ONI - Surviving the Early Game

An early-game guide for Oxygen Not Included, updated and ready for the official ONI launch!

Following this guide will teach you the ideas and strategies needed to survive your first 50 to 100 in-game cycles on Terra, the most newbie-friendly asteroid type. I've made sure to include a few pointers for the other map types, but my goal across my guide series is to help newer players to learn the core mechanics of the game, something Terra is designed well for.

Intro

First things first, don't be afraid to just dive into the game and try things out for a couple of games first. There's a lot to take in, and a lot of the game's appeal is in exploration and discovery - both in terms of game mechanics and your Dupes' world. "Dupe" is shorthand for "Duplicant," the race of your adorable little crew members in this game.



For those who would wish to follow along with this guide directly, this run is based upon the worldgen seed Terra - 2500. You should be able to follow the general principles of this guide for any Terra-based map. Terra is the most newbie-friendly map available; master Terra and you'll be in a good spot to tackle the new challenges offered by the other map types.

Borderless Window mode

If you want to enable a borderless windowed mode while playing, you won't find an option for it within the game. (Thanks, Unity Engine.) That said, there is a way to enable it:

World Generation

For those who are interested in playing in the same game world as myself, here's how you can set everything up. If you'd rather play your own seed, please feel free to do so - you can safely skip to the next section.

Step 1 - my guides are designed for Survival mode. Don't worry, 'standard' Survival isn't too crazy and is still pretty approachable. Note that while the screenshot says "Quality of Life Upgrade Mark III", this was taken during the release/launch beta - that's what the "LU" of "LU-355385" stands for. (To be precise, about five days pre-launch.)



Step 2 - select the default Asteroid type - Terra. Afterward, select Customize toward the bottom-right.



Note that I have entered 2500 for the "Worldgen Seed." This is the only setting I've changed here - I will not be using Sandbox mode for this guide. After that, you can start the game.

Asteroid Types

If you're not going to listen to my "pick Terra" advice, you can look up the differences among the asteroid types on the ONI wiki here[oxygennotincluded.gamepedia.com]. In general, they become progressively more difficult for new players the further down the list you go.

Also, when generating a non-Terra world, there are all sorts of random modifiers that will appear for every asteroid type but Terra that make for great replayability once you've learned the game.

Assembling Your Crew

Now that we've selected our world's properties and set it building, we should shortly be greeted with the following screen:



(Available Dupes will vary.)

Every game, no matter which asteroid type, you will get to pick three initial Duplicants for your playthrough. More will be offered as you play, but there are a few unique opportunities we can use now that won't be available later:

• You may infinitely reroll the offered Duplicants.
  
• As part of the reroll, you can 'filter' for certain types of Duplicants.

An interesting property of the Dupe offerings:

• Dupes with one interest start with a bonus of +7 to the corresponding skill.
  
• Dupes with two interests instead get a bonus of +3 to two skills.
  
• Three-interest Dupes get a bonus of +1 to three skills instead.

So, about that whole "filtering" thing:



My advice for new players is as follows - while you can't directly pick perfect Dupes, aim for the following approximate specs:

• Research
  
  • Aim for 1-2 interest versions. High Research is powerful.
    
  • The best 'second interests' are Suit Wearing and Supplying for this type.
    
• Digging
  
  • Aim for 2-3 interest versions - make sure the Dupe also has the Building interest.
    
  • An ideal third interest would be Operating, but that only matters much later.
    
  • Alternatively, Supplying and Suit Wearing are both very useful for exploring in dangerous areas.
    
• Supply
  
  • Aim for 2 interest versions, though any count is probably fine.
    
  • Since we're just starting, we could use either Farming or Cooking interests as a stop-gap until we get a dedicated Dupe for that.
    
  • Suit Wearing would be a better long-term interest selection, if you want to optimize that way instead.
    
  • Alternatively, Operating will facilitate building certain advanced structures later.
    

There are a few traits I recommend and a few I strongly advise against:

• Recommended
  
  • Diver's Lungs - probably the best bonus in the game, these Dupes consume less Oxygen than others!
    
  • Germ Resistant - fantastic for your Digger/Builder dupes, these Dupes are less prone to disease than others.
    
  • Some Traits provide bonus points to certain attributes - if it lines up with the Dupe's interests, that's a great thing!
    
• Not recommended
  
  • Allergies, Flatulence, Narcolepsy - all are prone to interrupting Dupes going about their work, though for different reasons in each case.
    
  • Mouth Breather, Bottomless Stomach - both cause Dupes to consume more resources than normal, putting unnecessary strain on your base early on.
    
  • Anemic, Noodle Arms - the first dramatically slows down Dupes, while the second dramatically lowers their carrying capacity; both are bad effects when you're starting a new game.
    

Don't worry too much about getting the big recommended Traits, but definitely avoid the "not recommended" ones. You probably don't want to be rerolling Dupes forever.

For my playthrough, I settled on the following three:

• I decided to go chase the two-interest Researcher version and got it.
  
• I managed to land a "near-perfect" combo with Ruby, so I'm very willing to take the Loud Sleeper negative. I'll just have to be careful with sleeping arrangements.
  
• I went for a more long-term build with Ren, partly because I love Diver's Lungs. It'll be interesting having to handle two separate Loud Sleepers, though.

Now, getting these guys took quite a few rerolls; I may be a bit of a perfectionist. Don't feel like you have to find perfect matches for these, and be willing to accept a less ideal set of Dupes - it won't make or break the game for you.

A New Hope

Welcome to your new home - a very small base with a Printing Pod along with some initial food and oxygen. There's plenty of space to dig out and plenty of useful resources to exploit, so let's get to it!

If you are trying to play the same world and don't see the same layout for your starting area, either the world generation has changed... again... or you may not have entered the seed correctly.

A few notes to start:

• The game starts you out with 16000 kcal of food. Each Dupe will eat 1000 kcal a cycle (in-game day), so we've got food for less than 6 cycles.
  
• There's some initial Oxygen here and some nearby Oxylite that will produce more for a very limited time. It tends to also last around 6 cycles.
  
• While most buildings are locked behind researchable technologies, you'll be able to build quite a few things as soon as you have the needed resources.

Rather than give an absolute step-by-step breakdown on aspects of your colony aside from Dupe management, I'll assume you're a competent gamer and can do some basic mining and exploration. I'm sure you can figure out the basic controls and a few other things. There are also a few useful in-game tooltips that might prove helpful for you.

The key to understanding ONI is to recognize that it's a game about resource management and managing overall priorities. Nearly every solution introduces a new problem of sorts; the fun of ONI is learning to juggle these problems and using them to solve each other. In the following sections, this guide will outline strategies to tackle the most pressing problems and facilitate reaching the mid-game.

