More Oxygen-consuming buildings and facilities are needed

[Major Malfunction]

From farm discussion.
Oxygen is never a problem in Surviving Mars - you can build 2 moxies and forget about Oxygen for the rest of the game.
While Water is precious and is needed for almost everything, oxygen is os devalued that you, as a player, have almost no interaction with it. What drains oxygen? Domes and fungal farm. And you get some oxygen from farms back, making it even less of a problem.
We need more facilities and instances that will consume oxygen. So as a player we would have motivation to build them.

 

[YertyL]

Yes...you would think that in space, oxygen management would be a pretty critical component, but currently it really is "1 MOXIE, 2 if you're feeling fancy".
And especially after watching the expanse, I love the idea of managing your oxygen via plant life, but that also currently does not appear to be worth it at all in this game.
Some changes I would very much like:

• reduce standard MOXIE production to 2 oxygen, increase upkeep to 10 power
• Increase algea oxygen production to 2, kelp to 1 (this could be the hydroponic farm niche we need)
• factories cost additional ~2 oxygen (even if they do not run on coal, we can assume something in there is not good for the air, at least to the same degree as a fungus)
• Currently, MOXIEs are freely available from the start, while vaporators are a potentially pretty late tech. You could consider making MOXIES prefab/tech dependent like the vaporators, say by switching the MOXIE upgrade tech with a MOXIE building tech. And/or add a polymer cost?
  
• you could consider additional oxygen cost per colonist, though I assume there is a reason water and O2 are currently calculated per dome instead of per inhabitant.

 

[Mauer]

Agreed, also MOXIEs could use a large area to work efficiently, so you can't build many close together, though this is not very difficult to work around; and they could also require some advanced resource for maintenance (they do not seem overly complex in functioning, but they do have electronic components in the diagrams available online).

And maybe the exercise buildings and animal farms should increase oxygen consumption as well.

 

[th3freakie]

Agreed, O2 is too easy as it stands. I tend to build multiple tanks for it just out of principle, but it's hardly necessary.

One "obvious" thing to start with is making MOXIE production suffer from the same diminishing returns of proximity as evaporators, and from proximity to dust generating sources.

 

[Xeorm]

Disagree. O2 isn't a serious issue on a planet like Mars where it's as accessible as it is. It'd be a major issue in space where recycling is key and more complicated, but not on a planet with easy access to power like you have in the game.

It's a good middle ground where O2 isn't a major resource to obtain but can be problematic with leaks where it understandably would be.

 

[Promethian]

When you have dust storms its an important part of your planning as you need to overproduce enough and have enough storage that you can account for the inevitable pipe breaks that dust storms cause. Water is harder but O2 is non-trivial as well with that disaster on.

 

[Thallone]

Here's an option. Fueled extractors should require Oxygen, and every unit of Fuel burned should also contribute a miniscule amount to Atmosphere *including launches. In the same vein, when terraforming starts to near completion, I hope there are events/techs to move to a 'green economy' and eliminate things like fueled extractors etc so that the planet does not end up getting baked.

 

[Xeorm]

Here's an option. Fueled extractors should require Oxygen, and every unit of Fuel burned should also contribute a miniscule amount to Atmosphere *including launches. In the same vein, when terraforming starts to near completion, I hope there are events/techs to move to a 'green economy' and eliminate things like fueled extractors etc so that the planet does not end up getting baked.

The fuel is a hydrogen + oxygen mix already made by water electrolysis. Adding more oxygen to the mix wouldn't see much of an improvement. This also means the economy is already green. No carbon emissions from the economy happen unless explicitly done to terraform the planet.

There's a lot of things that logically should increase or decrease atmosphere if we're nitpicking, like grabbing water out of the air should decrease water + atmosphere. Or the dome water "leaking" as it does. But I like that it doesn't as it keeps terraforming clear and wouldn't lead to odd scenarios.

 

[YertyL]

The fuel is a hydrogen + oxygen mix already made by water electrolysis. Adding more oxygen to the mix wouldn't see much of an improvement. This also means the economy is already green. No carbon emissions from the economy happen unless explicitly done to terraform the planet.

There's a lot of things that logically should increase or decrease atmosphere if we're nitpicking, like grabbing water out of the air should decrease water + atmosphere. Or the dome water "leaking" as it does. But I like that it doesn't as it keeps terraforming clear and wouldn't lead to odd scenarios.

