Oxygen Not Included: Klei space colony sim

I had stopped played in beta around the Quality of Life updates, so there’s a lot that’s new to me in release. I’m on cycle 72 with six dupes and so far I like the changes I’ve seen.

The wheezwort nerf invalidates the cooling designs my all my earlier posts in this thread, so when heat starts to be a problem I’ll have to experiment with steam turbines. The simpler skill system is far better than the job board thing they had when I played played. I’m glad that Slimelung is only an inconvenience now if someone catches it early on.

Ah thank you that explains why the Transformer had a repair option (I had a guy with the electrical skill) and plumbing didn’t (no plumber) Also didn’t know there was an empty pipe option.

Now a philosophy question. How do you go about exploring other biomes. Do you send a guy to do digs just to see what’s out there. Do you set up a base camp with a barracks, bathroom, and ration box?

I’ve found swamp and caustic biomes but other than the Peppers to improve my food quality, and the Thimble reed I’m not sure what I need there.

On the other hand the frozen biome seems really useful to have to cool stuff down as does the oil biome.

Very impressive base, Therlun. With more than 150 ONI hours clocked (most in early access), I am still a long way from launching my first rocket. I am hoping that my current base will reach that point, but unfortunately I only have a single natural gas geyser, and I am struggling for power. I have also made a couple of serious design mistakes, which will be crippling some future expansion plans. But this is all part of why ONI is such a great game. I’ve learned a lot from these mistakes, and I am already looking forward to starting over, so that I can avoid them the next time around.

Hmm, buck naked and screaming back in? If there are complications that is what doctors are for! That’s about how I send them out early game. ;) I avoid having the traits for either a poor immune system, or the increased bladder frequency on those dupes.

I play survival but on normal settings there. Germs aren’t too bad now (there was a time in alpha). The swamp, ice, salt and hotter metal biomes are fine to poke in for exploration. You are going to want to get atmo suits though for the biomes further out, and to protect them if working around a hot vent. Though I may send them to a steam vent right next to my base before atmo suits because I need to contain it now due to heat and just rotate them through triage cots.

I tent to keep the dig/ladder out fairly simple to avoid pathing issues. Though I think some of the worst ones are now fixed.

Later use tubes, and atmo suits. They go potty in them. Its not pretty.

I am finding this very useful so far (just reading it at work, not putting it into practice - and with so many games out right now, I probably won’t for a bit).

I’ve never tried to set up a camp in another biome. Since you’d need to get everything there, including oxygen, it seems like a real hassle. I just live with the fact that at some point the “Long Commutes” message is going to have a permanent place on my screen until I can afford transit tubes.

You can prepare a little for entering slime biomes. You can start giving your guys vitamin chews early on. You can first tunnel into a nearby hot biome with balm lilies and grab some to make medical packs that will cure slimeling. Though slimelung seems just to be an annoyance and not deadly, so you don’t really need to do either of these.

I usually try to find a chlorine pocket above where I want to enter the swamp. I’ll dig out a pit just inside the airlock to the swamp area and then dig up to the chlorine so that it fall into the pit. I put storage containers in the pit. The chlorine will kill any germs off things put in the containers. This is where I store everything I put from the swamp biome until it is germ free. I also put a bottle emptier above the pit and drop in just enough water to cover the base of the storage containers and prevent slime from outgassing.

I have been exploring all the adjacent biomes without atmos suits. My guys don’t seem to mind short stints in temps up to 50C. Now that I found an oil biome, which is >70C, I’m starting to craft some atmos suits and an O2 supply for them (or I was until Rebel Galaxy Outlaw put a complete stop to my colony’s progress).

OMG! I never thought of that. Does the game actually tell you this at some point?

I don’t think it spells it out in the tutorial messages, which seemed minimal and I generally ignored having played the game in beta. To the game’s credit it does say under the encyclopedia entry: “Chlorine is a natural germ killing element in it’s gaseous state”.

CO2 is a preservative, unless that’s changed.

It still is. I’m using the CO2 pit technique to store my excess food.

I started a game up last night using this handy guide, and it was fun as hell. Before I knew it, it was waaay past my bedtime.

That “water lock” trick seems like a bit of an exploit, but I guess these kinds of simulation games always have those.

Yup I’ve always felt wrong with the baby water lock. A full size (2 high) seems ok since there is the sopping wet penalty.

So, after a few restarts, I think I’ve gotten a handle on the early game. Have the latrines set up with the sploit-water lock, compost, bottle dumper. Two hamster wheels + two jumbo batteries + two oxygen diffusers. Have a research station and super computer. Farm tiles are growing. Mushmasher mushing out mushbars.

Where do I go from here? A more reliable source of power? Actual plumbing?

My todo list from there is usually

  • Mess hall (eventually Great hall)
  • Coal power
  • Plumbing for toilets and sinks

Perfect, thank you. Plumbing looks rather intimidating, but eager to give it a go. Coal power seems pretty straightforward, bury that sucker deep I’m guessing.

Plumbing can be done in many ways. I started out just dumping the polluted water in a pool, and then it is also pretty straight forward to do. More complex setups with filtering, in order to preserve clean water, can always come later. Coal power generates some heat and CO2, which will eventually have to be handled. But in my opinion, ONI is all about learning from catastrophic failures, and I won’t rob you of the pleasure of both cooking and suffocating your first many, many bases.

That really is the joy of these games.

It’s not an immediate problem if you start in the temperate biome (which has lots of water), but I suggest you secure a large source of water or build a system that allows you to do so. Like a basin that can capture polluted water from the swamp biome.

You need water for research, oxygen and food. And with regards to food, switch away from mushbars to liceloaf asap as mushbar’s calorie to water rating is terrible. In that same vein, replace lifeloaf as well once you explored out more.

Also, the toilet plumbing system should be self contained. This keeps the food poisoning infested water away from your regular water supply and will slowly create water for you (toilets generate 11kg water per flush).

Ok so I have a coal generator up and running, have 20 tiles of mealwood, and started the plan for my closed loop washroom area, but I’m getting super anxious about oxygen. I have two diffusers going, and a decent stockpile of algae, but I know it won’t last.

What’s the best way forward re: a reliable/sustainable source of oxygen?