Priorities

As we picked our starting Dupes for specific reasons, it's wise to go ahead and start specializing them right out of the gate. If you select the Priorities menu at the top-right, you should be greeted by this window:



If you've ever played Rimworld, the priority system here is actually very similar. Rather than use numbers, ONI represents priority levels with arrows. That's basically it. Each tier of arrow adds +10 to a Dupe's priority calculations for various tasks.

Ruby has "very high" digging and building priority - that's an initial 50 priority to those tasks, plus the number you see for each work order on this screen. In comparison, the other two have "very low" priority here - a mere base 10 priority. They'd much rather help supply materials needed for Ruby's work (50 priority for Ren, 30 for Turner) than do the building work themselves.

Since I picked Turner for those sweet Research skills, Researching is priority #1. Researching always requires Power, though, so I like to give my researchers Operating as their second priority. As soon as we place our first Research Station and start assigning tasks there, Turner will stick to it like glue, only stopping for breaks and for battery recharges.

Since Turner will be busily researching, Ren's set to help Turner out constantly with material supply for building projects. He'll also make sure Turner's research materials are always available, keeping things moving smoothly.

Since I want only Turner to do research, I've blocked the other two - and any additional Dupes - from being allowed to research. Research tasks run for a long time, and Dupes are too polite to bump others from tasks, even when far more qualified - this makes sure that it's reserved for him.

As you gain more Dupes, think about their specialities and how they can help expedite the work of others. That said, some should specialize in unique roles like Turner, expediting the growth of your colony as a whole instead. (You'll only need one Cook and one Farmer for much of the game, for example.)

Errand Priorities

Each Dupe's personal priorities are combined with each work order's priorities - check out the following image in comparison:



In this image, building the ladder has priority 6, meaning that if possible, Dupes will ignore any 5-or-less priority task of similar type in favor of building it. I'm prioritizing a dig on the right-hand side, partly to get to the pool of Water over there, but also partly because it works well with some of my personal base-building strategies.

Here's an interesting image from later in that may also help:



We'll talk more about the downtime stuff later, but note how the combination of personal and errand priorities determine the order in which Turner will carry out tasks. Turner would rather fulfill the priority-5 construction task than the priority-6 build task due to his personal priority settings.

Initial Sanitation - the Latrine (Cycle 1)

Your first urgent deadline for the base is to set up basic bathroom facilities. Once a cycle, our Dupes need themselves a good ol' fashioned bio break. As a result, you've got until the end of the cycle (in-game day, which is 600 seconds in real-time) to prepare for this before they leave wonderful little germy Polluted Water messes all over the floor.

As you may imagine, Dupes are not exactly fond of mopping up "accidents"... though they will actually bother if directly instructed to do so. There's another issue to consider - with biological waste comes germs, and you don't want those to spread freely!

As such, our approach is two-fold:

1. Find and tap an initial water source.
   
   • Fortunately, we have a few large nearby pools of water. (A benefit of Terra)
     
2. Establish an isolated 'latrine' area.

What you want to construct will look something like the following:



Note that the only way into the rest of the base is through the Wash Basins. That way, a Dupe will be forced to wash their hands after utilizing the restroom, preventing the germs from escaping into the rest of the base. The Wash Basin has been set to require hand-washing only for Dupes exiting the room, not entering it. As your base grows, make sure to avoid any chance of a Dupe being unable to wash their hands when they leave the area due to Wash Basin unavailability caused by another Dupe! Also, make sure there's one Wash Basin for every Outhouse - Dupes don't do queuing.

Of course, to get that Wash Basin up and running requires water - accordingly, your first task is to build a Pitcher Pump on an existing reservoir of fresh Water for use by the Wash Basin. I built one in the pool of water just to the left of the image above.

While there's technically no need to build a door on the room like I have above, it comes with a big benefit:



More Morale means happier Dupes, and the more responsibilities they'll be comfortable having within the base. Don't worry about the door until you have at least the sink and outhouse in place, though - all three parts are required for the bonus, and preventing "accidents" is more important than a little Morale bonus at this point.

Free Food

As you dig tiles out, you'll occasionally find free supplies of food. When you do so, I advise making sure you can store it in that initial Ration Box:




Your Supply-focused Dupe will happily store it away for you quite quickly, making sure that only your Dupes can get to it.

Base Planning

The Central Corridor

Now's probably a good time to talk about a few details of my personal design patterns. You'll note that I'm establishing a vertical corridor 6 tiles wide near to the Printing Pod's area - the huge open space with the ladder circled in cyan.



It may seem excessive, but that space can be very useful for routing wires, pipes, and valves later on. Since the goal is to make this the central tower, this is an ideal place to establish our first Oxygen production building once we get there - it's the best place to promote airflow within the base! There's also a nice structure we can build later - the Fire Pole, that we'll be able to add for quicker Dupe descent. I want to leave space for that, too - it'll go on the right-hand side of the corridor.

About the left-hand side - while not covered within this guide, this provides ample space to run Heavi-Watt wiring and Small Transformers through your base once you are well into the mid-game. You'll want to hide them due to their hideous Decor score, and allocating this space now will make integrating later-game power systems much easier down the line.

To make this really work, I'll eventually need to either use up or relocate the pool of Water currently located here. We'll deal with this in time.

Note that I'm emphasizing the central corridor here. There will be other ones from time to time on the other side of rooms, but I'm likely to leave these to be only 3 tiles wide. This will help alleviate similar issues on the edges of the base and also promote airflow, especially once we unlock Airflow Tiles down the line. Areas narrower than 3 tiles sometimes have issues letting gasses pass through effectively.

But back to the earlier image:



Note the yellow circle. A small, less important detail I try to implement when possible is to have eight free tiles for a room to the right of the Printing Pod. This has nice benefits with future bathroom designs if you can allot that space, but it's not too important if you can't. (The 'ninth' tile is for the walls necessary to create the room itself.)

Nature Reserves

One last thing worth mentioning - as you dig and build, you may want to preserve areas like this that you find:



(This one's from a previous playthrough)

In this image, we can't build the Park Sign yet, but we can get a hefty Morale bonus for visiting Dupes if we preserve the area... and if their normal route takes them through the zone. It's no major loss if you decide against this, but once you've removed the plants, it is very hard to restore them and is a permanent decision. There are other ways to raise Morale though, so it's hardly necessary for a standard playthrough.

Alternatively, note the wild plants growing here. Plants have reduced growth rates but free maintenance requirements if you leave them growing wild - it's basically free food if you can leave the plants in place. If you can trap Shine Bugs (the glowing critters) with Bristle Blossom plants, so much the better.

For a couple of potential examples on this playthrough's map...



We aren't yet in a place to reach those areas, but one or both might make nice nature sites -especially the top one, since there's a Shine Bug there to help with the wild Bristle Blossom plants.

