Oxygen Not Included Review (MellowTigger)
Oxygen Not Included (ONI) is one of the most challenging base building games I have ever played, but it's also quite rewarding. While the mechanics are simple enough, the true complexity of the game physics doesn't become apparent until those physics have unrolled for great durations of time. For example, it's easy enough to heat or cool a small room, but you don't realize until later that you need to manage heat globally. Like climate change, the trends that you create now will affect you later and perhaps require even greater technologies to overcome. While you learn the game, those adorable minions are fun to watch as they labor through their work day.
You can find many tutorials online that will help you create some technological contraptions. They're fun to watch, but you don't NEED them to play your game well. Many of them are too complicated to easily follow along. Use technologies as your imagination leads you. That's the real genius of this game. You can strip mine resources or preserve them as much as feasible. It's your choice. You decide how to play the game and what "goal" you wish to pursue. After 1,000 hours in ONI, I still have 5 Steam achievements unfulfilled. I'm working on them now... at my own pace.
I said earlier that the mechanics are simple. That's true enough in the early and mid game, with one glaring exception. It's never clear to me what the priority of liquid flow should be in pipes at some junctions. There are fancy ways to use the pipe bypass, and I always have to investigate them online whenever I need them. It's not obvious what happens from the icons used on the screen. I wish the developers could improve those icons to offer hints as to what physics the player can expect from pipe connections.
For anyone just starting out the first time, I have a few pearls of wisdom to offer for DAY ONE of your new colony:
1) Build bathrooms/latrines now. Don't wait. Do it now. You don't want your inhabitants to pee on the floor (or in your water supply), and they absolutely will.
2) Don't gather more than a few inhabitants until you've seen how your current infrastructure works after dozens of "cycles" (game days). I've played to 1,000 cycles, and I still have only a dozen inhabitants total. Start with 4 then see how they fare. As you learn to handle oxygen, carbon dioxide, water, and heat, then you can add more people, then accomplish your colony tasks faster with all of the extra helpers.
3) Place your first 2 science stations on each side of the portal. The portal has a small light on top, and it will give you a productivity bonus at the stations placed under its helpful glow. It offers free lighting with no cost in electricity or heat, so make use of it!
4) Dig downward as needed to let the carbon dioxide float to the bottom where it is out of your way. You'll learn later how to make better use of the troublesome gas, but for now just let it sink to the bottom of your map. Don't dig farther than you need to. Opening more of the map to visibility will also open you up to more heat management issues, so dig downwards as needed. But dig upwards as fast as you can. You will need the "sky" sooner than you think, so keep going upwards as you learn the skills needed to break the harder rocks you encounter.
Have fun! Your duplicants are here to entertain you as they (and you) work to solve their sustainability troubles.
P.S. I've played on Linux Mint since I first bought the game, and it has worked wonderfully.