Oxygen Not Included - space colony sim from Klei

[Darth Roxor]

Have to say though, despite the fact that the game was made more forgivable and there are still hardly any 'long term goals' for you to accomplish other than giving voice to your autism, letting loose of the autism is still really freaking addicting.

Cycle 50 or so, I think to myself: "Well I have stable oxygen production, there's no way I can run out of food, power is plentiful, there's really not much point in taking this much further. But eh let's just dig out some tunnels in whatever direction."

100 cycles later i'm building a yuge plastics production infrastructure around a crude oil geyser and already planning what big thing to do next

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Pretty much, yup. I'm somewhere around cycle 350 and despite saying I was going to take a break, I keep poking at it. The stopgap measures for the heat crisis worked great (Got 7 exosuits in an 11 dupe colony at the edge of the base now, so they can go down and toil in the hell that is my power and metal/plastic manufacturing), the emergency farm is working peachy (Went from desperately collecting every scrap of food on the map to sitting around fat dumb and happy. The base heating up to the point that crops wouldn't grow was the biggest kick in the pants) and I've started some minor cooling of the base itself by producing oxygen with an electrolyzer, piping it through one of those cooling machines on the map (Powered by the hydrogen of the electrolyzer of course) and then making a giant run of insulated pipe to keep it cool until it's vented into the base. Especially because algae is getting scarce now. I can produce a bunch of it with slime since like I said, my map is absolutely fucking PACKED with slime biomes, but mass-mining slime just for algae isn't that great.

Next few things on the agenda are either setting up a steam turbine/crude oil heating rig, or possibly rejiggering my petroleum plant so I can stick a power station in there, and maybe route some more heavy watt wire around so I have a more unified power grid. Since currently I've got roughly... 4 power systems I think, and a 5th that's self-contained. Smoothing out my power wouldn't be a bad idea, I still have an ocean of crude oil but I've noticed it dropping even with an oil well running 24/7 so it might be a concern. Could also reach a second oil well but I'm not sure if I'm that thirsty just yet. I'm procrastinating on the steam turbine cooling rig since I know that's going to involve a lot of trial and error and making dupes run all over the place but I'll probably get to it eventually.

 

[Darth Roxor]

tfw you've just finished setting up your autistic infrastructure

and you see this

Edit: Oh dear me, nvm I'm dumb never seen an "active period" as weird as this

 

[Space Satan]

Actually that is a dangerous one. Leak constantly emits oil. Extremely hot oil. This shit can boil your base in to time so better utilize this oil fast to petroleum and then to plastic or fuel

 

[Darth Roxor]

Fortunately this entire enclosure is a loooong distance away from the base proper. I think I should be fine (famous last words).

 

[Hellraiser]

That's what, something above 300 kg/s of boiling oil per cycle? Not great, not terrible. Could use it to power a steam turbine almost passively with some automated mechanized airlocks to purge/refill the heat exchanging chamber.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I made jetsuit docks. Says they need petrol intake pipes to work... but they don't have a liquid intake slot, only a "filtered output" (??).

Wot now

edit: yeah guess it's a bug, the 'filtered output' slot is the intake

 

[Raghar]

Well, it's only 3xx g/s, not 3 kg/s. While it's nice for base cooling, its relatively weak stuff.

300 g/s of crude will not power even 1/3 of that ONE wire.

 

[Raghar]

I made first device to make liquid hydrogen, and it's snowing hydrogen. Hydrogen snowflakes are falling into hydrogen liquid.

 

[Space Satan]

Simplest waterlock toseparate gases

 

[Hellraiser]

https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/115715-oxygen-not-included-roadmap-february-2020/

DLC in development, targeted for Autumn release with new systems, will be revealed probably in the symmer. Hoping for RADIOCTIVITY and NUCULAR since I think radium is present somewhere in the game data but unused. Also because random natural nuclear decay heat sources (or even natural reactors) would be lulzy to tame. Also it would be the most... rad.



Also Combat, because there is a very basic version implemented which seems to scream that they planned it but never got around to fleshing it out. I want to launch rocket with space pirate duplicants to raid shit.