On Downtime

During the last two in-game 'hours' of the cycle (by default), your Dupes will stop working and go take care of their needs. They'll eat, use our recently established Latrine, and socialize if you've got the proper structures built. You can see the schedule for yourself in-game by clicking the appropriate tab to the top-right.

While I won't be doing so yet in this guide, feel free to change their schedule if you desire! Once the base gets larger, they may need an extra timeslot for downtime in order to return to base and fill their needs. An extra hour of downtime will also increase their Morale, which is a nice plus, too. I advise adding an alternate schedule once you get a fifth Dupe - I like to have rotating sets of 4 dupes for a long time, since that's 2 pairs of bathroom visits each downtime period.

Errand Priorities

I've also included a look at Turner's to-do queue in this image, which might look familiar; note how downtime outprioritizes nearly every other base task. "Personal Needs" tasks like Eating have a base 200 priority, and even the "Relax" task there has a base of 100 priority during a Dupe's downtime.

Setting Schedules

That said, if you took a Dupe with Loud Sleeper or Night Owl, it's usually a good idea to start establishing a second schedule now. Since I have two, here's what that looks like for my playthrough:



It will take the Dupes a little while to fully adapt to the new schedule, but they'll start trying to stick to it right away. Hopefully Ruby and Turner don't hate me for rescheduling their downtime during the middle of it! That said, one of Turner's traits is Night Owl - I think he'll be perfectly fine.

Of course, feel free to pick whatever schedules you prefer. I personally like making three shifts to evenly space out the bathroom breaks; it helps a lot when the Dupe numbers rise.

Establishing a Workshop

Now that we've established somewhere for Dupes to "do their business," it's time to establish somewhere for Dupes to do their (actual) business. The vast majority of buildings in ONI either make use of electrical power to function or produce electrical power themselves... but most of the buildings are presently locked! Accordingly, it's time to rectify that issue.

Initial Construction

Your initial setup should consist of the following:

• One Manual Generator
  
• One Tiny Battery
  
• One Research Station
  
• One Oxygen Diffuser
  
• The wiring necessary to connect the pieces.

You'll need to mine enough Metal Ore to make this happen, of course, so dig toward wherever is most convenient for you. If you're on Terra, that'd be the orangish Copper Ore.

For my version of this base, the setup I established is to the right of the Printing Pod's room:



The wires are all hidden behind the buildings and run through the floor, keeping everything looking nice and clean. You can almost always build wires and pipes behind other in-game structures, as they exist on a separate layer. However, you cannot hide them behind unmined resources.

The workshop proper is the upper floor, hidden away from the ugly Battery beneath on the lower floor. This is to address future Morale concerns - a little bit of extra effort now can pay off later... and we'll eventually want an actual second floor for workshop use anyway.

Initial Research Priorities

Once you've established your initial workshop, make the following researches your priority, in order:

• Basic Farming - this is necessary to establish your first farm, for Mealwood. You don't want to delay this for too long, and you have a little time before your Dupes earn their first Skill point anyway.
  
• Power Regulation - this unlocks the standard Battery, which has four times the capacity of your Tiny Battery. You'll appreciate the extra buffer.

A couple of other researches you'll likely want soon:

• Meal Preparation (Tier 2, after Basic Farming)
  
• Pressure Management (Tier 2) - for the Airflow Tile.
  
• Advanced Research (Tier 2) - for Advanced Research

Try not to research things that you don't see a quick, upcoming use for. On Terra, Water is pretty plentiful and you'll probably be fine, but that's a terrible habit to have going into other seed types. You'd be shocked how much Water techs Tier 3 and above will cost you. When in doubt, just read ahead a few sections and look for "Required Researches" to get an idea of what you will need in the near future.

Oxygen Production

Around this time you may notice that your initial Oxylite reserves are mostly gone; you'll soon need to start producing your own Oxygen! Fortunately, we just placed an Oxygen Diffuser as part of our initial workshop. This allows us to start producing our own Oxygen and sustain our base longer than those limited first six cycles - yay!

Note how the initial Oxylite supply has already dropped considerably:



We've already lost one of the initial five tiles, and are close to losing two other tiles!

Once you start Oxygen production, you'll want to watch your Algae levels regularly. When they get low, make sure to keep an eye out for new sources that you can mine and place into storage for later!

Personnel Management

During Cycle 3, you should be presented with your first Printer Pod offering, like so:



The first thing worth pointing out - there's no "Shuffle" button this time, but now there's a "Reject All" button. You either take one of the four options or you reject them all. (You can delay, but these are your two ultimate choices.) The second thing - there are things aside from Dupes we can take. Here, we have the option to take a lot of Coal, which will be pretty useful for generating power toward the end of this guide and into the mid-game.

Look over your options wisely and determine the best course of action - and don't feel bad about rejecting Dupes. Really, you should get used to that - the worst thing for a new player to do is take on too many Dupes too early.

My thoughts on my options here:

• Leira does have a Cooking interest, which would be useful early, as well as Diver's Lungs. That said, the other two interests... I don't care too much about for her. That said, the only detriment of the extra interests are that she starts out with less Cooking stat, but that's something that can grow over time.
  
• Coal's not bad, but if you manage your power system right, you probably won't be hurting for Coal for a long time. (Unless you're on a different map type, at least.) We can safely pass this up.
  
• Nisbet's got a great interest combination for a long-range explorer. That said, I don't need a long-range explorer right now, and the traits don't combo that well.
  
• Lindsay's interests could work well... for the same sort of purpose I took Ren. But I already have Ren, and with a base this early in development, I don't want duplicates quite yet - especially not for tasks I won't even need for over 50 cycles.

Ideally, I'd rather manage to find a Cooking / Decorating combo, but you never know what the Printing Pod will give you. I do need a Cook, and this one comes with one of the most powerful traits... so I'll be taking Leira.

Since Leira's handling Cooking errands, it also makes sense for her to prioritize Farming - that helps her get the materials for her main Cooking job. I've set her priority list for Cooking (High) and Farming (Very High) - this way, she'll finish a string of Farming tasks instead of cooking meals in between tasks when possible. Once we have a dedicated Farmer, I'll flip the two priorities.

Gaining Skills

Either now (if you take a Dupe with your first print) or in Cycle 5 (otherwise), you'll find yourself with a brand-new skill point for use. Every printed Dupe comes with a single free skill point.



Since Camille's a dedicated Cook, I naturally gave her a Cooking skill - Grilling, which unlocks new possibilities for cooking. Her interest in that skill gives her a small Morale boost to help cover the new Morale expectation she has from gaining the skill. Gain too many skills for the Morale you can provide your Dupes, and they'll start getting unhappy and cause major issues for your base. That's why we're taking a few early measures to ensure a stress-free environment.

