ONI Handbook

Quick start

In this chapter you will gallop through the key game mechanics and get the most important tips and tricks to get you started with the game.

Cycle 1

In order to finish cycle 1 you will have to go through the world creation, crew generation, familiarizing yourself with the complex game UI and building your first structures, so that your duplicants could continue growing the base and exploring the planetoid.

We will look into the survival game mode.

World creation

The world which you are going to explore is randomly generated. Some can be easier to colonize, others are more challenging.

You can share [1] the world coordinates to play with your friend on the same planetoids. Or make a note of the seed if you like the planetoid layout and you only want to change the initial crew for the new game. You will later be able to find world coordinates in the bottom of the main in-game menu, which shows up when you click ESC button.

To start, try to get metal rich property [2] of the starting planetoid to avoid unnecessary complications due to the lack of resources.

Crew generation

For this and other tutorials we will use only regular duplicants. This can be selected for each crew member in the top right dropdown of the duplicant card. Top left dropdown allows you to select a skill for the duplicant which will definitely be present for him.

You should pick one digger, because there would always be something to dig and this duplicant will have to learn "Hard digging" skill later in the game to be able to dig some tiles which regular duplicant would otherwise be unable to dig. When you regenerate the duplicant, they might get a "Hard digging" skill, which would be pretty handy. There are other digging related skills "Super hard digging" and "Super duper hard digging" - they will allow duplicant to dig through the even harder tiles, but do not allow digging the second level hard tiles, which you will encounter first. So these skills would be useful for the later game and should be avoided for now.

To make progress in the game you will have to have a researcher, which will have to learn another skill early in the game.

For the third duplicant you can pick someone with the construction skill, because you will have to build quite a few structures. You could also pick supplier, because there will be a lot of materials, which result from the digging, which should be transported to the building sites.

For any duplicants which you generate, make sure they don't have "Nyctophobic" (requires light to sleep), "Loud sleeper" or "Reduced calories" they will create unnecessary complications, which are complicated to deal with. Also try to avoid "Mouth breather".

After you have your duplicants generated, give the name to your base in the right bottom corner and hit the "Start" button.

Game UI

You start with the printer pad, which will generate more duplicants for you, a basket with some edibles, called Calories, and your duplicants ready to work. You can stop the time by pressing Space bar.

You can move the camera with the WASD keys or by pressing and holding mouse wheel and dragging the world around. When you hover you mouse cursor over the tile - you get an information about the contents of the tile. Clicking on the tile or a structure will bring up a description card in the right bottom corner. In the header of the card you can click a button with the book icon to get encyclopedia information about the object you've selected.

You have to start by giving your duplicants instructions to dig. To do this you would have to click "D" button and select some tiles to the left and right from your duplicants. Duplicants can dig four tiles above them and three tiles below them. Tunnels which you dig can have minimum height of two for the duplicant to be able to move there and maximum height of four, because this is the maximum height duplicants can reach without the assistance. Four is the typical height of the floors in the base you will build.

First Structures

After duplicants start digging, they will generate some resources, which will allow you start building. In the left bottom of the screen you can select the type of the structure and the structure itself, which you would like to build. The first structure you have to build is the Outing House.

After every cycle of the game, duplicants have to use the bathroom. If there are no bathrooms around them they will try to hold it for some time. But usually you will get a notification in the top right that someone "Made a mess". If you click on that notification you will see the duplicant and a lot of Polluted Water around them. You can mop it by clicking the M button on your keyboard and selecting all the wet tiles. Make sure to mop it, because any kind of wet tiles would make your duplicants work less effective after they get in contact with them. But even after you mop the polluted water - the bottles would still produce the polluted oxygen around them, which will not ruin your game and can be dealt with later, but it still creates unnecessary complications and should be avoided.

Your clock or a cycle indicator is in the top left of your screen and when the indicator of the current time reaches mark 12 - duplicants will stop working and they would need to use the bathroom, which you have hopefully already built for them, they will also eat and go to bed. To make them comfortable, you have to build at least three cots away from the printing pod and shine bugs. Both of them produce light and it will not let your duplicants properly rest during the night.

Washing hands

To avoid spreading germs, get duplicants sick and reduce their productivity, they have to wash their hands after each use of the outing house. You have to build a wash basin next to the exit from the lavatory. Put a couple of wash basins on the side where duplicants go after they used outing house, or around them. Click each of the wash basins and select the exit direction for the wash basin. When duplicant would pass next to the free wash basin in that direction - they will wash their hands. That is why you should have two wash basins next to the two outing houses, so that both duplicants could have a chance to wash their hands after they finished using the lavatory.

Wash basin needs clean water work properly. To supply the water, you would need to build a pitcher pump above the water reservoir. Pitcher pump stretches up to four tiles below the building to get the liquid. After you've built the pump, one of the duplicants would get some water and supply it to the wash basin. After this the wash basin will be functional.

Wrapping up

These are the main things which you need to do in the first one or a couple of cycles. You've generated the world, created your first crew and you've built the base with the most important things for your duplicants to live.

Cycle 20

Now that I am familiar with the basic game mechanics which let my duplicants keep my colony clean and non-contagious, I am going to go through the rest of the key mechanics which will let my colony progress and thrive.

Research

To start the research I have to build a Research station.

