlines the process, because A.) The dupe who might have otherwise done the delivery might not be a duplicant who can actually work the gas range, and B.) Even if they are, they might not realize that delivery means they can begin cooking before they are drawn away by another task.
As for conveyors themselves, They start with loaders, end in chutes or receptacles, and follow normal piping logic, with each packet being up to 20kg or a single egg. Loaders and receptacles can be used by dupes if set for manual use, but are better left to the auto-sweepers, because as with "last mile" usage, both are much smaller capacities than dupes can normally carry (loader is actually larger than a dupe that doesn't have supply skills can carry, but can still be a chokepoint for delivery if it's something you expect multiple dupes to be filling) and also can make managing storage unnecessarily complicated if the priorities aren't set right (I mean, you don't want a dupe to take out resources from a receptacle only to carry it back to the loader that delivered it there in the first place, right?) Chutes are the ideal endpoint for bulk deliveries, or to places that might not have an auto-sweeper for whatever reason, while receptacles are best used as a way to deliberately constraint transportation or when wanting to deliver to multiple locations without having to set up individual rail systems for each place; For example, since phophorite is also used for wheezeworts, I might replace that chute in my pepper farm for a receptacle and add additional conveyor rail past it to deliver any extra phophorite to a location closer to where I have planted wheezworts. Some examples of that:
This is something I often set up when I breach the oil biome. The sweep-only containers are for lead, fossil, iron, igneous rock and granite (I have the rocks there because that lets me do massive sweep orders without having to pick and choose each individual piece of debris, and I find the Sweep for type mod only slightly less cumbersome than that.) the bottom loader is for the resources I actually want, the top for junk. The priorities are set up like this:
So that when dupes load marked-for sweeping resources to the containers, the sweeper will first load the resources that I want, which go to a central location, before loading the rocks into the top one, which is set up to be blocked by anything still being sent from the bottom loader, by placing a conveyor bridge whose output is on the path the resources from the bottom loader takes. This means that any time I want to build a single tile of automation wire with lead, the dupe tasked with delivery will not have to travel all the way down to the oil biome for just 5kg of lead.
If you don't want to build loaders and rails for every possible resource that you might get from a room, you might have to set one of these up. Receptacle brings in resources from the space ship and other production sites, and then filters them to the places that need them; top loader is for refined carbon and lime to be delivered to where steel production is at (next to the slickster ranch where the coolant can be occasionally piped through to keep it over 100C for molten slicksters) while the bottom is for rare resources to the molecular forge and the mundane components to make endgame materials. When I tap my gold volcano, the gold from there would eventually be shipped to here to go to the forge for super coolant, as will reed fiber and abbysitte when I find a planet that'd be a good source of isoresin.
Dirt and phosphorite come in from the receptacle to be placed in the fertilizer synthesizer. when the fertilizer is produced, it is placed either in the loader, or since it's backed up with full receptacles at the other end, into the storage, which functions as overflow for all three solid resources. Since the synthesizer doesn't require any duplicant interaction other than delivery, I can leave it in an air-tight room that allows me to pump out the nat gas the synthesizer makes for a little RoI in power; the only reason the door is there is because of a piping snafu that lead to the synthesizer breaking when delivered a bunch of clean water by mistake.
I'm sure ZombiePenguin has much more impressive examples, as I don't normally take the effort to optimize things as much as I could (the fact the egg cracker still sees use attests to that) but I hope those can provide ideas on how you can use it until in the meantime.
Then I found out those were written / contributed by early Kickstarter supporters.
I like all of that, but I would have wished an option to recruit those random characters to my party a la Dragon's Dogma.
No idea if it'll work this time
If it does, I will replace the coolant with something else and actually use that cooling for something useful
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Nah, you covered most of what i was going to cover honestly!
I would point out that despite what they claim, they draw very little power in practice, since it's only while they're active. I have a network that's got 5k worth of stuff plugged in, and it's never overloaded once despite only using conductive wire.
What i will do is point out some good uses for them.
One: I often have a long shaft from the top of the map to the bottom. It's usually right by the entrance to my base. Net result: Dupes tend to drop shit down it when they get interrupted for whatever reason (Shift change being the obvious issue). So a autosweeper and a conveyor loader at the very bottom, with a long rail that goes up to a chute right over my central quantum storage lock? Easy rescue of stuff. This is epsecially great in the early game when your'e just breaking into biomes or other unbreathable areas - dupes will drop a LOT of stuff when they have to go catch their breath.
