How to balance oxygen, food and power as your colony grows

The daily report tells you how much Oxygen, food and power the colony made and used in the cycle that just ended. The colony resource loop answers before the cycle runs. You enter the Duplicant count, the hunger setting and the geysers, machines, farms and ranches you plan, and it returns the oxygen margin, food surplus, net power, building heat and each resource that runs short per cycle.

Check it before the colony takes another Duplicant from the Printing Pod. On the default hunger setting each Duplicant needs 1,000 kcal and 60 kg of oxygen every cycle, since breathing takes 0.1 kg per second. The first shortage the loop lists is the system to extend before the colony grows.

One Electrolyzer turns 1 kg of Water per second into 0.888 kg of oxygen, 532.8 kg per cycle. Eight Duplicants breathe 480 kg, so the loop shows a margin of 52.8 kg. A ninth Duplicant raises demand to 540 kg and turns the margin into a shortfall of 7.2 kg.

An Electrolyzer uses 600 kg of Water per cycle. A Water Geyser at midpoint rolls averages 3 kg per second across its active and dormant periods, 1,800 kg per cycle, which covers three Electrolyzers. It stops while dormant, so the geyser calculator gives the storage that carries the Electrolyzers through those cycles.

A Mealwood yields 200 kcal per cycle on average, so one Duplicant on the default hunger setting needs five and eight Duplicants need forty. Harvest that a ranch eats is taken off the food total before the Duplicants' share, and ranches such as Hatch pens add what their critters eat and excrete.

It averages each cycle and leaves out waste, Duplicant body heat, plumbing losses, cooking, spoilage and growth bonuses. Wire limits and battery reserve belong to the power planner, and the heat a room builds up belongs to the heat budget.