How to build a decontamination room properly?

[Sleipnir]

Would anyone like to share some screenshots? I'm trying to figure out how to build a proper decontamination room in combination with an exosuit checkpoint, etc.

For starters, I've set up a few wash basins next to each other and replaced them with sinks later, however the dupes don't use all of them (I expected them to step at every single one they come across, so if I set up 10 sinks, they will wash 10 times - which doesn't work that way) and sometimes they even skip washing entirely and I'm not sure why.

Maybe my sinks and showers are too close to each other? How can I force dupes to use them, even if they don't feel like it?

Is there a certain setup order or something I need to follow to get more efficient results?

[PhailRaptor]

I haven't actually built one yet, but I have a blueprint in my head for when I do finally sit down and make one.

From the 'exterior' inward, you start with either a hallway of 5+ doors, or a water lock (or until the bug involved gets patched, the most efficient naptha lock). You want to keep the P-O2 outside your base, and these are the things that do it. The way doors open and close, it requires 5 of them at minimum to ensure gases do not pass from one side to the other while a Dupe is moving through them. If it is a high traffic area, you will need more, but if you are using Exosuits that is probably not the case. A more space efficient method is to use a pool of water to replace the door system. Gases cannot pass through liquids, and the surface tension properties of water allow it to stick to surfaces near each other to create a barrier. Dupes can move through it unimpeeded, but gases are blocked. Naptha, the substance created by melting Plastic, will do the same thing. There is currently a bug with it, though, where even the tiniest amount of Naptha will fill a whole tile. The process of getting it where you want can be challanging, but it is easily the most efficient once achieved, because it takes even less space than the water lock.

Inside your gas barrier, you will need a series of Ore Scrubbers. These devices will remove a fixed number of Germs (480,000 I believe?) from the surface of objects carried by Dupes, who will stop to use them. This is predominantly Slimelung. On Slime, it will continue to multiply up to 1,000,000 Germs, so you will probably want a series of 3 Ore Scrubbers to ensure your Dupes actually get all the Germs off. Sadly, they will not continue using the machine until the Germs are gone. They will use each machine once, then move on, so you will need multiples of them. This also includes one of them being occupied -- Dupes will skip that machine and move to the next in the row, if there is one. This proves vexing for most people the first time they set up a bathroom post Outbreak, as Dupes will not wait in line to use a Basin or Sink.

Next you should put your Checkpoint, then your Dock(s). Perhaps an additional single door to really separate the airlock from the rest of your base, if you feel the need. And that's pretty much it.

Originally posted by Sleipnir:

(I expected them to step at every single one they come across, so if I set up 10 sinks, they will wash 10 times - which doesn't work that way) and sometimes they even skip washing entirely and I'm not sure why.

Dupes will only stop to wash if they have suface Germs. It only takes 1 Basin or Sink to remove all Germs from the Dupe using it, but as I pointed out above, they will not wait in line for a Sink/Basin to become available -- if it's occupied, they will simply skip it. For bathrooms, as an example, you want 1 Basin/Sink per Outhouse/Lavatory to ensure hands are always washed.

There is also no way to make a Dupe use a Shower, though they do tend to use them once a day if they are available. The mechanics of the Shower are considered rather weak, though, so most people opt to skip them entirely. Part of this is the excess of P-H2O that most people have, with no real use for it, combined with the loss of work time while the Dupes are using the Shower itself. It becomes more of an obstruction than a benefit to have them.

[Sleipnir]

Great instructions, thank you! The tricky part is to work around slime until I have all the resources to build a proper decontamination setup and with your suggestions it might even take a bit longer to get that far.

I looked up water airlocks. These systems are pretty sweet. I'll have to give those a try with my next game.

Is it possible to pressurize a room so much that it will keep other gases out?

Also, I don't really understand the difference between the manual and mechanized airlock.

[PhailRaptor]

Originally posted by Sleipnir:

Is it possible to pressurize a room so much that it will keep other gases out?

In the short term, yes, but in the long term free flowing gases will always seek to equalize pressure. Narrow openings will slow the process, as will doors fewer than 5. But eventually, equalibrium will be established.

Originally posted by Sleipnir:

Also, I don't really understand the difference between the manual and mechanized airlock.

The only difference is the speed they open and close at. In previous builds, the only doors that you could set individual permissions for were the Mech Airlocks, and that only functioned while powered. Since Outbreak, that was changed, so all doors have permission controls all the time.

Reportedly, the speed at which Mech Airlocks work is currently the result of a bug. They are only meant to open and close that fast while they are powered, but the bug is that they work at that speed regardless, meaning there is no reason to power them. Tooltips would agree with this, because they state without power the Mech Airlock is supposed to be just a more expensive Manual Airlock.

[AquaX]

There is a expensive way or there is the cheap way. The expensive way is produce 4-5 mech doors in a row. This prevents gases from reaching each other but it does destory them too.

The cheap way is building a waterlock door. Since gas and liquid can not mix, use this to your advantage. You will get the soggy wet negative effect until you can get melted plastic called naptia. The just add 1 drop to any section and gases will never mix because this liquid would not give way.

[Bellringer]

Dupes will use as many washbasins/sinks as it takes to remove germs, once at zero surface germs there's no need to keep washing so they'll walk past sinks after that. If a dupes task is updated while washing at a sink it can cancel the action, it's why you'll get a germ ridden dupe bypassing sinks/basins now and again.

If you're mining slime without esuits (I never use esuits unless in the oil biome, it just slows down everything... massive time sink) use hand sanitisers, they remove a crap ton more germs than sinks and have a slightly faster animation, require no infrastructure (pipes/pumps/power) and have no germ riddled output to deal with. For normal food poisoning inside a base sinks are perfectly fine but they simply can't even come close to a hand sanitiser for very high germ count removal.

[L37]

With high pressure vent available i simply built small room after checkpoint (so that dupes come through it already in suites) and pressurized it to 20kg/tile with oxygen. So far seems to work good enough.
Other than that - ore scrubbers for rare cases when i want to bring something from outside into living area (mostly algae, plastic and food, no need to bring in anything else) and that's it. Sinks/sanitizers are not needed if you use exosuites, as any trace amounts of slimelung dupes sometimes bring in will simply die in pure oxygen atmosphere and do no harm.