Thread by @GeePawHill

ONI: I am slipping in to a week off, so you can expect even more ONI than usual. Here's a new seed. I know some of my friends here are just getting in to it, so once again I'll walk slowly through this one.

The seed is:

SNDST-A-1720504220-0

I notice that, as I've gotten better at the game, my approach actually greatly resembles how I write code. I have a big idea, vague and fuzzy, a mid-range idea that I have high confidence in, and a local plan, that's improvised to get me to the mid-range idea.

My big idea: oxygenate everything, exosuit only where needed, 16 dups, mealwood to shrooms to frost burgers, long power bus up one side or the other, petroleum boiler rather than oil refinery, dreckos rather than reeds or polymer presss.

My mid-range idea: base is 8 beds across with a single vertical path on one side, and co2 locks opening out to either side. Bedrooms, great hall, kitchen, research, shrooms, medbay, rec-room inside, everything else out. Drecko ranches outside one way, and hatch ranches the other.

In the beginning, my local plan is anchored around the arch. I always put the two research stations on either side of it, because it's a light source. I want it to be a simple rec room early, so I allocate exactly enough space for that in my head. Here's a sandbox of it.

The kitchen will be on one side, and the vertical hallway (nature reserve eventually) on the other, with co2 lock exits both ways. In this seed, I'm thinking vertical hallway & exit to the east, and kitchen & exit to the west.

That water's in the way, and until I move it I have no place for a bathroom. So, local plan: leave room for the co2 lock and quick like a bunny stash the bathroom outside to the east.

And... we're off!

Next, need hamster wheel, o2 diffuser, and research station, which means copper. There wasn't any in any of that, so I'll dig up to the northwest and grab some.

Blueprinted in, looks like this. There's no rationale for where the hamster wheel goes, just "outside".

While I wait to research planters, I'll dig out west of the hamster wheel for where I'll put them. That's still in the temperate biome, but outside the base, we don't want the mealwood to get too warm.

Two implicit points: 1) I'm building entirely to a 4-vertical-space form, and will hold to that throughout the game and the map. 2) In that vertical column, I'm purposely leaving the ledges as dirt whenever I can. That's so I can pip-plant a nature reserve there later.

Got the planters, building that out now. Researching power for the jumbo battery. While that happens, we finish the planters, put compost next to the outhouses, and get prepped for the kitchen & the water removal.

I blueprinted in the beds so I'd know right where the west wall was going to be, then sketched in the kitchen area.

The bed pattern looks like not a pattern. I want beds w/two spaces between, both for noisy sleepers and so that I can replace them in situ with comfy beds later. But that means a max of 3 to a room. So it's 3 beds, then space for a door, then three, then space for a door, then 2.

Kitchen details from west to east. There's a co2 lock for my west exit. Then a co2 pit for the food. Then a place to draw water that doubles as a drowning pen for critters. Then the kitchen proper.

We don't need *much* food storage. That pit will keep us for 50-60 cycles, and by then we'll do something a little more complicated that amounts to getting the food down to the great hall below.

Notice the 1-up of the floor for the two pits, that's to keep the level below still usable. And speaking of which, while that builds out, I'll blueprint in the water moving.

Okay. Still low on copper, so gonna chain dig up from that west co2 lock, get some copper, and crack that co2 vacuole, which will flow down and gradually fill the lock and the food pit.

The cistern, which comes after that digging in the west: I figure two levels is enough. Ultimately, it will have a pump and be sealed on top by the shroom farm. It's a weird looking dig, cuz I want to flow the water in from the easternmost pool, & pump up the water from below.

I often just go all the way to the bottommost pool for my cistern, but I find it leaves an awkward and unused space inside the base, and I prefer the compactness, even if I have to go build the level from below and pump *up* the water into it.

It's taking a while. Here's c13.

The very tiny pool at the bottom is pumping to the water pit in the kitchen. You can see the cistern's bottom level is half-done. When it's finished, we'll drop that pool to the east into it, and seal the east wall.

Meanwhile, I added the beds and have researched the first two nodes of basically everything.

Okay, *finally*. c17. Once that eastern pool is as in as its going to go, I'll seal that wall and dump the others. Notice the research room is finished, and the kitchen is getting some appliances from all that research. Still just 4 dups. Had a string of narcoleptics. ;)

Next stop: rock-crusher then power, down below where the outhouses are. I'll do my usual 5 coal generator arrangement there.

Okay, c20. Dump those three water pools, and refine enough metal for two smart batteries and a little automation wire.

c24. Basically, the base is stable for a while. I am still low on metal. I'll head northwest where the copper is, and there's a big cache of iron and coal straight down below the power rig. Then, the bathroom loop. With only 4 dups maintenance is slowing me way down.

c28: Blueprinted in the toilet loop. It is a very simple beast. ph2o comes out the top of the toilets & showers into that holding tank, and from there into a water sieve. The bridge around the tank entrance is for overflow, which will eventually happen: toilets are net+ on ph2o.

The room just east of the water treatment will be first the mess hall then a great hall. Soon my dups will start advancing enough I need to think about morale. For now, they just have the bathroom, the rec room (research area) and their barracks for morale.

I used regular pipe. I've got a kiln going on ceramic, but it will take a while to get enough, then I'll replace that pipe with insulated ceramic, which is much better for insulation. The bathroom water is sieved, so it's always at 30c smack in the middle of the base.

c32. Bathroom loop is in operation, got the mess hall, too, until my researcher gets to max decorating. Realized what I could use that little room on the side of the showers for: massage. The massage room gets more use in the oxygenate everything approach.

I am really liking this nice compact base. Got one more layer up top, for the medbay and idunno what. Time to get it sealed up and go outside and get in trouble. :)

And c40. Walled in except for the top, which is WIP. Shroom farm started, will keep digging out that southwest slime biome. Maybe put the metal refinery and coolant pool down there? Not enough ph2o, but tons of it nw, build a tank and let it drop?

c50, and you can see the metal refinery is ready. Only kinda sorta, as I need it to refine enough metal to draw power from the real plant, not that coal gen & battery.

Next stop, the ranches. I'm thinking hatches to the west side and dreckos to the east. In both cases, I'll have to crack into the nasty gases, so maybe a pre-step is to put some infinite gas storage for chlorine and co2 on either side of the base. I'll want those, anyway.

My researcher just maxed her decorating, so soon I'll have the great hall and some better decor all around.

c60. Got the decor limping along, which let me go to the great hall. The hatch ranches are started on the west, and I'm inching towards the drecko ranches on the east.

I really want to start exploring, but I need those dreckos online, and in any case I'll want my gas storage act together before I go too far. I have 8 dups, and last play-through it took forever to get builder/diggers. This time I already have 4 of them. Gonna put some on supply.

Something I realized embarrassingly late in learning the game. You can train someone in something and still prioritize other tasks entirely. They train up more slowly, that way, but not too bad. That way you can grab any good dup and start training them early.

c80, got the dreckos started, tho the gases aren't loaded yet, which is fine. Need to get some infinite gas reservoirs going, then finally I can get serious about exploring.

This drecko build is different from the last one. Hopefully the primary difference will be that this one works better. :) The wild tiles just didn't grow fast enough to keep the breeders fed. This is more labor, but should do better.

It is c96, and I'm finally ready to start exploration, and, of course, it's bedtime. Y'all have a nice night!