Oxygen!

[billybob8484]

I'm in the process of building a space station (Minecraft 1.6.4, Forge 9.11.1.933, Galacticraft 2.0.3.836), and I'm curious how other people handle their oxygen setups.

Since oxygen collectors deplete leaf blocks, making a good sized station (via oxygen sealers) seems pretty impractical given the number of collectors and leaf blocks required to fill it (in addition to the constant maintenance to the collectors), and the big colored spheres sticking out of the station all over the place (via bubble distributors) is just aesthetically ugly.

Aside from just using air tanks, what do you recommend?

To get an idea of scale, I'm currently using about 25 sealers, upwards of 50 upon completion, maybe more. I had hoped there would be some sort of regenerative system you could set up, like oxygen's equivalent to using solar arrays and battery modules for power...

 

[Flashy-3]

there are 2 ways, #1-you can turn off the leaf decay in galacticrafts config file, and #2- you can use plants for oxygen as well, which do not decay

 

[billybob8484]

Oh! Did not know that... didn't see anything about plants on the wiki. Which config file do you mean? I found a cfg in the MicdoodleCore JAR file, but that didn't seem to have any options...
Found it!

I'll have to do some experimenting with the plants (presumably you mean flowers and cactus?).

Thanks for the tip though!

 

[Flashy-3]

I haven't tested on flowers, but I know that wheat, carrots etc. work

 

[billybob8484]

Nope, flowers, tall grass, ferns, & cactus don't work, only leaf blocks & wheat. Potatoes and carrots don't work either (I didn't think to try sugar cane, melons, pumpkins, or cocoa beans, but I'm doubting they work). It doesn't seem to matter whether the wheat is just planted or fully grown either, it produces the same amount of oxygen regardless.

 

[MasterOanarchY]

That's strange ... I see now. At one point it did collect from all plants, but he had to revert it back in 806.
#806 (Oct 18, 2013 3:01:04 AM)

1. Temporarily revert oxygen collector change. (commit: 09623b17a2f8c26d867724b673dc3160a38fa945) — mitchpetrie29 / detail

 

[billybob8484]

Ah, I see. While wheat does give some oxygen, its a pretty negligible amount compared to leaves (which makes sense when you think about it). Also note that I didn't try them for very long, so I'm not sure if wheat actually depletes.

 

[MasterOanarchY]

When you tried wheat vs leaves did you try as many wheat blocks as you did leaf blocks? I'm asking because I don't know.

 

[billybob8484]

Color me corrected, wheat seeds in and of themselves actually produce twice the amount of oxygen as leaves.

My experiment: a single oxygen collector (w/ infinite battery) surrounded by 8 adjacent leaves or wheat seeds; wheat produced a fluctuating 13-14 while same same quantity/configuration of leaves produced a fluctuating 6-7. Hydrated (fertile) land didn't make a difference for the wheat.

Keep in mind, wheat requires much more space than leaves since it needs dirt underneath and visible light, so in practice, they'll be less efficient.

16 leaves vs 8 seeds (and 8 dirt) both produce a fluctuating 13-14 oxygen

 

[711]

Wheat definitely seems the way to go. 108 wheat gets a collector to 100% oxygen input. This equates to a 10x11 plot of farmland covered in all but two space with wheat. As far as I can tell, wheat does not deplete. Above and below such a 10x11 plot, you can have as many as 18 oxygen collectors sharing the wheat, all getting 100% input. That's enough for 12 oxygen bubble distributors at 100% (9 block radius) or 20 oxygen bubble distributors at ~60% (5 block radius).

I haven't experimented with it, but multi-layer fields may be even more efficient. As far as I can tell, oxygen collectors use any leaf or planted seed block within an 11x11 cube centered on the collector.

edit: Just realized that adding only 11 more wheat means adding 9 more collectors, and the whole thing just grows one block longer. so an 11x11 field can have 27 collectors, an 11x12 field can have 36 collectors, etc. No matter the size of your space station, a small wheat field can provide oxygen for it. 36 collectors would mean 24 8x8 two story rooms, even if you only use bubbles, and not sealers. Wheat is king.

 

[Space Viking]

It's indeed correct crops is not only about twice as efficient as leaf blocks (compensating for the extra block of dirt required to plant them), but they are also a stable source of oxygen. It's actually nothing new though, since I've seen Oanarch mentioning of it before a few times here in the forums. An (presumed) unofficial Galacticraft wiki also tells about this technical aspect about the Oxygen Collector in its own respective article.

It's a pretty peculiar mechanic since this actually renders oxygen collection through leaf blocks obsolete. It's hard to tell what's up with that, but it seems certain the concept of oxygen collection is yet to be determined.

Personally, I'd prefer no decay caused by oxygen collection whatsoever. Otherwise people might just rely on a separate mod that features auto-cropping, making it more of an essential/dependence rather than a complement. I think it's enough the player needs to keep the power supply check in order to maintain life-support.

 

[711]

I think changes to decay are in order, as well, but maybe a different way than you were thinking. I know the whole realism vs fantasy thing has been done to death, but it seems like an excellent compromise to me that all plants should decay, but only if they're not in oxygen. Think about how plants work: they absorb carbon from CO2, releasing oxygen molecules. If you contain a plant in a sealed environment with a human, the human will trade the plant carbon for oxygen. Requiring plants to be in "oxygen" is a simple facsimile of this.

 

[Galbi3000]

.... Think about how plants work: they absorb carbon from CO2, releasing oxygen molecules. If you contain a plant in a sealed environment with a human, the human will trade the plant carbon for oxygen. Requiring plants to be in "oxygen" is a simple facsimile of this.

Almost right I could get all scientific but basically a plant uses, carbon dioxide, water and light to produce sugars for storing energy using photosynthesis. The oxygen a plant produces is actually from excess oxygen in the water used, not the carbon dioxide

Having said that, Minecraft is not meant to work like the real world; so growing trees and plants on the moon, Mars or in space is just as realistic as having creepers, zombies and arrow shooting skeletons!

I like the way the oxygen collectors work but do not think they should destroy leaves in the process so I edit the config to disable that feature.

 

[MasterOanarchY]

Very interesting. Thanks for taking the time. I will be putting this information into the wiki. As soon as I have some time.