The simple version: keep "green" longer than "red," and beware - the only way to shorten "red" is to fully reset the Dupes' skills with the Skill Scrubber.

Once a Dupe has at least one Skill, you can assign them a "hat" based on a single learned skill to remind you of their role in the colony. Also, the hats are cute. Wearing cute hats is fun and a nice little reward, so enjoy it!

The Initial Three

In a couple more cycles, I plan to assign the others the following skills, all aligned with their main interests:

• Turner - Advanced Research
  
• Ruby - Hard Digging (unlocks ability to mine new tile types!)
  
• Ren - Improved Carrying I (bonus carrying capacity!)

Note that in general, you should check if any interesting Skills unlock new abilities for your crew or the base - it's usually wise to prioritize those.

Rare Goods

As you continue to play, you may occasionally be offered rare items that are not available normally on your map, such as:

• Oxyfern Seeds
  
• Arbor Tree Seeds
  
• Pip Eggs

While this guide won't be covering those items, you may want to strongly consider selecting them when they appear, as there's no other way to obtain them until much, much later in the game.

Our First Farm

Something else you've likely noticed around this time - that "Calories Available" count at the top-left is likely dropping. Now that we can research basic Farming structures - that's our first tech to unlock, after all - it's time to prepare and build our first farm! I've decided to place it in the area to the left of the Printing Pod, away from the heat-producing research and power buildings:



As you can see, I've already planted my first two Mealwood seeds; it took long enough to clear the area that Basic Farming was done around the same time. It's not much, but it's a start. Those are the only seeds I have at present, which is okay and actually fairly normal. We can find more - you just need to know where to look. I advise looking for spots like these - note the cracks in the tiles - and digging the area out. Those are "Buried Object" markers.


Not pictured: a few Muckroot were also buried here, which provide a decent one-time food bonus. Despite that, we've already found three more Mealwood seeds, and there are plenty more buried objects to dig out! It's also a convenient area to be digging out - we'll be making a special room here shortly.

If you're still having trouble finding Mealwood to plant, note that Mealwood grows 4 times faster when 'domesticated' than a wild plant. As a result, if a Mealwood Plant's progress is below 70%, it'll be faster to uproot and replant it than to wait for the first crop. It does mean losing potential Nature Reserves, but I'd only worry about maybe one or two... and even then, it helps to have experience in the game first before you really concentrate on making one "happen."

On Mealwood

As a note on Mealwood, your first farmable plant:

• Each cultivated Mealwood plant takes 3 cycles to produce a 600 kcal crop.
  
• Your Dupes (without Bottomless Stomach) consume 1000 kcal a cycle.
  
• Therefore, ideally you should have 5 Mealwood plants per Dupe.
  
  • We can bring this number down a bit by cooking the resulting Meal Lice using the Microbe Musher, bringing it quite close to 4 plants per Dupe. Add that bad boy to your Workshop area.
    
• With a good Farming dupe, it is possible to settle for less plants initially; Farmers have a nice bonus Seed chance that will facilitate creating the seeds you are missing over time.

Other Plants

As you discover new plant types later in the game, check the plant details and consider employing similar strategies. A little bit of saved food here and there can really add up!

• Dusk Caps (for Mushrooms) love Carbon Dioxide atmospheres, which isn't usually hard to facilitate.
  
• Wild Pincha Pepperplants will produce a remarkable amount of Peppernuts for free if you leave them intact.
  
• The big one, later in the game - Sleet Wheat is extremely costly to domesticate but grows in abundance in the (distant) wild. You can stockpile large amounts of it for practically free!

Sleeping Quarters

When your Dupes woke up for the cycle, you might have noticed that they're complaining a little bit, almost like their backs are sore. Well, wouldn't yours be if you didn't have a nice, comfy bed to sleep in? Without a bed or cot to sleep in, this is actually part of the game! Also part of the game - they don't like to sleep in light. Who knew?

As a result, I've repurposed that area above the farm into the base's first Barracks room. This does come with benefits:



Sleeping in a Barracks adds another point of Morale! But what is Morale useful for, you ask? We'll talk about that shortly.

Loud Sleeper

In the meantime, since I have two "Loud Sleeper" Dupes in the base, I should talk about about that negative Trait. For starters:



Note the range of snoring around Ren in this picture. Wherever he sleeps, he'll wake up anyone within that range. As a result, I'm placing Ren at the front of the Barracks and Leira (on the same shift) on the far side of the room, far enough that she won't be disturbed. If I place another bed to the left, that'll be out of range of Ruby's snoring on her downtime shift.

In fact, Leira could safely sleep at the same time as Ruby with this arrangement - only the bottom-left tile of Cots matters. For comparison:



The Loud Sleeping trait is annoying, but it can be handled with a little planning.

Cooking

Now that we have our first farm ready, let's make sure we're ready to start processing our crops by adding a Microbe Musher to the workshop area.


I've also had enough time to research Power Regulation, so I've already upgraded to the Jumbo Battery, which has four times the capacity of the smaller version. This will reduce the number of breaks needed to recharge it, giving us more uptime on the jobs that matter.

Establishing Food Permissions

Now that we're able to cook, it's wise to access the Consumables menu and disallow eating of Meal Lice, and possibly a few other 'raw' food goods you expect to cook in the near future. After your first harvest of Meal Lice, whatever the source, I also advise setting your Ration Box to accept them into storage, especially if the plants are accessible by Hatches. Hatches may eat your produce if you give them the chance, though they're usually happy with debris if you haven't swept it up.

Benefits

• The Microbe Musher allows you to add +500 kcal for every two Meal Lice harvests you get, allowing you to extend your initial food supply nicely.
  
• In the case your food stores become dire, you can make Mush Bars as a stop-gap.
  
• Liceloaf has a heavily-reduced mass for easier storage and refreshes the freshness timer of Meal Lice completely.

Issues

• It consumes precious Water. It may not seem precious now, but it becomes a major issue in the mid-game. Definitely watch out for this on non-Terra maps!
  
  • Once you have enough plants in your farm and have a cook with the Grilling skill, consider converting to the Electric Grill and Pickled Meal, which doesn't consume Water and decays much slower.
    

--- Intermediate Review ---

Applying all of the strategies above has given us a decently sustainable base to build upon - all of the fundamentals for each Dupe are taken care of, giving us plenty of flexibility to move forward and tech up our base.

• Basic Sanitation is up and running, blocking the spread of Food Poisoning in our base.
  
• We have a basic workshop for performing Research and producing Oxygen to sustain our Dupes.
  
• The Mealwood farm will provide an initial food source for our Dupes. We still need to grow it with more seeds, but we'll be finding more as we continue to dig anyway.
  
• We've added a few rooms to help manage Morale and Stress, allowing our Dupes to safely learn their first Skills.