💡When the station is built in the lit environment, researcher gets 15% bonus to the research speed. I will build my research station close to the Printing Pod.

To function the research station requires electricity.

Power

Manual Generator will let my duplicants produce up to +400W of electricity. Research station will consume -60W. To avoid wasting of my duplicants work, I will attach a battery to the research station and the manual generator.

Oxygen math

Next to the research station I will build the Oxygen Diffuser, which would consume algae and produce oxygen for my duplicants to breath. Each duplicant consumes 100g/s oxygen and produces 15g/s carbon dioxide. This leads to a lower pressure of the base over time. One Oxygen Diffuser wwil produce 500g/s oxygen. This means one Oxygen Diffuser would cover the needs of five duplicants.

📝Note, that duplicants with the "Mouth breather" debuf consume additional 100g/s oxygen.

The rest of the generated oxygen will be used to maintain gas pressure in my base, while I expand.

Research Tree

I can open Research Tree from the menu in the top right corner, hotkey, or when I click "Research" in the description of the Research Station when I select it in the world.

Research is split in Categories (rows) and Tiers (columns). I will need Novice Research Points to study first two tiers of the tree and additionally Advanced Research Points to study higher tiers.

I will start with the "Basic Farming", which would let me start growing food and handle Carbon Dioxide.

New duplicant

I received my first new duplicant from my printer pod. I can make use of all of them:

	Digging skill will allow me to expand my base faster.
	Farming skill allow me to take care of my plants faster and to operate specialized farming structures, which I will build in my Greenhouse.
	Cooking skill will allow me to produce food with higher calories value faster and to operate special kitchen structures like Grill.
	Husbandry is an important skill, which I will be able to use later in the game to wrangle critters and take care of them in the stables.
	Construction skill will allow me to finish new buildings and communications faster.
	Research skill will allow me to progress in my research tree faster.
	I will need decoration skill later, when I will start working on the decor of my base to improve my duplicants' morale.
	I will need medical skill soon, because my duplicants will need special care when I will extend my base into slime biom.
	I will need operation skill soon, it will allow me to produce new materials using specialized structures faster.

This knowledge and the experience I received so far will be useful when I will generate my next crew, which will better fit my play style.

Skills

My new duplicant has a skill point available! I can use it in the Skills tree, which I can open from the menu in the right top corner or when I press "J" button on my keyboard.

Learning each skill increases stress of my duplicant. It should be lower than the morale of the duplicant at all times. Later I will learn more about base organization and rooms to increase my duplicants' morale. I will also decorate my base to increase their morale even more.

Now, I will focus on the skills which are marked with the heart in the skill tree. Learning these skills increases my duplicants morale too.

Research Complete

Now when the Basic Farming research is finished, I can a couple of important improvements for my base.

Planter box

I will build a couple of Planter boxes from the Food menu (I can open it my clicking "4" key) close the Pitcher Pump. I will uproot mealwood plants which I can find around me, and plant them into the Planter boxes. 

The positive side of the plant domestication is that they produce fruits a lot faster. For example, wild mealwood would produce one Meal Lice every 12 cycles, while the domesticated one would produce the same Meal Lice every 3 cycles.

The complication which is introduced by the plant domestication is that now they need irrigation. In case of the Mealwood duplicants would have to provide water every now and then for it to properly grow.

There is no easy way to put the plant back into the wild soil.

Algae Terrarium

My duplicants breath in oxygen, which I can find in limited amounts during my explorations and which I produce in my Oxygen Diffusers. But they also breath out Carbon Dioxide, which collects in the bottom of my base. To remove Carbon Dioxide I will build a couple of Algae Terrarium in the bottom of my base.

Duplicants will provide Water and Algae to the Algae Terrarium to function. It will sometime produce Polluted Water, which my duplicants would have to remove from the Algae Terrarium. Polluted Water will produce Polluted Oxygen, which is breathable, but also allows germs to spread and make my duplicants sick. I will learn how to deal with the Polluted Water and the Polluted Oxygen later.

Compost

The last structure which I want to build today is the Compost. I will build it further away from my base, because it produces Heat and the Polluted Dirt, which is processed in it, frequently contains Germs, which I try to avoid.

My duplicants will bring Polluted Dirt from the Outhouse to the Compost and it will be reduced back to Dirt, which can be used again for the base needs.

Wrapping up

I learned how to research new things and produce power for my buildings. I learned basics of farming and how to use Codex and online resources to learn more about the things in the game. I've introduced a new duplicant to my crew and he learned his first skill. I've built first structures which will help me with recycling and let me use limited resources efficiently.

There is a lot more I need to learn, but now I have basic skills which would let me experiment and extend my knowledge about each of the topics I've encountered so far.

Basics

This chapter covers all the basic information needed to properly handle the needs of the colony. It also covers all the mechanics available in the game, which will be deepened in the rest of the chapters.

Advanced

This chapter covers the key game mechanics introduced in the Quick start and Basics in the full depth, leaving out only late game features like oil handling, rocketry and some complicated topics. After finishing these topics, you have to confidently build self sustainable and prospering colony, which could grow and last for many cycles.

Final

This chapter covers oil handling and rocket building. After finishing thins chapter, you should be able to build the rocket which will reach the temporal rift and end the game.