Why use a liquid lock when you could use an airlock?

[Great Sage Equal of Heaven]

Airlocks are supposed to prevent gas from crossing, right?

I'm designing my slimelung safe room. Is there any reason to prefer liquid locks over a manual airlock?

[zombiemickey]

real airlock might be too much of hassle ,you need be go through like door A-> middle sucky sucky vacuum room(enter then wait for room clear) ->door B

[Shame]

Prosecutor Godot の投稿を引用：

Thanks all. I can certainly see the utility of these locks, and they'll work well with the atmo suits which i unlocked last night.

It still feels a little exploity to me, like we're cheating the mechanics of the game to do something the programmers never intended.

One of the game trailers literally includes a liquid lock into a chlorine-filled room. I think the devs took the liquid lock concept and just assumed it as essential for progression at one point. There are things you could almost not be able to achieve at all without liquid locks for sure, at least not at a reasonable pace and this game is slow enough to play late game as is.

[View The Phenom]

Prosecutor Godot の投稿を引用：

Thanks all. I can certainly see the utility of these locks, and they'll work well with the atmo suits which i unlocked last night.

It still feels a little exploity to me, like we're cheating the mechanics of the game to do something the programmers never intended.

Nah, that's just using the in-game physics to our advantage. Gasses being blocked by liquids is a common rule you'll see pretty often.

An exploit would be something like a partially submerged gas vent, where it ignores the surrounding air pressure and continues to output gas. Therefore, bypassing how the machine should work and ignoring the shutoff condition.

Also, Liquid Locks provide their own challenge to overcome. Which is the Sopping Wet debuff, something that will impact your Duplicant's Stress gain.

[Bobucles]

Liquid locks work in real life too, but no one really wants to swim through oil to get to work.

[AlexMBrennan]

Liquid locks work in real life too

Liquid locks work in the game because ONI does not acknowledge the concept of pressure; in the real world you can't have a vacuum separated by 1 drop of oil from a high pressure gas tank because the high pressure gas would produce a force that would displace the liquid.

[robotnikkkk]

AlexMBrennan の投稿を引用：

Liquid locks work in the game because ONI does not acknowledge the concept of pressure;

=NOPE, IT'S THE DIFFERENT REASON ABOUT PARTIAL PRESSURE , IF TO SPEAK ABOUT VACUUM, RIGHT?????

=BUT!!!!!...... I'VE GOT TO SAY THAT THE FIRST TIME PEOPLE GOT A VACUUM, WAS BC OF LIQUID LOCKS , WONT U BELIEVE THAT????............... YESSS INDEED LIQUID LOCKS MADE OF MERCURY , HEHE

=YUP, NOT EXACTLY , BUT ACTING PRETTY MUCH LIKE THAT AFTERWARDS ABOUT KEEPING AN ACTUAL VACUUM, RIGHT????.......... ABOUT 2 KIND OF(!!!) GASEOUS SPACES WITH LIQUID INBETWEEN , HEHE

[chaney]

You *can* build an airlock that works like the ones in the real world. Two doors with space in between and a pump to move the gasses back to their respective sides. For real world style, Dupe time while the pump works it's job is needed. For game play, just run Dupes through a long enough space between the doors and then pump out whatever gas gets in the lock.

Liquid locks are frequently used in the real world. Aristotle described them thousands of years ago, man-sized diving bells have been used for centuries with regularity, and the liquid barometer is another centuries old example. Locks that work in the game wouldn't always work, of course.

[XceptOne]

In case of real-life-kind of airlocks (two doors with room in between) you won't necessarily need to fully vacuum the in between room. Just making sure that it's underpressured enough for gases to always flow in from the outside should work fine, depending on your goals.
Longer rooms will work better than shorter ones.

It is also worthwhile to think about which side actually needs protection from contamination and set pressure accordingly (it still helps to make upward or downward steps to keep havier/lighter stray gases from entering the protected side). Often one side is more important than the other. This of course won't work when trying to protect a vacuum.
Also think about if you need full contamination protection or if you just want to limit gasflow to a minimum, in which case a long room without pumps may suffice, if pressure levels on both sides are relatively equal.

Sometimes separating different gas areas can even be achieved without any doors, by simply building a laddershaft up or down between the two sides with some 'protective' gas occupying the shaft.
Think, left side has a layer of oxygen and carbon dioxide with the entrance in the co2 layer. Then a laddershaft from the co2 layer up and out to the right side which is occupied by chlorine. With a long enough shaft (not that long really) and enough co2 pressure no chlorine will ever be able to enter the oxygen side and vice versa. Works with any gas that is lighter/havier than the gases in the protected areas.

A liquid lock on the other hand is usually much simpler though and is the only way to protect a vacuum.

[Wish Granter]

Angpaur の投稿を引用：

Prosecutor Godot の投稿を引用：

So the mechanical airlock will allow air to travel through, when it's open? Dang. Thanks

I'm sorry but what else did you expect when door is opened? There is no longer any barrier to block gases movement.

Liquid locks can also be grouped into simple ones and more complicated. I like to use just a simple drop of naphta and 1 tile difference of levels. Single drop of naphta can be up to 30kg, so such lock is harder to accidentaly break. Adventage is that it requites only one step up/down for dupes, which makes them cross it very fast.

