One caveat of the Polymer Press is that the temperature of the petroleum has to be lower than the melting point of plastic, otherwise the plastic that comes out of the Polymer Press immediately melts to naphtha. I found that the hard way and took me a while to figure out why I wasn't producing any plastic in one of my playthroughs

Yeah, I think the devs did excellent with the trade-offs. Long-term, using oil/polymer press is better for resources and labor, but there are a lot of hurdles to get to continuous production. You've got to have reed fiber and piped oxygen for suits, breach the oil biome, have steel for the pump, and have a cooling solution (more steel). With Drecko's, you need a rancher, Dreckos, dirt, and a touch of cooling. Even with their long lifecycles, you can get plastic humming along by cycle 100 without rushing anything.

I like Glossy Dreckos just because they make plastic accesible in the early game. I may end up using the Polymer Press later in the same run, but with dreckos, I don't need to wait until the oil stage before I set up my polluted water sterilization chamber. Not to mention Steam Turbines for cooling.

I haven’t watched any videos from you in awhile. Glad to see you back. I was hoping for a 3rd option since I’m on a metallic swampy start and taming volcanoes without plastic. Looking forward to watching more of your videos.🍺

I feel like the difference might be " are you a dupe pamperer or an industrialist". If your first thought after food is finding a site for an industrial sauna then throw some polymer presses there and your good. But for me the most fun thing is getting all the materials I need to build interesting bases and stability so after my meal wood farm is up I start looking for dreckos.

If you can spin up a geothermal petroleum boiler the polymer press can be truly dupe labor free in normal operation with a bit of automation

You made 16 tons and what do you get? Another day older and Deeper in debt..

I also prefer drekos, but if i have to use the polymer press i avoid using gold amalgam for it. Its a trap. You say "125C is high anyway, i dont want it to reach that much, so i wont make it out of steel, i will just keep it lower" and you make it out of gold, but in this case gold is not a good material, not because of the overheat temperature but because of its thermal capacity and conductivity. They are the reason the building gets really hot. Gold has the lowest capacity, so that heat energy that is generated inside the building rises its temperature really fast. Any other metal have about 3 times more the capacity, so it raises its temperature 3 times slower. On top, gold has bad thermal conductivity, so the two things make it really hard to cool down. Ideally i would make it out of steel, purely because it has better capacity and vastly better conductivity than gold amalgam. If i still dont have steel for some reason or it is very scarse, aluminium ore would be the second best option, copper, cobalt and iron ore are relatively the same for third option. (Im excluding the more "exotic" ores from the list) If its made out of steel, you can cool it down pretty easily. Like on this video it was made out of gold it was sitting on top the cooling and it was almost 60C. If it was made out of steel im sure it would be just a few degrees warmer than the coolant itself.

One thing many player overlook with polymer press is that it produces plastic. I know that sounds wierd because it's the only thing it does but they forget that you just set it up in a room ready to put a self-cooled steam turbine on top. And then you take the first 200kg of plastic the polymer press produces to build that steam turbine. There. Cooling for the polymer press solved! However, I do prefer dreckos myself especially because you can make a ranch setup where you emphasize one or the other type of drecko. Early game you want reeds fibers for suits and basic decor, mid-game you want more plastic, and late game you want to switch back to reeds for making insulation and massive amounts of carpet tiles for decor bombing.

To be fair Glossy allows for plastic production before you have access to petroleum or more importantly on asteroids that lack access completely. Likewise the basic Drecko gives players without access to thimbleweed/pwater access to fiber. It's actually a really well thought out way to not lock players out of tech trees.

I tend, if i have access to a pip, to set up a ranch for the dreckos fairly early using a bunch of pip planted mealwood seeds, then move the pip out. It works well, consumes almost nothing, except when my duplicants come to groom or shear. Typically I have a 2 tile layer of hydrogen at the top of the stable, and then 2 tiles of breathable gas for the duplicants at the bottom. Eventually this produces glossy dreckos, and plastic is slowly but almoat freely produced. It also gives me a large suplly of reed fibers

I think they're both perfectly valid to talk about during a playthrough that is aimed a newer players. When I was new I found that it was easier to set up a polymer press and deal with the side effects to it as they happen (and they happen quick) which would be heat from the plastic, heat from the oil, exhaust etc. vs the drecko solution which requires a lot of preplanning; first you need to level up a duplicate to even get to ranching, and then you learn how to ranch, then you need to learn how to sort eggs, you pretty much need to learn automation and the conveyer belt is an unlock that happens later anyways, and you also need to know how to move gas and lock it into a room. So I think the polymer press is definitely more beginner friendly by a longshot.

In a Super Sustainable run, it is quite easy to ramp up to two to three Glossy Drecko ranches. It piles up so much that after the achievement is won, I don't feel the need for a polymer press until much later on.

I like the Dreckos for Spaced Out my starting base had no source of Crude Oil . (i'm bad at ONI but The DLC is so much more fun for me than the base game)

Depends on what you like tbh, PPress is simple, little setup so it can take less space on the map but will have heat issues later and requires oil. While Drecko ranch takes some setup to get going, while it can be time consuming the rewards you get for are useful overall, reed fiber, plastic, egg shells, and meat. In regards to dirt for meelwood, a solution could be either pip wild plant mealwood or pip ranching for sustainable dirt. Ill say to each their own tbh. Both have pros and cons.

For dreckos, I don't do water locks anymore. Just build your room(s) for starvation ranching above the breeding ranch. Put the only access into the starvation ranch as a door on the bottom with a ladder down to the floor of the breeding ranch. The hydrogen will stay up due to the nature of the gases. I don't usually bother with suits, either, in the starvation ranch, but it's not a bad idea. Certainly cuts down on those silly breathing breaks.