Just from these basic principles, a base can easily run around 50 or so cycles with little change as long as you keep mining the resources you need. (The only issues would be Algae and Carbon Dioxide; handling the latter marks the transition to the mid-game.) That being said, you didn't buy this game to just watch it for 50 cycles; we want to grow the colony and tech up the base, right? Let's now look at a few ways to enhance the base to prepare for the mid-game, more Dupe skills, and improve our efficiency! While we'd definitely need to mine extra Algae to make it that far and plant a few more seeds, our base won't die from other concerns at this point.

Other Notes

Have you noticed that interesting blob of orange to the upper-left of our base? That's one of several sites in the game that provide certain resources renewably, free of charge. Well, almost free of charge...



The problem is that this Geyser likes to run hot - far hotter than we're currently equipped to handle. For now, make sure to leave this alone and sealed off - when it's overpressurized, it'll stop generating resources, which also means not generating heat. We'll return to this beauty in the mid-game.

There's also a Cool Steam Vent down at the bottom-left on the edge of our current vision - that generates lots of heat as well, and won't be stopping quite as early as the Natural Gas Geyser. We're fine for now, but check the area every 10 cycles or so and watch the area's heat rise!

Our Next Goals

Now that our base isn't in major danger of anything for the moment, it's a good time to take on a few building projects. Before we reach the mid-game, there are three main goals we need to tackle:

• Morale improvement - while we can cover our first Skill with little issue and possibly a second, we don't have much room yet to take on any extras afterward.
  
• Power - while we can run on Dupe power for a while, we'll soon have a few things that will motivate having a constant Power supply for the base. This will also help free up a few Dupes to take on other tasks.
  
• Plumbing - you'll soon note that a significant amount of time goes into maintaining the Latrine area. We can significantly reduce the workload there with plumbing... and get some extra Morale for our Dupes for the trouble!

To accomplish this, there are quite a few techs we'll want to research:

• Morale improvement
  
  • Meal Preparation
    
  • Employment (optional)
    
• Plumbing
  
  • Sanitation (Tier 3)
    
  • Distillation (Tier 3)
    
  • Improved Plumbing (Tier 3)
    
• Power
  
  • Sound Amplifiers (Tier 3)
    
  • Advanced Power Regulation (Tier 3)
    
  • Brute-Force Refinement (Tier 2)
    
  • Decontamination (Tier 3)
    
  • Improved Ventilation (Tier 3)
    
  • Advanced Automation (Tier 4)
    

As you might guess from the ordering and size of the tech requirement listings, we'll be tackling these in order of lowest tech requirements to highest. As it turns out, the build complexity also goes up with each project, so we'll move from simpler to more complex builds as we proceed.

The Mess Hall (Morale)

If you look through the list of room types in the Room Overlay, you might notice that a few rooms offer powerful Morale bonuses. Our current goal will be to gain one of these bonuses through building a Mess Hall.

Let's revisit an image from earlier - examine the yellow circle below.



The plan is to convert our Printing Pod area into our first Mess Hall. If we make the room 16 tiles wide - preferably, 8 tiles to the right of the Printing Pod and 4 to the left (or vice-versa) - we can also prepare it for eventual upgrade into a Great Hall worth +6 Morale instead of +3!

To properly prepare the room, we'll probably need to dig out the area above it so that the room can be given a proper ceiling. Mess Halls have a max size of 64, and that initial Oxylite tends to push us just over the limit. Secondly... we'll actually want to build our next project right above the Mess Hall anyway. So let's get digging!

The best way to start is by extending our two main ladders upward so that we can start digging out the area above the Printing Pod. If you've been on top of your research, you may find that you've unlocked the Mess Table during this time, as I have here. Once you do, go ahead and build one per Dupe near to the Printing Pod. Once you do so, congrats!



Make sure to have the room closed off and small enough to ensure the bonus. Only Dupes who eat at a Mess Table will gain the Mess Hall bonus, so make sure there's room for everyone!

Recreation (Optional)

If you're interested in raising your Morale even higher, research that optional tech. Unlocking Employment allows construction of a Water Cooler, providing a new recreational activity for downtime good for +1 Morale.

To fully upgrade the Mess Hall into a Great Hall (for an additional +3 bonus) will require either making an artwork (the route I took) or adding a plant that gives a high enough Decor bonus. The latter is probably easier, but they patched the plant "detail" in after I wrote this part.

Just in case... keep an eye out for good Decorator-interest Dupes - they're great for making high-Decor artworks for these situations. On the other hand, if you can wait a while, I like having my Cook pick up those skills once I'm able to sustain Morale through other means. It provides a good secondary backup activity for a specialization that usually doesn't have near-100% uptime.

Plumbing

As you may recall, one of the earliest things we did in this guide was to establish a basic, hand-pumped water supply to supply the Wash Basin. At this point, you may have noticed that the Basin will eventually need a resupply and that the Outhouse periodically requires quite a significant amount of maintenance every 15 visits. This can take up quite a bit of your Dupes' time, especially as the colony starts to grow, but there's something we can do to address the issue and make things operate more smoothly.

Prepare for your first mega-project: it's time to add plumbing.

Benefits

• No more manual upkeep for the base's hygiene issues, freeing up Dupe time.
  
  • In particular, the lengthy process of 'cleaning' a Lavatory will be eliminated.
• Adds +1 to Morale maintenance by upgrading from a Latrine to a Washroom (room bonuses)

Costs

• We start producing infected Polluted Water.
  
• Dupes must spend a bit more time on Manual Generators than before. (It's definitely a net time savings, though!)

The goal

And here's what some of the plumbing will look like in motion:

Tech Requirements

• Advanced Research (Tier 2) - unlocks the Super-Computer and Tier 3+ research
  
• Sanitation (Tier 2) - unlocks the Sink and the Lavatory
  
• Improved Plumbing (Tier 3) - unlocks the Liquid Reservoir
  
• Distillation (Tier 3) - unlocks the Water Sieve

I suggest unlocking them in this order, as we can progressively utilize each tech as we unlock it.

Starting Construction

You may have noticed a relatively new, open area above the Mess Hall and to the right of the sleeping quarters. This will be the site of two new Washrooms - plumbed bathrooms. As you may have noticed from the 'goal' image, the placement above the Mess Hall is indeed intentional.

Consider how Dupes tend to act during downtime:

• Use a bathroom, if available.
  
• Time to eat!
  
• Couldn't use the bathroom earlier? Check again until it's available. (A bathroom becoming available will interrupt any leisure activities.)
  
• Are any recreational activities available?

By placing the Washrooms above the Mess Hall, Dupes will have very little distance to travel during downtime. If more Washrooms are needed later, we can simply add two more on top of the current ones (so long as we reserve the space).

