Suit-less molten slickster ranching

[hybrid prairie]

I have a lot of CO2 geysers in my current playthrough, and the wiki says that atmo suits are required to farm molten slicksters, so I thought it'd make for a fun challenge.

*NB : this is not a large-scale petroleum generator. There is simply not enough CO2 for that. Best to think of the design as a ranch with side-benefits. *

Both the building part and the ranching part are intended to not require a suit.
Dear new players : I won't explain every single term, but they are easy enough to look up. At worse, ask below.

Since we first need to rear molten slicksters from normal ones , there are a few extra steps.

Required before start :

• a slickster (or its egg)
• some kg of crude oil.
• gold amalgam (or steel) for the liquid pump, some refined metal for the automation/shipping
• access to magma for heating input
• a CO2 geyser. Alternate (non superheated) CO2 input is possible but generally not scalable to critter consumption.
  Note : a CO2 vent's 500°C gas output would eventually overheat the room past the molten slickster's livable range.

1 ) build the area, except the parts that digs into abyssalite. This is to avoid wild temperature increases caused by flaking.
Thermal isolation is mostly handled throught a layer of vacuum cells around the room. You make those using the diagonal deconstruction trick
Technically, only 1 tile at the lower right of the ranch station needed to be an insulated tile, as it is a point of contact to the outside. Everything else can be normal tiles. Oops.

2 ) set up the outer (top right) liquid airlock, and vacuum the whole room with an air pump

3. set up the inner liquid airlocks, and connect your point-of-contact tile with the magma using diagonal digging. The tile must have a melting point above that of the magma temperature (in my case, a diamond window)

the temperature intake is regulated by an airlock door linked to temperature sensor. Make sure the door stays open until you started filling the lower part of the room with CO2, or everything may melt.

[mint nacelle]

What if a slickster outputs over the lock

[hybrid prairie]

it'll be covered in a bit

[hybrid prairie]

4. fill the lower room with CO2, and then set the temperature sensor in way that open the door once a set temperature is reached. Due to heat transmission inertia, you want to raise the temp in a few steps (i.e. 80°, 90°, and finally 105° for example) or it may overshoot wildly and damage the liquid pump (case in point in the screenshot ).
   After the first fill, you can set the atmo sensor linked to the gas vent to a low pressure, as it will make point 6) faster to deal with.

5. ranch your normal slickster(s) until you start getting molten larva eggs.
   The body temp of the slicksters will pass the 100°C threshold quickly as long as there is liquid at the bottom, but their % chance to make molten eggs will raise very gradually (I got 26% chance at first egg, then 46% at the 2nd and 66% at the 3rd)
   You want to keep a certain quantity of liquid at the bottom as a temperature buffer.

6. once the first molten larva is put inside the room, disable the liquid pump (cutting the electric cable or the pipe with the tool will do). Unlike sieves, the oil refinery will get "wrong element damage" if fed with petroleum. Also, disable the CO2 vent by setting the atmo sensor to "below 0"
   There is a risk of lock breach if a petroleum slickster "expels" in the top half of the room, so I recommend disabling the ranch station temporarily.

7. once a few kg of petroleum have been produced and the slicksters have absorbed all the CO2 of the room into a vaccum ; kill the non-molten slickster(s), mop the room and remake the inner liquid airlocks with petroleum

(You'll have to deconstruct the center tile below the ranch station)
There is a small risk of scalding during the mop operation, tho I didn't really encounter problems there.

8. you now have a molten slickster farm

[hybrid prairie]

Cost once fully set up

• 20kg CO2/cycle per critter.
• one duplicant operation (grooming) per 2.5 cycle per critter
  Production once fully set up
• 10kg petroleum/cycle per critter
• 1/6th egg/cycle per critter. - not counting the meat gained and the egg lost upon critter death/replacement.

[mint nacelle]

ok but the lock still might get messed up after the slickster is groomed

[hybrid prairie]

It's the same element, so them "expelling" in the upper half only cause some liquid flow, without breaking the seal, as far as I've seen

the problem can only happen during the few cycles where there are both normal and molten slicksters in the room

[mint nacelle]

do liquid and gas mechanics not break the lock?

[hybrid prairie]

I'll check further, but over the last 100 cycles of testing there's been no issue

[mint nacelle]

ok

well

i suppose its unlikely because its a vacuum

[green pier]

woah

[hybrid prairie]

still, you got me worried. I'll keep a close look, and possibly, keeping the lower room at low pressure to avoid potential issues.

the only time I saw a leak was when petroleum was poured on the existing crude oil seal tho

[green pier]

crude is heavier than petrol

[hybrid prairie]

i managed to catch one "in the act" on the left seal tile, and the airproofing wasn't broken

if that used to be a problem : either it's because pretroleum is more viscuous than water seals, or it's because the liquid is on 2 tiles here ? or something changed ?