Silly as always. Your editing's getting better!

Drecko hatching rooms are super warm because Dreckos are born at 62.5°C.

Glossy Dreckos are great. And you don't even need a complicated room setup. Just make the room airtight at the top, pump in enough hydrogen to saturate the ceiling airspace and then maintain oxygen pressure to stop the hydrogen leaking (and if it does leak, oh well its only hydrogen) - or you can just place the Drecko ranch at the top of the base and let physics sort it out. Put in a handful of mealwood plants, a grooming and shearing station and you're done (though it will take a while to start producing a lot). So long as you assign a rancher or two and keep the room reasonably temperate it'll require no further input from you and you'll get plastic and fibre trickling in as you sort out your long term oxygen and water situation.

Dreckos hatch at a fixed temperature, 62.5C for regular 42.5C for glossy (the midpoint of their comfort range) and and consist of 400kg of genetic ooze. That is a massive amount of heat that will stifle your plants as the drecko comes to room temperature. They don't generate heat, they're born hot. I've been told (haven't verified this) that their body temperature resets when they reach adulthood for even more temperature. (someone correct me if I'm wrong about that). For me, dreckos are the clear winner since I need the phosphorite for fertilizer production.

A Drecko farm can take a while to spin up to get to decent production. An Oil refinery and Polymer Press can be setup easily and get you your first bit of plastic pretty fast, although (as Magnet points out) you're going to have to deal with the higher temperatures involved. If you can find a Drecko early on and have a way to keep the mealwood cool enough, it's a great option to have spin up as you work on the basics of an early base. All depends on what resources you have available on your map and your play style.

This is crazy I was just thinking abt leaving a comment on your last video to ask abt this exactly Edit: a let’s build of the glossy drecko set up would be awesome

Personal Opinion: in terms of early to mid game (1-1000+ cycles): Dreckos win due to many resources it provides and they're easy to feed in terms of late game (1500+ or 2000+ cycles): Polymer press wins since late game focuses more on dupe time

Dreckos have high body temperature, so you should check on the temperature of the mealwood they are eating because they warm-up the area

As someone who's been playing for a while but never really hit my stride, I'd say the drecko route is better to recommend to newer players because it teaches the right mindset for the game. Polymer press is the route that players used to other games will go for (why am I building a ranch with odd requirements when there's a simple, if higher tech, industrial solution?) instinctively, and then skewer themselves on sustainability traps.

imo the best thing about drekos is that they can basically be put into any base without any other infrastructure except maybe a bit of dirt to feed the mealwood, compared to the polymer press which requires constant supply of petroleum and the ability to keep it cool which is way more work.

I liked the intro 😂

@3:30 the high temperature is because of the Dreckos themselves. Glossy Dreckos hatch from their eggs at ~42°C, regular Dreckos even at ~62°C. That's why we need cooling for the mealwood :) Btw. what is the best way to create/get dirt? Best as in: Infinite/renewable/sustainable to support a Drecko-Ranch for thousands of cycles?

I think a P Boiler in combination with a plastic press is better than dreco just because that is a set and forget kind of process whereas the dreco requires setup and duplicant action

when drecko born, they are at 60+ C. that's where the hot is coming. they get quickly temperature from around, that's why a single wheez is enough. I never use press...

Transit tubes aren't needed. I never much ever build them and have zero trouble with my Dupes getting places. If you are in the DLC and the small planets they aren't worth anything, being they are the size of postage stamps. They only thing you really need plastic for is high pressure vents, and turbines. One glossy is all you'd ever really need. One ranch gives you hundreds of tons you'll never use.

I never thought to put a mechanized door under a building that doesn't have automation. It seems so obvious now that I've seen it. >.

Take into account the amount of plastic you need for the statue and automate to stop when you reach it.

Hey magnet! Can you make a video on ranching glossy dreckos?

Polymer presses are easily better late game but glossy dreckos are insane on oil low maps on Space Out!. In my walkthrough as a new play I accidently starved me dreckos because I didnt know their diet but still got tons of plastic that carried me for a while until I reached the Oil Planet. Now that I have a boiler, an industrial brick and too much petroleum to even do stuff with, polymer presses just get stuff down simpler.

Hey Magnet, love your vids. learning a lot with each. i am looking for a ranching mage tutorial (from your older series) but i couldnt find one. do you have one?

Always make a glossy drecko farm don’t think I use a press in a long time

Does anyone know how to make your dupes not suffocate on cycle 30

Glossy dreckos are superior with the added bonuses.

To me, polymer press still better because the dirt you have to use for the mealworms. By mid to late game you can deal with heat and there is more than enough crude oil for anything. I value more the dirt.

Glossy win by a mile. You get 3 things from them. You get 1 thing from the press plus the headache of all that heat. It's not even close. I've not built a press in years. They are a waste of time. You dupes are doing nothing most of the time anyway if you automate. So, dupe time is the silliest things people say. Dupes have nothing but time.

Magnet, are you interested in a collab? I have a fun idea but I need another youtuber that plays ONI

It's been so long man. Thought you got burned out and left oni

I prefer dreckos because they're cute

=POLYMER PRESS IS *EASY* ...?????? ((HYSTERICAL MANIACAL LAUGH)) ........FIRST OF *_ALL_* , IT'S ABOUT _WHERE TO GET 3000g/s WATER_ ,THEN _OIL WELL NATURAL GAS_ SO U'LL NEED *_THERMIUM_* OR DIFFICULT COOLING SETUP, THEN _PETROLEUM BOILER_ ........IT IS THE *_WORST_* POSSIBLE MAYBE EASIER FOR A *BIT* IF RANCH MOLTEN SLICKSTERS, OF COURSE