It is a bit funny that you can increase water in the atmosphere by...taking water from the atmosphere via a vaporator, then letting it evaporate again in a lake :-D

 

[Morbus Bubbonicus]

Moxies and O2 management should really be reworked in upcoming DLC or patch because the building that you build and forget for the rest of the game is a flawed design. Moxies' simplicity just axes entire concept of O2 as a resource from the game.

 

[Mauer]

Ranches currently use oxygen, it adds a bit of complexity to the whole thing but not enough IMO. Ranches are also extremely OP and should have huge drawbacks just like they do on Earth but that is another matter entirely.

Anyway, I think an interesting option would be to have colonists increase oxygen consumption, if a ranch with a dozen chickens takes a quantifiable amount of oxygen from the dome, it stands to reason a hundred colonists (and pets) should too, either a tiny amount per individual or a larger number by housing building. Maybe water too, but water already is a complex issue in the game and it probably best as is.

Maybe the medical buildings could use oxygen too?

 

[Morbus Bubbonicus]

I see more problem with moxie being the only tier of oxygen producing buildings.
No progression or new researches related to o2

 

[MrKnight445]

Stop playing on easy then

 

[YertyL]

Unofficial challenge, or maybe an official new game rule:
You can only build 1 MOXIE. Should make for an interesting game -- you basically need to have algea farms or fruit trees in every dome.

 

[Jon_Smith]

Regarding how water vaporators should remove water from Mars and how the feedback loop makes no sense.
The original developers did actually code warnings/alerts for temperature levels dropping below a certain threshold and causing the return of cold waves, which isn't possible in the game. So evidentially they did intend for some of the other terraforming factors to have the ability to decrease as atmosphere can.
The only alert tied to water is the end of clear rains, but it can be tied to atmosphere decreasing.

Its possible they tested global water being drained by vaporators but found it too frustrating late game as you would always be reaching 100% then immediately dropping below unlike something such as atmosphere where you can consistently generate enough waste rock to keep burning.
In practice you'd need to keep going and capturing ice asteroids in order to not run out of water as the underground deposits dry up.

This would become increasingly frustrating as, unlike waste rock, water is a critical resource for the colony and many of the late game buildings take up alot such as the open farm and the core heater, which is needed to get temperature up to 100%.

You could seriously end up in a death spiral as your colony grows too big and you need too much water which you cannot replenish by doing enough capture ice missions.

They should have definitely kept in temperature leeching however and had it reduce the more atmosphere you have.

As for moxies, perhaps out buildings could have oxygen requirements. For example in the rare metals extractor you can clearly see in the window colonists working without their space suits on, some other outside buildings you can see them with suits on however. It could add an extra cost to outdoor buildings.

 

[ChoGGi_2]

Oxygen

Unofficial challenge, or maybe an official new game rule:
You can only build 1 MOXIE. Should make for an interesting game -- you basically need to have algea farms or fruit trees in every dome.

Steam Workshop::Game Rule One MOXIE

steamcommunity.com

 

[Jon_Smith]

I can make it an official challenge and add it to the 'Challenges' section, we need and end target to reach though to consider the challenge won. Any ideas?

 

[YertyL]

Oxygen

Steam Workshop::Game Rule One MOXIE

steamcommunity.com

Awesome, thanks dude! And very impressive work with your other mods btw -- I am currently using a lake mod based on your libraries.

I have at this point played 2 games with the self-imposed one MOXIE-rule, and it does change the game a bit. Like I said, algea go from pointless to essential. And you can start new outposts -- farms/algea reduce oxygen consumption to 0 even when not yet worked by colonists -- but cannot build up reserves there, so you either have to connect via tunnels or be really sure your farms keep running. The main drawback is that fungal farms, ranches, and farm crops other than fruit trees are strongly disincentivized -- but I tend not the use the former two either way.

The thing that I like most is that it really makes opening the domes feel like a considerable achievement. Going from worrying about oxygen production in every single dome to not worrying about it at all feels much more significant than a reduction in building cost you will hardly notice at that point in the game. It actually feels like like finally breathing freely

So yeah, overall I would say it's interesting and immersive enough to be a worthy addition to the official game rules

 

[ChoGGi_2]

I'll see about doing some of those other suggestions you made in another mod (when time allows, that one was quick to do).

 

[Lycrist Katkiller]

I can make it an official challenge and add it to the 'Challenges' section, we need and end target to reach though to consider the challenge won. Any ideas?

Planet terraformed to breathable air