 

[Raghar]

I wanna more explosions. And slimelung that's lethal without EXCESSIVE hospital space, or massive quarantines. And more restrictive tech tree to push you into trouble with setting up quarantines.

Also I wanna water locks to stop working.

 

[Hellraiser]

Speaking of explosions there is one mechanic that I think is or used to be referenced in device and material properties here and there but not implemented at all - fire.

 

[Average Manatee]

Enjoyed this game a lot. Still, I feel like it starts to get pointless once you get over the whole "I am now self-sufficient" cliff. There's simply not much endgame, the reason to launch a rocket is to... get resources that already exist in abundance? Just having atmo suits lets you mine more mineral and ore resources than you should ever reasonably need.

Geysers trivialize the water input survival part of the equation too much. Especially Cool Slush Geysers. At least things like Cool Steam Vents add additional heat problems with its 110 C water output, but Cool Slush Geysers output -10 C polluted water so it simultaneously solves both your water and heat issues. IMO there should be some kind of pressure with regards to these geysers eventually running dryer on a more permanent basis, with more advanced space-age technology only obtainable by rockets to either extract more resources or better conserve the ones you have. As it is once I've achieved what is essentially FULLY AUTOMATED LUXURY GAY SPACE COMMUNISM my interest in continuing pretty much dies off. Even if you deleted cool steam geysers in an attempt to make heat management harder, the fact that the game has "heat deletion mechanics" (meaning heat isn't properly tracked such that your DTUs end up lower than they should be) makes what should be a long-term survival issue into a trivialty if you pay attention, and the amount of ways to delete heat is so huge that you are probably doing it in a regular base just by accident. Heat is also just too easy to ignore.

Mealwood is kind of just too good. Taking zero water to feed dupes is too easy. At least its very heat-sensitive, but then that leads to the bigger issue: Hatches are way, way too good, and they aren't even heat-sensitive! It takes a bit longer to set up but it ends up actually being even less manpower intensive and more efficient, you just have to wait out long enough on mealwood to have your hatch population grow enough to sustain you, at which point your entire base can comfortably sit around 50-60 Cish with no issue at all if you wanted. OK, you still need a very small section either for Drecko or Reed farming to get fibre for your suits, but that's about it really. Even on the hottest map types dupes can kind of just run around most of the map with no issue even though its getting up to 65 C, which makes it all kind of trivial.

Morale, stress and disease are all heavily underutilized. You won't have morale problems if you don't over-level dupes (which isn't really needed, the stat bonuses are pretty irrelevant so all you need are the job unlocks). You get enough free morale from the room bonuses to cover all you need to do whatever you want even while spending your whole game eating mealwood and with debris everywhere driving down your decor. No morale issues means no stress issues. Disease also becomes basically irrelevant by implementing a plumbed bathrooms which are one of the first things to achieve in a game. Even at the highest difficulty setting for all of them, it basically just means that you need full oxygen and no spills for dupes to walk through or their stress starts going up, but avoid that and its stable. Even if stress goes up a bit just spend a bit of time at the massage table.

Power is also too easy. The fact that you can burn water into hydrogen and then use the hydrogen in a generator to generate net positive electricity feels way too easy (fairly certain its also highly unrealistic seeing as powerplants IRL running off water haven't taken over). From then coal is also way too easy to get from hatches while you'll also easily run across geysers that give more than enough infinite hydrogen or natural gas (and natural gas gives you water out of it which is even better). The heat from running these power is basically ignorable since you can just sit them outside your base. Again, the fact that dupes can operate in 60-70C environments just fine means that its just too easy to locate all your heat producers well outside your base where it doesn't matter. Basically its impossible not to have way too much power unless you don't know how to do the automation with smart batteries.

Anyway, some screenshots. Map was Oassie with all difficulty settings on max.

All you need is a rancher and literally sand to be fully food-independent up to a toasty 70 C. Protip: Husbandry skill is currently broken and doesn't level itself, so always go for a base 7 skill worker. Eggs are automatically picked up and delivered to the water incubation chamber where they hatch and immediately begin dying to become meat. Spare replacement eggs go into unpowered incubators which will hatch replacements for the breeding population once they reach their end of life. Each room loaded with 8 hatches will supply ~5,440 calories of food if barbacued. Should probably build another conveyor to bring the meat directly to the cook but it really doesn't matter.