To prevent the spread of germs, we should probably make sure the Dupes move correctly. We can do this by restricting door access to a single direction like so for the left door:



Make sure to set the opposite for the right-side door. The key is to always make sure that Dupes must cross paths with a Sink before they leave the Latrine/Washroom area - reference the next image if you need. Once you've unlocked Sanitation, you can start construction on the Washrooms themselves, though they won't be hooked up completely quite yet:



To the right, you can see I've started adding structure to that top-right area; this in in preparation for new buildings once I unlock Improved Plumbing.

And of course, it may help to have a reference for constructing the completed Washroom area:



Once Advanced Plumbing is unlocked, there's a lot to start building and putting in place; I actually finished unlocking Distillation before everything was ready.

Incoming unpolluted Water will come in from above, while the produced Polluted Water is collected in a single pipe and shipped out to the right. Where does the Water come and go from?

Water Reclamation

Since this section was written, I've made a simplified version of this room with much clearer pipe work here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1359728437
Look for "Washroom Sieve Loop." The room has the same dimensions as before, so it'll still fit.

Old version
What follows is for a more complex variant I used before the redesign.

You probably noticed that I started digging out two floors above the workshop - this is for the other half of our initial plumbing solution. Make sure not to break any pockets of unusual gases during this build; we haven't talked about how to handle them yet. I had just enough room to avoid doing so here.

Now, what are we planning to place there?



This module is why we needed those fancy advanced researches. By dumping the Polluted Water produced by our early Wash Basins into the bottom-right Liquid Pump's pool, we can kickstart a system for maximum conservation of our Water resources. Managing Water becomes extremely important in the mid-game - especially on other map types - so preserving as much clean Water as possible will be quite useful.

Running Polluted Water through a Water Sieve will convert it back to Water, but won't remove the germs. Despite this, germy Polluted Water is still totally safe (somehow) for use in Sinks - I guess there's a bar of soap nearby or something.

Since the right-hand image's piping is a bit tangled, it's probably best to see how it works in action. I've linked the short clip (~15 sec):

This system will keep all hygiene-related germs contained within its system, preventing them from affecting your clean Water supply. Once Water is germy, it's rather hard to make it "un-germy" until much later in the game - and using germy Water in your Liceloaf or in your Water Cooler is a ticket straight to all kinds of nasty issues. A bit of prevention goes a long way.

The Full Picture

Once everything is ready, set the Bottle Emptier to receive just Polluted Water. By this point, your Dupes have probably resupplied a Wash Basin, so sweep one of the bottles. That's enough to reach this state:


Pay attention when your Dupe delivers that bottle. As soon as he or she is done with the delivery, use the "Move To" command to force them behind a filled sink, as they'll be quite germy:



Note the highlighted button at the bottom-right and use that.

This washroom/reclamation loop will generate more Water than it consumes - eventually, 100+ cycles down the line, we'll need some way to handle the built-up Polluted Water that our Dupes are producing. That said, this does give us plenty of time to advance our base in other ways - ways that may give us better solutions down the line.

The Storage Bin in this build should be filled with Sand, as the Sieve consumes it and will regularly need resupplies.

Extra Notes

A funny thing - we've established plumbing without actually having a traditional clean Water source. Go figure. That said, Advanced Research does consume an awful lot of clean Water over time. While this type of build isn't necessary on Terra, this will prepare you for the conservation measures needed on other asteroid types.

From here, slowly deconstruct the old bathroom, taking care to handle any germs involved.

Base Expansion

You may have noted the Cycle count in the last section's images - we've gone from Cycle 4 or 5 up to Cycle 14 now. Quite a bit's happened in that time. First things first, I've taken on one extra Dupe:



I usually like to start with Ranching tasks very early in the mid-game guide, and since that's a Tier 2 skill, it will need a little time to train. Secondly, the prerequisite skill helps Farming... so in the meantime, he'll take over Farming duties from Leira.

Now, keep in mind - I've had time for three Printing Pod offerings since starting last section, and I've only taken one of them. Again, it's perfectly fine not to take Dupes, and more often than not you should avoid it. I recommend no more than 6 or 7 by the end of this (early-game) guide.

Exploration

As technologies can take a while to unlock, I had a few spots of downtime during the previous project. Since we knew of a few wild plants that produced food, I took time to build pathways to them. I've also started building tunnels to a few sites at the edges of our vision range so that we can see a bit more of the world. Compare the before and after here:


It would be good to explore what's below our main ladder, but there's a lot of Water at its current bottom. Fortunately, there are ways to address this.

If you check, you can see I've already made that pool wider and a little deeper. We're about to use a few solid tiles to "push" the water out of our way, but it needs somewhere to go when we do so. Just to be safe, make the pool a little wider before continuing.

Once done, starting from left to right, then top to bottom, build solid Tiles where we currently have Water until we have walled off the tiles immediately to the right of the pool's current ladder. A quick before-and-after:


From here, we can safely wall off the main pool of Water - and we did this without even needing to build a pump! We won't always be so lucky, though - we can already see a similar issue with the next pool beneath this one.

As for the water on top of the new Tiles, it's very minimal and can safely be mopped without issue.

Finding Low Ground

To prepare for the next section, my goal is to build a ladder to the area below my base; while it's something that we can technically build anywhere, there are notable advantages to placing it in a low area away from our farms and near our wide vertical shaft.

As you may recall, the plan is to address our base's Power situation, and to do that we plan to build a Coal Generator setup - this generates significant heat and Carbon Dioxide (CO2). CO2 is the heaviest gas, so placing such a build below everything else will help keep CO2 under control.



Taking a look at my available areas, we can see that Water is in our way in a few different spots at the bottom, so the plan is to relocate the parts I don't want via Pump. Unfortunately, moving it "out of the way" also moves it closer to the Cool Steam Vent, and we'd rather not heat up our initial Water, since it strongly stabilizes our base temperature. You might notice that some of the plants closest to the Vent are wilting - they've already overheated and can no longer grow properly!

So before we proceed, it's time to build two things:

• A large Water tank
  
• Insulation from that Cool Steam Vent

We'll get back to the Power situation after taking care of both these issues.

To facilitate this, we're going to add a new research to our priority list:

• Temperature Modulation

This tech gives us the ability to proactively insulate areas.

Note

While the issue of heat usually isn't tackled quite so early in a Terra guide, this will come up as early - or even earlier! - for certain other asteroid types, like Arideo and Volcanea.

Water Relocation + Insulation

Since we've already unlocked Plumbing and the like, we already have the tools we need to properly relocate large amounts of Water. The real question is where to move it.



My plan is to eventually build a Coal-based Power generation plant at the yellow circle. I've added a few Tile build orders to highlight the approximate structure and size that I'm planning for.

