An overview of DLC’s latest meteor showers, along with precautionary measures to protect against Ice, Oxylite, and Slime+Gold.
Introduction
When you begin a new colony, a few asteroids will be designated to experience one or more meteorological occurrences. Managing meteors on the starting asteroid is relatively simple compared to other locations. To determine the type of meteor a location will encounter, click on the asteroid in the starmap and review the information subpanel. A few asteroids may never experience meteors.
Waves of meteor showers originate from the edge of the starmap and affect all planetoids where you’ve landed, reaching them simultaneously. However, their duration may vary individually. Initially, meteors are unidentified until a nearby telescope scans them, though their destination is always known. Once scanned, you can identify their type and analyze their composition as meteor showers contain multiple types of “projectiles”.
Meteor types
Oxylite (1/2 Oxylite, 1/2 Dust Fluff)
- Creates a couple tiles of oxylite.
- Doesn’t damage tiles.
- You can receive over half a dozen tons of oxylite.
- Oxylite will disperse unless it lands on a liquid.
Ice (7% Ice, 93% Snow)
- Creates tiles of extremely cold snow and crushed ice.
- Doesn’t damage tiles.
- Snow and ice may stack up to extremely annoying heights.
- May cause flooding.
Slime
- Solid tiles of slime.
- Doesn’t damage tiles
- Other meteor types will heat slime until it becomes dirt.
Gold (57% Gold, 14% Rock, 29% Dust Fluff)
- Leaves small amounts of gold debris.
- Will greatly damage tiles.
- Shower type would have little economic value if it wasn’t for it including regolith.
Uranium (45% Uranium, 18% Dust, 36% Dust Fluff)
- Creates tiles of uranium.
- May damage tiles.
- Could be melted into Liquid Uranium.
- Asteroid surface requires maintenance to avoid uranium build up.
- Can’t be mined by Robo-Miners.
- Requires a dupe with the skill “Superhard Digging” (Tier 2).
Mooteors
- Several Gassy Moos arrive.
- Won’t damage tiles
- Moos may be turned into meat or ranched.
Regolith
- Massive amounts of hot Regolith that is affected by gravity, much like sand.
- Will fall through open bunker doors.
- Meteors will damage tiles.
Iron
- WIP
- Will greatly damage tiles.
- WIP
Ways to deal with them
Ice
Install radiant pipes across the surface of your asteroid, containing a fluid with a temperature range of 3°C to 100°C. This will melt the ice and enable some cooling, without causing the water to vaporize and be lost to space.
Oxylite
Create horizontal trays and position robo miners to overlap each other. Place auto sweepers in between the miners and conveyor loaders above every alternate miner. For the tray bottoms, glass can be used, with solar panels installed beneath them. Finally, flood the trays (though using 100kg/tile may be excessive).
Slime
Although harmless, slime meteor showers can be combined with hazardous gold showers. Since robo-miners cannot currently operate through bunker doors and slime meteors pose no threat, it’s best to keep your bunker doors open to allow them to fall through.
Gold
Block slime meteor showers with bunker doors to prevent them from landing on your surface. These meteors only leave behind debris upon impact. The shower also contains extremely hot regolith tiles that can cause slime tiles to transform into dirt.
Uranium
You can block uranium meteor showers using bunker doors or airlocks, as their probability of causing damage is relatively low. Alternatively, you can have someone mine them. Another option is to circulate extremely hot liquids through the bunker tiles so that the uranium touching them melts.
Regolith
Use bunker doors to block regolith meteor showers. When the doors are opened, the regolith will fall, making cleanup easier than with slime or uranium showers. However, the resulting regolith debris will need to be managed.
Iron.
WIP – See Gold.
Mooteors.
WIP
All Meteors
You can turn petroleum and refined metals into blast-shot (bullets) that can be used to destroy meteors.
Notes
Meteor showers follow a specific sequence, such as [Slime Slime Gold] [Slime Slime Gold]. Therefore, it is recommended to keep bunker doors open during harmless meteor showers (such as ice or slime), but closed during potentially harmful ones (such as regolith/iron or gold).