This is a bit of a clusterfuck that takes some explanation. I have three or arguably four separate water systems. Generic water storage (temperature whatever the fuck) which is the top line of reservoirs. Should be moved outside the heat-controlled part of the base which is the bottom line but at the same time its kind of something I can't bothered to redo all the pipe lines. The middle one resevoir is the cold water (~12 C), which is a circulating loop around the farms that I don't really need anymore. The hot water is far outside the base near the industry to the west. Both hot and cold water get new water from the generic water if their systems need more. Temperature controls route cold water to the aquatuner if temp >12 C to be cooled down to -2 C (apparently freezing point in this game for water is -3 C) in the aquatuner, which itself bathed in the hot water. When hot water (either in the industry area or surrounding the aquatuner) gets above 98 C it gets pushed out to the Electrolyzers where it is burned off and replaced with new generic water. Electrolyzers are one of those heat deletion devices, the hotter the water you feed them the more they delete heat, and if built with gold amalgam their overheat temperature is high enough that the 98C water cools it off enough to keep it below its 125C overheat point. According to the wiki a single electrolyzer running on near-boiling water like this counts as around -300 KDTU/s or around 50 Wheezeworts apiece. They don't quite run 100% because frankly their layout is a bit bad with how fluids work in Oxygen Not Included but not worth taking down to rebuild slightly more efficiently when my whole base is being properly oxygenated and heat controlled already.

 

[Space Satan]

Recap

We last touched base in February where we announced that we're working on a DLC. Shortly after that, we put out another free Content Pack in March... and then a global pandemic hit and work from home began. At that point we decided it was best for the team to refocus their efforts on the new systems and content of the DLC, while putting out semi-regular bugfix patches for the released version of the game. Since then, we've put out our May patch and now our July patch -- releasing in a few days! (And finally fixed infinite digging, I might add!)

The DLC

So let's answer the question that's on everyone's mind: What is this DLC we've been working on?

New Systems: There are 3 major new features:

1. Multiple colonies on multiple asteroids running simultaneously! From lonely mining outposts to thriving hubs of industry, each world can contribute to sustainability across your civilization.
2. A new radiation simulation and overlay, with conduit-like infrastructure to harness it for science and industry! We're adding this as a new fundamental system with integrations into many parts of a successful colony.
3. Space gameplay has been reimagined. Space destinations are now actual playable asteroids which can be landed on and settled. Rockets themselves are now easier to launch, more interesting to control, and have a deeper role to play by providing infrastructure between asteroids.

New Content: While the majority of the new content will of course be in service of the new systems, we're also adding a new start biome, and multiple new biomes throughout the asteroid cluster with their own critters, plants, and resources to discover and integrate into your colony.

We're also adding other bits of content, new buildings, traits, and more, to keep expanding on the ONI experience!

Keeping performance steady as we add these new features, and trying to improve on it where possible, continues to be a high priority for us while developing this DLC.



What about Vanilla?

The base game, which you currently own, will also see a large update when the DLC is released! Bug fixes, UI improvements, balance and tuning improvements, and base-game content updates will be synchronized across all versions of the game. So even if you choose not to play with the DLC, we're working to improve your experience as well!

Timeline

We're going to get the DLC into your rubber-gloved-hands some time this year. The fallout from Covid19 has really altered our estimates and shifted our priorities, so we're not going to make a more specific promise than that. As we get closer to the big moment, we'll be sure to give you more updates!

In Summary

Most of the team has been hard at work staying safe and developing the new DLC, even while we've continued to fix issues and performance on the released version of the game. We are adding new fundamental systems so we're taking the time to make sure we get them right, and especially working to integrate them well into the existing gameplay for all players to enjoy.

We're as excited as you are to be playing the game with these new features in it, and can't wait until it's complete! Thank you from the bottom of our cardiovascular systems for all your support, suggestions, encouragement and enthusiasm, which has got us this far. Onward!

 

[Space Satan]

 

[Hellraiser]

The top-right one is a spinning centrifuge I think? For nuke fuel enrichment.