To facilitate this, my plan is to relocate any large amount Water that's in the way to the area of the blue oval. Note how I've outlined walls and ladders corresponding to the walls of the bedroom far above it. It's not the prettiest, but consistent placement of the walls will help us extend any secondary ladder shafts without issue later on.

The first order of business, then, is simply to clear out that area and prepare it as a tank to hold Water - and to do this without accidentally spilling any before we're ready. After a fair bit of work, I arrive at this state:



From here, digging out one of the tiles beneath a sand block will release the lower-left pool's water into the tank, since sand automatically falls in this game.

It'll take a while for the Water to fully drain, but this will successfully relocate the first pool. Once that's done, we can raise the walls of the tank to hold more. Make sure not to let your Digger stay in the Water too long, though - they'll catch hypothermia otherwise and need to take a break for a couple of cycles. In the meantime, I'll wall off the lower-right tank to prep for pumping only part of it to the new tank.



Now we're ready to pump the Water that's been blocking our main shaft, and we've got extra space in the tank to spare. In fact... we have enough spare space by our Pitcher Pump for it, so I'm going to dump the Water there. The expanded tank won't go to waste, though - we can use the same trick as before to relocate the big pool of Water that's directly under the Mealwood farms. Try to release it as far to the left as possible or you might get a bit of spillage.

In regard to pumping, rather than extend our main power circuit all the way down the shaft for the pump, I'm going to make a small secondary circuit down there to avoid overloading the main circuit's Wires down the road. There's a good chance you've seen Dupes out of breath down there; I also plan to add a second Oxygen Diffuser once the area's clear to help reduce the amount of running our workers will need to do down there in the near future.



While waiting for the Water to be fully pumped, I've been insulating the base from that Cool Steam Vent with Igneous-based Insulation Tiles. (They're a better material for this than Sandstone.) You may also note a remaining build order there that looks out of reach diagonally - that errand actually is reachable and can be performed, despite being walled off. Progress will be slow in that section, but we can keep the Steam sealed off while replacing the roof over the vent with insulation this way, so long as we're careful.



At this point, we've now moved enough of the Water that we can start properly on our next big project.

Coal-based Power Generation + CO2 Processing

Around this time, you may have noticed an interesting issue with your food supplies - unrefrigerated food decays, and Dupes seem to actively avoid the oldest food. Unfortunately, when part of a food stack spoils, the whole thing often does, which can wreck your manufactured food supply. To solve this, we need refrigeration. (That, or careful management of when we actually craft food; we can let ingredients spoil a bit while Dupes finish off the processed stuff.)

You've probably also noticed some of your Dupes spending a lot of time on their nearest friendly hamster wheel - well, Manual Generator. What if we could free them up from that responsibility?

At the same time, there's a secondary problem that may start needing to be addressed that will become even more pronounced once we've started using Coal Generators - our base already has a significant Carbon Dioxide buildup. Take a look at the Oxygen Overlay (the left-most Overlay option) and look at the red areas - that's likely to be Carbon Dioxide build-up.



If you're wondering about the reports you've likely been getting about "Insufficient Oxygen Generation", this is a fair part of it. Of course, we also want to add an extra Oxygen Diffuser in the near future. That said, Carbon Dioxide pressure will block Oxygen production if the Oxygen runs out of places to flow, and Carbon Dioxide is unbreathable. We'll take care of that issue eventually within this step as well.

Benefits (minimal)

• Frees up Dupes from Manual Generator use
  
• Provides a near-uninterrupted Power source.
  
• Begins handling and elimination of your Carbon Dioxide buildup.

Benefits (with Additional Recommendations)

• Conserves resources so that minimal Power is wasted and less upkeep is required.
  
• Provides significant Power flexibility moving forward for upcoming tasks.

Costs

• We're now actively producing extra Carbon Dioxide, even if we're also handling it.
  
• This results in extra Polluted Water production. It's up to you whether this water is kept 'potable' (in a separate tank from our Lavatory's output) or not.
  
• We now need to keep an eye on Coal levels, though we should be fine for quite a while.

Researches Required

• Stage 1
  
  • Smart Home (Tier 2) - unlocks Automation
    
  • Brute-Force Refinement (Tier 2) - unlocks the Rock Granulator, providing our first access to Refined Metals
    
  • Sound Amplifiers (Tier 3) - unlocks the Smart Battery
    
  • Internal Combustion (Tier 2) - unlocks Coal Generators
    
  • Advanced Power Regulation (Tier 3) - unlocks the Power Transformer and Heavi-Watt Wires
    
• Stage 2
  
  • Decontamination (Tier 3) - unlocks the Carbon Skimmer
    
  • Improved Ventilation (Tier 3) - unlocks the Atmo Sensor
    
  • Advanced Automation (Tier 4) - unlocks various logic Gates.
    

I've listed them in my suggested order for unlocking.

Other Requirements

A nice, isolated space to build, preferably far below our main base.

One problem with Coal-based Power production is that it generates significant amounts of Heat - much more than the Manual Generator. As our Power needs will grow with the base, it would be wise to place such large sources of Heat away from our farms and the core of the base. Another issue is its production of waste Carbon Dioxide. This gas has a tendency to settle at the bottom of all other common in-game gases. Putting the two together... the plan is to place our first Coal Generators below the base. Simple, right? Just like we've already talked about in recent sections.

Now that I've cleared out most of the area I was targeting before, we can start building.

So, what's the plan? As it turns out, this is a rather sizeable build, so I'm going to take it in two stages. I've outlined them in more detail in my [yet-to-be-updated] "Useful Construction Patterns" guide.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1359728437

Stage 1

Simple, right? A happy little Coal Generator with a Smart Battery and a Storage Compactor for Coal. The automation couldn't be simpler, thanks to the Smart Battery. This will allow your base to use its Coal optimally, preventing the wasted Power production that occurs when the Generator isn't automated. That also means we'll produce the minimal amount of heat and CO2 necessary.

As mentioned previously in the guide, this is lined up quite deliberately with the central corridor. This will help simplify some reorganization we'll need to do in the midgame when we start producing a lot more Power on a regular basis - we'll eventually run our main power grid through it.

While the floor beneath the Coal Generator is rather empty at present, that's setting up for Stage 2.

In the meantime, I've done a slight reorganization of the base's Wire layout, moving the Oxygen Diffuser in the base's core onto our new grid.



Since our automatic Power production is limited for now, it's best to only utilize it for the things that really need constant uptime - our Oxygen supply and food preservation. Though I miiiight have forgotten to research Agriculture for the Refridgerator until now, which will immediately be added to the new grid once it's unlocked. (It'll replace our original Ration Box.)

Also, note how I'm insulating all sides but the bottom - we want to keep the generated heat away from the base.

