Oxygen Not included: Hydrogen Cooling Tips

Oxygen Not Included, a super complicated colony-simulator made by Klei Entertainment (the good people who brought you Don’t Starve), is a beautiful and challenging game meant to force your brain into overdrive. From your very first breath, you are tasked with scavenging for resources and building an ever-expanding base to support your growing population of colonists.

Among the resources players will have to find and use in ONI is Hydrogen. It is the lightest element in the game and powers devices like Hydrogen Generators, making it an extremely important element to harvest. After the Thermal Update, Hydrogen can chill Duplicants and is un-breathable, so it’s important to regulate and control when and where it goes.

To achieve this, the Hydrogen must be cooled to keep it from rising above the other gasses and to places you don’t want it to go.

Fortunately, two advanced players have shared their strategies for cooling Hydrogen efficiently and effectively. Posted on the Steam Community forums, users AquaX and IdealPoint have two contrasting methods that both achieve positive results.

AquaX’s Method:

This method has you cool Hydrogen to just below its condensation point, then create a bypass through the cooler until it warms back up to the point you need it. Deconstruct the bypass and rebuild the regular route.

Since the hydrogen cycles back to the cooler, once it is near liquid state, create a small pipe that completely bypasses the cooler so the Hydrogen continues cycling the pipe system, where it will slowly heat up. Once it reaches a temperature where it needs to be cooled, turn on the cooler and deconstruct the bypass so it goes back into the cooler.

IdealPoint’s Method:

This method has you first attach a thermal switch then two pumps, one through the cooler and the other to where you need the cooled gas routed to. Once the hydrogen gets too cold, the switch will deactivate both pump and cooler, and a second switch will trigger the bypass pump.

The left switch controls the cooling pump, which will recirculate into the room until the switch is cold enough from the Hydrogen inside. The right switch is set a little bit higher and pumps the hydrogen out when you need to use it. If you don’t want to pump the hydrogen, turn the switch down below room temperature.

If you have too much Hydrogen, use a bypass routed to a Hydrogen Generator and use any excess hydrogen that might accumulate. As the system runs, you’re essentially using power to cool down the Hydrogen only when you need to, and only as cold as you want it.

Eureka! There you have it. So which plan worked best for you? Have you developed an ever better method? Maybe you’ve tweaked a part or two of the above strategies? Let us know in the comments what you think the best plan is.

For more tips and strategies for ONI, check out these Oxygen Not Included guides.