ONI Handbook

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.