Two: Saving dupe time on repitivie tasks. Specifically, things like putting fresh sand into a water filter, or refilling critter's food. The critter feeder can only hold a tiny amount of food, and hatches are some HUNGRY fellows. You caan loose a lot of dupe time to trying to keep that stocked. Easy solution: A medium priority storage locker set to hold whatever the critter's food is, in range of a sweeper. Critters eat food form the dispenser, autosweeper reloads it, and dupes make much fewer trips to refill the locker than they would to refill the feeder. Later on you can just put receptacles in to cut out dupe time entirely. Similarly, lockers with sand in them next to a water filter, and a conveyor loader set to accept the polluted dirt and ship it somewhere useful (Mine's just dumped into my organic storage which is kept under water, so it never offgases).
A third use: Making your critter farms insanley productive. Critters get a nasty debuff that shuts down reproduction entirely when there are more critters + eggs in a ranch than fit. (Each critter needs 12 tiles of space - some need less, like i think pacu only need 8 tiles? pufts may be similar). And dupes can take a very long time to pull eggs out. THis means most ranches can only hold 8 critters, and they make a LOT of eggs, fast. Easy fix? A loader mounted right by the wall, with the conyveor rail inside the wall. Sweeper will grab eggs and get them out of the room the moment they're laid, which keeps your ranches at maximum egg production. Then you can easily ship eggs to a drowning room, or similar.
So on and so forth. Anywhere where there's likely to be a repetitive task that would eat up a lot of dupe time, sweepers can help.
Like, look at my industrial brick picture upthread - all those kilns? Kept fed by an autosweeper, which also ships all the ceramic back into my base when i need it. Coal is shipped in, Dupes bring clay as needed since i fel that setting up a second rail for that was going to be a mess (hence, storage locker for hte clay.) all the lime and refined carbon gets sent up a level to my refineries, ready for use. Plastic is moved into storage the moment it's created (And the storage tells the plastic makers to shut down when i have enough of a reserve), excess is shipped off to base - or if i wanted, a tweak of the priorities and plastic will be shipped straight to my base. Sweepers are in my main pool of water, collecting all the debries my wild pacu make, and shipping filets and egg shells to where i need them.
All this by autosweepers - which leaves my dupes free to build, strip mine areas, and do other tasks.
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If the eggs were needed, dupes could reach them through the door. If not, they eventually hatched into a critter who'd then evolve into their final form of meat, which would be swept up.
I haven't quite figured out how to do this yet though, and I can't find the video where I saw the design.
The way that's done is by having the conyvor chute deliver the eggs straight into the water - as long as the door's closed and there's enough water, the critters will drown. My setup is way more complicated, and i'm not sure it's more complicated to any real benefit. It is less gamey however (I feel like eggs should not hatch underwater unless they're water based critters, you know?).
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Mainly so if you need to, you can smash eggs you dont want to hatch. Like if you're farming Pinches, there's no easy way to kill them - So you might want to smash their eggs. (Frankly, i'd just create a drop pit for them and let the jerks starve). It just gives you an extra way to dispose of excesss eggs. Honestly, it costs 2 tiles, i dont think it's a big cost to keep one somewhere in your base.
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Might need an automation overview as well.
One thing I noticed is that the bypass for the aquatuners when they aren't running might be too long relative to where it reconnects with the loop. You're going to have some water stuck there the first time they are shut off for whatever reason, which *could* be a problem if you keep adding water to the line.
It's a moot point at the moment because I only have one dupe who can build this stuff. I'd been ignoring operating for the most part because level 2 was about tuning power generation, and I've got power to spare thanks to two natural gas geysers. So my designated cook is now also the only dupe who can build conveyors.
There isn't any sort of filter system you can set up, no. You'd have to either set separate conveyor systems for each material or material type, or create a sort of "distribution center" where everything collected in one or more rooms is sent to a room where auto sweepers sort them into separate loaders that send everything to where it needs to go.
You can do a loop for a single material type and use receptacles to keep things evenly distributed though. Fort example, sand is used in deodorizers, water sieves, and the glass forge, which for various reasons are often distributed around your base and not in a single location. Instead of attempting to have the sand your dupes store from digging or crushing rocks get distributed into X number of loaders and go mad trying to make sure each location gets the sand it needs, you can instead create a loop where the sand will fill up receptacles on the path before moving on, and you can adjust how much stays in each location by having a storage container within range of the sweeper that's set to the amount you want on hand.
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I'm sure I'll figure this out, but I won't be able to experiment with them until I can get a few more dupes trained up (experimenting with one dupe is waaay too slow to bother).
The automation is simple; Right aquatuner is on when the oil layer is below 130°C and its coolant can handle another pass. It's basically my primer to keep the oil nice and toasty.
Left aquatuner is on when the oil temp is below 150°C (and when there's water to be cooled, though that's not really "automated")
I've also added some automation to check that if the water temp is above 140°C (might change that to 150) or the air pressure is below 2KGs to pump in some salt water from my salt water geyser.