Correctly guessed radiation. I WANT TO BE A DYATLOV. Hopefully radioactive decay, transmutation and fission can occur naturally without a specific building. Then we could design nuclear reactors ourselves, with all the potential for things going wrong if we forget about something and start a runaway chain reaction. Also I want to build one that can vaporize regolith.

New space gameplay and multiple colonies I did not expect. Judging from the map the damn flight times will be much shorter, maybe you can build beefier or more efficient rockets to cut it down.

 

[Space Satan]

I have a soft spot for this game. It managed to find a balance between complexiness and fun.

 

[Average Manatee]

Hmm, if multiple colonies are going to be a thing then there really needs to be some end game-level complexity to surviving, because sustainability is a problem entirely solved around 20 hours before you launch a rocket. And that complexity needs to come from something other than just supporting lots of dupes since that's what causes the game to slow down

 

[Space Satan]

They seem to have multiple printers on multiple asteroids on the picture so maybe there will be some sort of teleportation. But if launching a rocket would be easier then I'm okay with this - building shiitload of installations just to launch the rocket is...tedious. I made steel forges and then you have to prepare fuel, and oxygen and hydrogen etc. etc. etc. Small rockets would be great IMO.
I am mor einterested in new creatures because currently game favors dreckos and slicksters too much. Hatches produce coal and coal becomes obsolete way too soon. Pokeshells are not needed because you can get all lime you want from other sources.

 

[Hellraiser]

I haven't ranched dreckos in a billion years, I guess that's great if you want insulation but honestly I don't bother with it. Vacuum bottles are less of a hassle time and resource-wise and for everything where vacuum bottles don't work, such as piping liquid oxygen/hydrogen to rockets, ingenuous rock is good enough. I have all my cryogenic pumps connected to automation grids that pump exactly the needed amount to refuel the rockets, so that no excess remains in pipes and evaporates breaking them.

Wild reeds give all the fibers I need for suits.

Slicksters are nice but I have just been saying fuck it recently and using the CO2 scrubber or venting CO2 into space. Slicksters don't produce nearly enough oil to be independent from oil wells

I wouldn't dismiss hatches and coal because power is something you always run out of eventually and coal is a nice backup to have in case the solar panels are not working. Also the last few times the map shafted me with natural gas geysers.

BTW simplest way to decent rockets is oxylite and petroleum. Petroleum is easy mode to get. Oxylite is best gotten from dense pufts which is not that hard, but easiest to get from the oxylite maker is slow as fuck but it is far easier than a lox cooling factory (which is hard before supercoolant).

 

[Space Satan]

Dreckos are a good source of good resources for next to no input. Thye give you plastic when you change them to glossy, eggshells and eggs for food. And it is always better to have perpetual ethanol generator from arbor trees planted by pips, so no fertilization and free wood to then convert it into ethanol and CO2 to feed your slicksters. distillers with petroleum gneerator can feed 18 slicksters and some it seems

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i waited so long to try it. i should have kept waiting. despite the tools to transform this resource into that, mant of the few techs are mandatory, advancing through the game requires very specific steps at very specific moments, in the end there is one and only one way to develop the base.

 

[Hellraiser]

i waited so long to try it. i should have kept waiting. despite the tools to transform this resource into that, mant of the few techs are mandatory, advancing through the game requires very specific steps at very specific moments, in the end there is one and only one way to develop the base.

While I agree on some of the techs being mandatory, I don't agree they have to be done in a very specific order and on there being just one way to develop a base. There is a fair bit of variety in how you can get water, oxygen, food or power with alternative production chains available, although out of all of those oxygen has the biggest "balance" issue since electrolysis is just too damn convenient considering the alternatives. Depending on the asteroid type chosen at the start and closest biomes or geyser types, other things might be more pressing concerns changing research priorities.

Bigger issues with railroading are in my opinion with absolutely needing to get a miner ASAP to mine through granite or abysslite blocking access to other biomes, the steam rocket gating all other rocket types, exosuits which solve all environmental hazard problems and of course the space weather making steel mandatory.

 

[Darth Roxor]

The steam rocket is an insurmountable hurdle to me. I tried launching it twice, and both times I gave up because I just couldn't be bothered going through the ass pain necessary to get it working. Unless I'm missing something terribly obvious.