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Helixien Additions

The Helixien gas system came out two years ago in Vanilla Expanded - Power as an alternative way to run your colony. In those years it's only had one way to get the gas, it's about time that changes.

The first and most simple way is to unload your barrels of faecal sludge into an Anaerobic Digester. That's a real fancy name for a big silo full of crap. As your waste breaks down it releases gas, this should be enough to get your gasseous colony started while dealing with your colony waste.

The second is the high end option. Fracking gas wells will nett you a constant gas supply and a lot of it with the right research. Their drawback is a constant demand for water and the occasional rowdy insect. A small price to have your Helixien vent wherever you want.

The third is the real meat and potatoes of the mod, the Gasifier. This machine superheats fuel without burning it causing the fuel to release both gas and tar by-product. Rather than a simple one input generator this machine is a workbench turning your wood or chemfuel into gas bottles which you can then introduce into the system through a separate gas valve. This implementation means mod compatibility for a whole bunch of fuel inputs and fun things to do with your gas.
A direct option is to bring some steel to your gasifier and make gas cylinders. Unlike the bottles these can't be emptied into the system however they are very explosive making for a budget incindiary trap. They only explode when damaged and release a larger flame blast than incendiary traps.
The gasifier itself costs 50 gas to use so you'll want to have some gas in your tanks before building one. Don't feel too bad about using gas to make gas, 50 wood will give off 60 bottles which is worth 600 gas in storage.
I'd recommend flicking off your valve when your tanks are full. The ai tends to fill them even if the gas has nowhere to go.
Did you know people in Finland used pine tar to bind their wounds? That's the kind of out of the box thinking your colonists can now do. All that tar you're getting off your gasifier functions as a weaker herbal medicine.

Those direct additions aside it's time to overhaul helixien gas' place in the game. It is no longer an industrial technology, now you can research it right after black smithing. The Industrial revolution centred on gas and coal, a revolution which took place centuries before electrical grids. In gameplay terms even if you don't see the value of gas against electricity you'll certainly see its value as an intermediate step after directly fuelled workstations. And just maybe you'll stick around and see how far gas can carry your colonists.

Time for the controversial changes. The helixien gas cooler which previously worked as a freezer now cools the room to slightly above freezing. Dubs Bad Hygiene/Central Heating includes deep systems for cooling rooms which this thing entirely sidestepped. I've also added an electricity requirement to the gas sun lamp, it's much lower than a vanilla lamp while being gatekept by electricity research. I feel this change is justified given the early tech era you can now exploit gas.

This description is getting long so let's get through the rest of the patches fast:
The gas boiler no longer requires central heating research.
If you're running Alpha Biomes you can use propane from the propane lakes in your gasifier or you can harvest tar directly from the tar pits. You can make tar shells with tar and can gasify mushroom logs to make a lot of tar.
If you're running Alpha Animals you can can milk Helixien slugs for gas bottles. The name is now justified.
If you're running both Alpha Animals and Biomes you can gasify red wood, it produces red slime instead of tar.
Users of Expanded Materials metals will find the fracking well recipe needs stainless steel and the gasifier accepts coal and charcoal. You can also take tar to the biofuel refinery and refine it into dark oil. You can then gasify that dark oil though you won't get enough tar back to make this recipe circular.
Users of SRTS Expanded Medieval Tweaks and Translation will find their hot air balloons now take gas bottles not wood. Not sure if it works with the original SRTS Expanded Medieval mod though.

Credit goes to Krazy for the art, he did it all except the tar bucket. Blame me if that one sucks. And to Edern for the coding. This mod would be nothing without these guys.

[Update]
I've removed the changes to the gas boiler other than moving it out of central heating research. If you want a gas boiler I strongly recommend downloading CiXwOw's gas boiler mod. It has a lot more depth than my old patched version had:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2765741088&searchtext=
Also I patched his boiler to not require central heating research.

[April 2022 Update]
After testing 36 fracking wells at once and finding insect infestation frequency didn't scale up with the number of wells I've nerfed the output to 300 gas matching the pump.
The second change is a big nerf to the helixien generators. These have always served as a substitute geothermal generator but the power from one pump was simply over the top compared to the geothermal equivalent. Previously generators cost 25 gas for 1k watts. Since a well gives 300 gas you could get 12k watts vs the geothermal generator's 3600.
The numbers get even worse with the industrial version which previously provided 3600 watts for 75 gas. That's 14400 watts out of one vent compared to the advanced geothermal generator's mere 5200 watts.
Under the new numbers the generator costs 75 gas meaning 4000 watts out of a vent and makes replacing your gas powered smelter which also cost 75 gas less of a no brainer.
The industrial gas generator has been doubled to 150 gas and has its output reduced to 2400 watts matching the chemfuel/wood industrial generators. One vent will supply two of these for 4800 total watts, a marginal improvement in power with halved maintenance costs and they now no longer overshadow the advanced geothermal generator which cost advanced components to build.