I mean if you would tell someone about a airlock he would think of a chamber that pumps out oxygen to produce a vacuum and allows the personnel to enter without sending in any gas.
There is a mod that changes it. So airlocks actually block air.
Liquid locks are kinda annoying on max difficulty due to stress.

[XceptOne]

Wish Granter の投稿を引用：

Angpaur の投稿を引用：

I'm sorry but what else did you expect when door is opened? There is no longer any barrier to block gases movement.

Liquid locks can also be grouped into simple ones and more complicated. I like to use just a simple drop of naphta and 1 tile difference of levels. Single drop of naphta can be up to 30kg, so such lock is harder to accidentaly break. Adventage is that it requites only one step up/down for dupes, which makes them cross it very fast.

I mean if you would tell someone about a airlock he would think of a chamber that pumps out oxygen to produce a vacuum and allows the personnel to enter without sending in any gas.
There is a mod that changes it. So airlocks actually block air.
Liquid locks are kinda annoying on max difficulty due to stress.

Honestly, I would also think that a chamber where people go through would obviously need two doors. Otherwise it's just going in and then out the same way you came from.
And the whole passing door without letting gas through thing just sounds like magic.
Even if the middle part were a vacuum air would still flow into the chamber.
So usually in an airlock you would match pressure to the side you are going to enter and possibly use material from that side to do it. Think filling the chamber with water first, before you go out diving, then removing the water and filling it with air, when you come back.
Vacuuming the chamber would only be done in an airlock going to space and mainly so that astronauts aren't being ejected at high speeds and because a space vehicles' air supply is quite finite.
Anyway, all of that is usually just way to complicated and time consuming to be really useful in ONI.

Also...
In real life a clean lab, that isn't to be contaminated, is held under overpressure so gases would rather flow out instead of in.
A hazardous materials (think germs) lab would be underpressured, so air can only flow in and contaminated air inside won't flow out.
In these cases the airlocks' doors' main purpose is to keep the pressure difference intact and the chamber is mainly for decontamination procedures. But the whole thing will also work with just one door if decontamination is not needed and you make sure to quickly close the door behind you.

[Wish Granter]

XceptOne の投稿を引用：

Wish Granter の投稿を引用：

I mean if you would tell someone about a airlock he would think of a chamber that pumps out oxygen to produce a vacuum and allows the personnel to enter without sending in any gas.
There is a mod that changes it. So airlocks actually block air.
Liquid locks are kinda annoying on max difficulty due to stress.

Honestly, I would also think that a chamber where people go through would obviously need two doors. Otherwise it's just going in and then out the same way you came from.
And the whole passing door without letting gas through thing just sounds like magic.
Even if the middle part were a vacuum air would still flow into the chamber.
So usually in an airlock you would match pressure to the side you are going to enter and possibly use material from that side to do it. Think filling the chamber with water first, before you go out diving, then removing the water and filling it with air, when you come back.
Vacuuming the chamber would only be done in an airlock going to space and mainly so that astronauts aren't being ejected at high speeds and because a space vehicles' air supply is quite finite.
Anyway, all of that is usually just way to complicated and time consuming to be really useful in ONI.

Also...
In real life a clean lab, that isn't to be contaminated, is held under overpressure so gases would rather flow out instead of in.
A hazardous materials (think germs) lab would be underpressured, so air can only flow in and contaminated air inside won't flow out.
In these cases the airlocks' doors' main purpose is to keep the pressure difference intact and the chamber is mainly for decontamination procedures. But the whole thing will also work with just one door if decontamination is not needed and you make sure to quickly close the door behind you.

be kinda cool if you could just pressue a room with 50kg of oxygen per tile and it would work like Rl where nothing gets in until pressure has significantly sunken.

Here the 50kg just magicly travels away and chlorine replaces it.
Like tanks or BRTs using overpressure in vents to stop toxic chemicals from entering the vehicle.

[Great Sage Equal of Heaven]

So it turns out liquid locks and airlocks don't matter if you don't set up an ore scrubber in that place

[Yrame IV, a true I of the dragon]

Liquid airlocks are the way to go for the majority of the game, and for most situations. Very early game, you can do them with polluted water and water--I'm pretty sure polluted water does not off-gas if you have another liquid or solid on top of it. Once you have oil/petroleum, that tends to be the go-to materials because they work for most reasonable temperatures, and once you go below -50C or above 350C you are probably experienced enough to figure out alternatives. Lategame some people go for visco-gel for special purposes but I don't think it is definitively better.

Other notes that might help:
If you don't have atmo suits yet or your dupes are too slow in them, showers remove the sopping wet debuff.
If you store your slime underwater, it won't off-gas.
Slimelung dies at 10C. Or in chlorine.

Lategame you can do true airlocks using transport tubes, but you need a lot of plastic, power, and refined metal for that to be useful.

Also, I just want to say it really simplifies things that slimelung is no longer fatal.

[Great Sage Equal of Heaven]

Yeah it really does, that disease is out of control at the moment. What's a good way to remove it from the atmosphere? Could I run it through a gas chamber in a chlorine room?

[Shame]

Prosecutor Godot の投稿を引用：

Yeah it really does, that disease is out of control at the moment. What's a good way to remove it from the atmosphere? Could I run it through a gas chamber in a chlorine room?

Deodorizers will clean the air in 3 tile radius and over time the germs will die off in the clean oxygen. You can also use radiation or buddy bud floral scent to kill them faster alongside that.