You're right about the auqatuner bypass though, and I'm not sure I even need it? This isn't a traditional cooling loop so if the aquatuner isn't running, water doesn't really need to circulate. And with my salt water coming in, there shouldn't be a situation where the aquatuner isn't running when there's water available in the pipes.
That won't solve the issue with it backing up though since my water input far exceeds my cool water output.
I'm also going to add a 3rd steam turbine.
You'll notice that my steam turbine overflow is outputting to the same resiviour as my cold water, and that's because I don't need to water to be cold, just not steam. If I wanted just cold water I can just loop my steam turbine output back into my steam room.
In hindsight the water resivour might have been a bad idea, because it equalizes the water temp so you don't get any cold water output for several cycles, then suddenly 5 tons worth, and then back to just hot water output. Will see if that becomes a problem.
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They do not, but if you let them overlap one tile you can drop off the material there and they can both grab it.
Autosweepers will grab materials from storage contrainers to load machines, but not to ship off. I'm not sure if there's a priority on whether it'll load storage contrainers or loaders first though. Might be something to look at, that way you can make a chain and keep a set amount of materials at each location.
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Loader needs to be a higher priority than the container for the sweeper to move resources between the two. This is actually kind of useful, since you can then use the loader as an overflow for when storage is full. (To, say, send it deeper into your storage area, or to a place that uses that resourse, but only in small amounts and/or not set up to be dupe-accessible.) Not sure what the behavior is when both are the same priority though.
While they can't hand resources to each other, you can create a relay system with sweepers using unpowered automatic dispensers, which IIRC is actually faster and cheaper on power than loaders for large amounts over a relatively short distance. This is because sweepers can move up to 1000kg of stuff at a time, which a loader would have to spend 6kj of power dividing it into 50 20kg as it sends it out, when (rough estimate napkin map) an autosweeper relay could move that stuff about 100 tiles with just a little less power and time.
You see, I don't usually put a temp gauge in the steam chamber of my cooling loops because I figure even with the turbine connected to a smart battery it will run often enough to delete the heat. However, between 3 nat gas generators, 3 petroleum generators, 5 coal, a second cooling loop, and the two turbines running off the steam vent, it, ah, didn't. And the steam got so hot it melt the lead wiring I used. Which inadvertently saved the aqua tuner from breaking, but it still meant I had to break into it an fix the wiring before everyone starved to death, because that loop was the thing keeping the mealwood the glossy drecko eat and bristle blossoms everyone else eats cool enough to grow.
Now the active point is set to 95% of battery capacity, at least until the inside is back under 150°C. And I'm probably going to disable a couple generators in the meantime, until I get the liquid Hydrogen and O2 loops set up.
And this is part of why i feed my dupes on meat products =P. I still need to break into my geothermal plant and get the liquid lead in there out. Does sound similar to issues i ran into with my industrial block - When running at full capacity, the steam turbines could not delete heat fast enough. So i've upgraded it to have a monstrous 8 turbines, and that seems to be working. Also means i get a LOT of power out of it when it's running full tilt. Or, at least enoguh power to break even.
Also i'm starting to think Glossy Dreckos are a waste of time. Passive plastic production IS nice, but it's also something you can rush pretty easily - even an oil refinery can easily supply a couple of plastic presses, and those vomit out plastic at a startling rate. I'm not sure though, it's one i'm still figuring out - the passive production is nice. But wether it's worth the dupe labor time, not to mention drecko ranches being a right pain in the butt to optimize, that i'm not so sure. I think they're going to become something i setup later?
Right now i'm trying to figure out volcano taming before i broach space - my base is having a few power issues. Or rather ,it's getting close to - it's sitll power postive/power netural i ngeneral, and the battery bank i built is doing wonders to smooth things out, but it's not really going to handle any extra load, and it's still chewing up all my natural gas and hydrogen, rather than stockpiling like i was before.
So current plans are to tame the volcano by my base for a Petroleum boiler, and figure out taming the 2 copper volcanos next to each otehr, the iron volcano ,and the gold volcano i have on the map - mainly to try and turn them into geothermal power sources, rather than to actually get the materials out of them. though, obviously, i ideally do both, probably through some sort of of conyevor loop through diamond mounted againt a steam room. or something. This game is complicated!
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As for taming metal volcanoes, the trick for pre-space is automated airlocks. Brothgar actually did a new video recently about making a universal volcano tamer using automated doors to "transport" the metal or rock in question so it doesn't become a solid block you have to mine out and still be in a place you can reach that keeps the chamber airtight:
I personally try to get a rudimentary glosyy ranch up as soon as possible, giving me access to plastics way before I get to oil.
Also egg shells, meat, phosphorite (now that wheezeworts need them) they're probably my single most useful critter.
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