How to get rid of ballast flora

[Some_William]

Let's just say, I am sick of having to set my submarine on fire to kill it.
Just, how do I stop having to retry every 2nd time because some plant decides that my boat is a good choice for a habitat?ß

[FourGreenFields]

Safest option would be two detonators filled with frag grenades.

They recently changed ballast flora a bit so it regenerates, and I hear there is/was some bug where it was unkillable. Before it was a simple maintenance task, if a little annoying.

[Buggy Boy]

Have a fire extinguisher ready incase you set the sub ablaze. My usual tactic is to put the sub into a full rise condition so that the ballast tanks are empty (wire up a lever if you want), but parking on a ledge is also a viable option, make sure all bots are away from the area using the halt command, then burn / cut it away.

[Some_William]

Originally posted by Buggy Boy:

Have a fire extinguisher ready incase you set the sub ablaze. My usual tactic is to put the sub into a full rise condition so that the ballast tanks are empty (wire up a lever if you want), but parking on a ledge is also a viable option, make sure all bots are away from the area using the halt command, then burn / cut it away.

3 Problems:
A: I lack any understanding of wiring in this game.
B: It causes me to get burned head to toe no matter what, making attempting to burn it away a pain.
C: Grenades work, only if I'm not going to sink deeply.

[Саныч]

1) Remove the power cable from the ballast
2) Ballast must be dry
3) Burn, wearing maximum fire protection (electrician suit, seat belts, diving suit.

If the ballast is not de-energized or left in the water, you will not kill the flora, it will quickly regenerate

[VascuD*]

Shot down reactor from command room if u have Safety Harness or PUCS use cutter if not throw grenade and run :)

[AlienJesus]

In my subs I have invulnerable detonators above where the root spawns on the pumps. Then you load it up with incindium grenades (these have very low structural damage but flora is weak to fire damage).

Wire it so that it cuts power to the ballast pumps via their relay, empties the water then detonates. Each grenade only does 33% damage to your pump on explosion and the fire that ensues can last for as long as you like until flora root gets burned off. The fire doesnt seem to keep ticking damage to your pumps either. Just the explosion damages them.

Then you hit the switch again and pumps will reactivate, flood the ballast tank, put out the fire and the only impact is 33% damage to pumps, which can still operate at that damage level.

Once detonated you simply reload the detonators with incindium nades to make it work again.

In game you would run all your ballast pumps through a relay that gets toggled to off when you hit a button.
Set up a water purge door / hatch / duct to remove all ballast water or simply make your ballast pumps go -100 speed for 5 seconds to purge water via signal checks and the detonators delay switch, then toggle themselves off before you detonate.
Place detonators above the pump spike that has two gauges coming out of it, wire them to a delay comp set to 5 seconds.
Then button to relay toggle - same button to ballast water purge system - same button to delay component - Delay component to detonators.

[Kangaroo Salesman]

Drain the water, unwire the pump, burn flora with plasma cutter or throw grenades. Some custom subs have system set up for draining the room which helps.

[Buggy Boy]

Originally posted by AlienJesus:

In my subs I have invulnerable detonators above where the root spawns on the pumps. Then you load it up with incindium grenades (these have very low structural damage but flora is weak to fire damage).

Wire it so that it cuts power to the ballast pumps via their relay, empties the water then detonates. Each grenade only does 33% damage to your pump on explosion and the fire that ensues can last for as long as you like until flora root gets burned off. The fire doesnt seem to keep ticking damage to your pumps either. Just the explosion damages them.

Then you hit the switch again and pumps will reactivate, flood the ballast tank, put out the fire and the only impact is 33% damage to pumps, which can still operate at that damage level.

Once detonated you simply reload the detonators with incindium nades to make it work again.

In game you would run all your ballast pumps through a relay that gets toggled to off when you hit a button.
Set up a water purge door / hatch / duct to remove all ballast water or simply make your ballast pumps go -100 speed for 5 seconds to purge water via signal checks and the detonators delay switch, then toggle themselves off before you detonate.
Place detonators above the pump spike that has two gauges coming out of it, wire them to a delay comp set to 5 seconds.
Then button to relay toggle - same button to ballast water purge system - same button to delay component - Delay component to detonators.

I wired up a similar system on one of my subs once, it ended up destroying most of my bot crew who were either killed in the initial blast or they died trying to put out the fire / repair damage as for some unknown reason one of the bots pulled the lever! The rest died while the ballast flora was still active. While I'm sure your system is tried and tested, I just don't want to take that risk again.

[Dobe]

Burn burn burn

[Rotiart]

You could just avoid flora to begin with, whenever you see it pop up on sonar make sure your ballasts don't take in any water until you're clear, so either don't adjust your heading, or only adjust your heading up

[Some_William]

Originally posted by Rotiart:

You could just avoid flora to begin with, whenever you see it pop up on sonar make sure your ballasts don't take in any water until you're clear, so either don't adjust your heading, or only adjust your heading up

I try that, yeah.
Tiny problem is that it often appears too late on the radar, Or I have to go downwards to continue.

[AlienJesus]

Originally posted by Buggy Boy:

I wired up a similar system on one of my subs once, it ended up destroying most of my bot crew who were either killed in the initial blast or they died trying to put out the fire / repair damage as for some unknown reason one of the bots pulled the lever! The rest died while the ballast flora was still active. While I'm sure your system is tried and tested, I just don't want to take that risk again.

Ballast are considered wetrooms, bots should not even be in there unless they are repairing the ballast pumps and if they are trying to rep ballast pumps when flora is in the tank they are probably already dead from the flora.

And that issue can be mitigated by simply installing a door lock that closes and seals doors. Seal the doors if you know there is flora or you are going through the spore clouds that cause flora and bots cant even get in there. Unseal them after the fire is gone.

[Cid]

Originally posted by Kangaroo Salesman:

Drain the water, unwire the pump, burn flora with plasma cutter or throw grenades. Some custom subs have system set up for draining the room which helps.

Yep. I do this and just chuck a couple of frag grenades into the ballast tank. That usually sorts out the ballast flora pretty quickly. I struggled with ballast flora for a long time before I figured that out.

[Edews]

Put on a diving suit and Engineering suit (or any other suit that gives around 50% burn resistance), then alternate between plasma cutter and welding tool on the root base

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by Edews:

Put on a diving suit and Engineering suit (or any other suit that gives around 50% burn resistance), then alternate between plasma cutter and welding tool on the root base

Why would you alternate between those?