Stage 2

Here's a full view of our finished product:



Well... finished-for-now product. It's actually designed for a mid-game upgrade or two later down the line, but that's past the scope of this guide. You'll note that the bottom section has been fleshed out significantly. I've decided to output the Polluted Water into the Washroom loop - while it'll accelerate how quickly it fills, we have plenty of time to address that issue.

While the wiring and piping aren't anything special, I'll still show off the overlays:


The real point of interest is the automation:



Settings:

• Filter Gates - 15 secs. This ensures that our Skimmer has a full atmosphere of CO2 before running, rather than depleting it and operating less efficiently.
  
• Gas Element Sensor - Carbon Dioxide.
  
• Atmo Sensor - Above 1000g.

Early Game Review

If you've made it this far, congrats! I consider this to be the end of ONI's early game. We've done nearly all we can within our starting biome; the few things we haven't yet begun fit better thematically with the mid-game anyway.

Things we've accomplished:

• Our base has a strong, steady supply of Oxygen.
  
• We're producing plenty of food, giving us room to expand and worry about other things.
  
• We have our first Power-generation structure, helping ensure the stability of both.
  
• Our Dupes' Morale levels are strong, allowing them to learn a number of useful skills and preventing Stress.
  
• We've utilized the wiring, liquid pipes, and automation layers in our constructions, learning about those game subsystems in the process.
  
• We've taken steps to ensure efficiency in our base, preventing overuse of Coal and fresh Water supplies.

State of the Playthrough

For those interested, here's how my base looks after completing the Coal generation plant's second stage compared to our previous review:


That's quite a difference!

Relevant overlays:


Other points of interest:



Since the last project required Refined Metal, I decided to take one more Dupe - Catalina - to help operate the Rock Crusher and the Manual Generators of the base. There will be quite a few more at times during the mid-game.

In case you'd like to compare Skill trees:


Improved Carrying I and II go great with literally any Dupe - that carrying capacity is always useful if they don't need any other skills immediately.

Notes (from top to bottom, then left to right):

• Turner (my researcher) is set up well for analyzing Geysers in the mid-game - the next skill I plan to give him is Exosuit Training, which is also extremely useful for this.
  
• Ruby (my "pioneer") is set up for both remote and base construction in addition to exploration (hence "pioneering"). Her next goal: Superduperhard Digging, which helps uncover hidden Geysers and prevents anything but Neutronium from stopping her pioneering.
  
  • After that comes Improved Carrying, since remote Supply jobs are often less-prioritized by other Dupes.
    
• Ren (who is now my Engineer) is almost ready for Mechatronics Engineering, which will be useful to upgrade our Coal plant for better uptime.
  
• Leira (my "quartermaster") is set up well to help maintain base Morale. She helped upgrade my Mess Hall into a Great Hall in the background during that final build.
  
  • Also in the background: I've replaced the Microbe Musher with an Electric Grill, which requires the Grilling skill she was given earlier.
    
• Hassan (my rancher) has everything he needs to start critter wrangling in the mid-game.
  
• Catalina's too young for any real specialization; I plan for her to be somewhat less specialized than Ren but following a similar build for now.

I strongly suggest you have your own equivalent to the first five Dupes at this point, if possible. They'll provide a solid enough core to accomplish what you'll need in the mid-game. Just make sure to prioritize their Morale levels above that of any newer Dupes if necessary, and don't feel like you have to spend every Skill point you get.

Next Steps

Now that we've established a long-term oriented farm and have a stable source of power and plumbing, it's time to formally move to the mid-game! Note that at this point, I'm at Cycle 32 with only 6 Dupes - there's no need to rush to a high Dupe count here, and taking it slow with the Dupe count now will give us lots of time to solve problems later.

At around 5 cycles, we knew we were clear until at least cycle 50. At this point, so long as we don't go too crazy, we should be viable to at least cycle 100 without further changes or base growth - you'll just need to mine Algae from outside when it gets low. Again, congrats!

Before we continue forward, it would be wise to consider all the new issues we'll need to start dealing with and some common approaches to solving each of them - all of this and more are part of my mid-game guide.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1362621368
"Surviving the Mid Game" is a direct continuation of this guide, following a similar style.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1359123308
"Dupe Builds" covers a lot of the same stuff as this guide already did regarding Dupe specializations, though I did add a few extra details there in case that might help people.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1359728437
"Useful Construction Patterns" serves as a "blueprint library" of sorts. Once you know the game, you may not want to sift through these guides as a whole again; this "guide" is designed to serve as a shortform reference to the most commonly-useful yet not-immediately-obvious structures found among my guides. Tons of screenshots, though typically cropped to be more close-up than the ones found here.

[✔️ DemKy Nigerian Prince]

@Sartonat, i have a job in real life. I'm a winner and I don't have enough time to lost on ONI.

[sartonat]

who needs this, figure everything out yourself

[BriiIndicaTTV]

why so complicated and none of this is IN the game? 30+ original price and no tutorial

[chris_mingus]

Why does such a complicated game have to look so cute?

[Uncle Wolf]

Unless it changed in DLC, the smart battery - coal generator thing works fine. I use it all the time, and also use it with other generators, including forcing hydrogen or NG generators to run all the time to burn off extra gas.

[Great Sage Equal of Heaven]

Pity automations no longer work as advertised. That smart battery coal generator trick does not work

[rikkerwtf]

this game is new player unfriendly to the max, i aint experimenting for 20 hours before i can start actually playing

[Yuri Gagarin, Soviet Cosmonaut]

Shame that Jahws never came back around for another update, this guide really helped me find my footing when I first started out.

[Black Lives Matter]

So many images missing. This used to be my ONI bible a few years ago.

[风吹过的从前]

THIS IS WHAT !!! HELP ! ! ! ! FIRST RUN GAME !!
Error in MusicManager(Clone).MusicManager.OnPrefabInit
FMODUnity.EventNotFoundException: [FMOD] Event not found: {0f43d3b0-fbf7-4260-a298-8390f364de58}
at FMODUnity.RuntimeManager.GetEventDescription (FMOD.GUID guid) [0x00059] in <a8cb41ce2d4f434b8cf62ff0143cf563>:0
at KFMOD.GetEventReferencePath (FMODUnity.EventReference event_ref) [0x00000] in <fa50cdddb14a483d94f547557a674a42>:0
at Assets.GetSimpleSoundEventName (FMODUnity.EventReference event_ref) [0x00000] in <d13cbb0b55a94ef09bb55c2436a6b8ee>:0
at MusicManager.ConfigureSongs () [0x0002d] in <d13cbb0b55a94ef09bb55c2436a6b8ee>:0
at MusicManager.OnPrefabInit () [0x00006] in <d13cbb0b55a94ef09bb55c2436a6b8ee>:0
at KMonoBehaviour.InitializeComponent () [0x00068] in <fa50cdddb14a483d94f547557a674a42>:0


Build: U44-535842-S