A reference guide for the life support system so you can figure out how many of each component you need to support a given crew size. This is guide is aimed at helping people design the life support systems for large ships with big crews or passenger ships. Introduction A reference guide to see how many of each life support component is needed to support a number of crew. Useful for designing passenger ships for survival, or large ships with big crews. Crews of less than 60 will only need 1 of each device even without any efficiency tech. The converter output figures in this guide are when the 100% efficiency life support tech has been researched. If you don't have any life support tech researched, divide the converter output by 66.7%. Applies to air reprocessor, waste treatment plant and water purifier. If an output gets blocked by a full tank, then production rates will be lower. Avoid filling tanks up to maximum capacity to get highest production rates. This guide was made in game version Alpha 16C. Last updated in Alpha 20C. Referencing: (G) : information comes from in game tooltip - is likely accurate (W) : information comes from the TLS wiki (https://www.tls-wiki.com/wiki/Main_Page) - may be outdated Life Support Basics for New Players Every person (crew or civilian) on your ship need: - Breathable atmosphere of O2 or spacesuits supplied with O2. - Food. - Water. If they go without any of these 3, they will die. Food and water will be consumed by crew if they happen to be in the ship. Water can be stored in tanks and crew will still consume water from the tank. Food can be stored in crates and crew will eat from the crate. O2 can be supplied into the atmosphere with O2 vents. Connect the vents with a pipe to a source of O2. The most basic setup is to connect it to an oxgen loader where crew put oxygen bottles to be ventilate into the atmosphere. Adding a tank allows for some storage and a more consistent supply. Spacesuits can keep crew alive without atmosphere for a time. They have a limited O2 supply, and must be resupplied with O2 using spacesuit pods that are connected with a pipe to a source of O2. Every person who is not wearing a spacesuit will produce CO2. This will accumulate in the atmosphere, and if it reaches a certain proportion in the atmosphere, every person not wearing a spacesuit will die. CO2 is removed from the atmosphere with CO2 scrubbers. This will take the CO2 out of the atmosphere and pump it into a pipe. If the pipe gets blocked, the CO2 scrubber will stop working. CO2 can be converted back into O2 with an air reprocessor. All crew, including scientists and weapons officers, can wear spacesuits to protect from loss of atmosphere. Civilians can not. Civilians tend to live in the habitation deck of the ship, which is connected to the rest of the ship by ladders. If the ladders lose atmosphere, the civilians in habitation will suffocate. If possible, civilians can move to other sections of habitation that still have atmosphere. It's worthwhile to have multiple ladders in separate rooms if your ship is intended to carry civilians. During combat, your ships can suffer a hull breach from enemy weapons fire. Railgun hits are most likely to cause this, although cannons can do it too. Hull breach will result in the rapid loss of atmosphere of the room it occurs in. Segmenting your ship with different rooms will mitigate the harm hull breaches can cause. Doors will regulate atmosphere changes across them. Food can be grown in hydroponic farms using seeds, water and compost. For most ships this isn't necessary as food is cheap and can be easily bought. Growing food is only needed for survival mode where basic resources get scarce. Water can be purified from waste water. Waste water is obtained by processing sewage with a waste treatment plant or grinding ice from comets. Waste treatment plants take sewage and convert to waste water and compost that can be used in farms. Sewage is produced by crew over time and is initially stored in the habitation deck. You use the sewage pipe to take it from the habitation decks and put into pipes where it can be stored i n tanks, bottled with a loader or sent to waste treatment. Basic Setups for New Players (WIP) Tips and Tricks (WIP) - If an output gets blocked by a full tank, then production rates will be lower. Avoid filling tanks up to maximum capacity to get highest production rates. I tend to set loaders to stop loading when tanks get to ~90% full. - Using air gaps can prevent blockages at the expense of additional crew labour. Alternatively you could use a robot arm at the cost of 1MW of energy and extra cost. Crew Requirements Name Seconds per unit per crew Units per second with 30 crew Food 200 0.15 Water 30 1 Oxygen 30 1 CO2 30 1 Sewage 26.5 1.132 (Source: https://www.tls-wiki.com/wiki/Crew_Member) 30 crew will consume 1 water, 1 oxygen and 0.15 food per second, and produce 1 CO2 and 1.132 sewage per second. These are the figures I'll be using to determine how many crew a component supports. Atmosphere Name Rate Supports Crew with 100% efficiency tech Supports Crew without tech Airduct Adds 10 O2 per second to atmosphere (W) 300 300 CO2 Scrubber Removes 6 CO2 per second from atmosphere (G) 180 180 Air Reprocessor Converts 3 CO2 to 3 O2 per second (G) 90 60 Oxygen Generator Converts 5 water to 5 O2 per second (G) 150 150 (W) : https://www.tls-wiki.com/wiki/Airduct Airducts will oxygenate the room they are in. Some ship designs use multiple redundant airducts to reduce the risk of losing atmosphere from hull breaches. For large ships with walls partitioning many rooms, you need to spread the oxygen ventilators and CO2 scrubbers around the ship to ensure full oxygenation. One large centralised air reprocessing system seems to work better than multiple small systems. More vulnerable to being damaged on warships though. Without any efficiency tech researched, a single air reprocessor will support 60 crew. Crews less than 60 only require a simple system: CO2 scrubber -> CO2 tank -> air reprocessor -> O2 tank -> airduct. I don't have any data on spacesuits, but I suspect the rate of O2 consumption is the same and the CO2 produced is deleted. I don't use the oxygen generator for life support purposes. It can be used for money making as O2 sells for double what water does. Buy water, convert to O2, sell. 2000 credit profit. It's very slow though. Water Name Rate Supports Crew with 100% efficiency tech Supports Crew without tech Sewage pipe Takes 10 Sewage per second from habitation (G) 265 265 Waste treatment Converts 6 sewage to 6 waste water and 0.75 compost per second (G) 159 (1) 80 (2) Water purifier Converts 6 waste water to 6 water per second (G) 180 120 Ice Grinder Converts 1 water ice to 10 waste water per second (G) 300 300 (1) Sewage removal is limiting factor (2) Water production is limiting factor - includes efficiency loss from water purifier A 100% efficiency system will gradually produce water and compost at the expense of importing food. This is where farms come in, but I'll address them separately. The waste treatment plant will pause production when the compost output is full, causing a slight drop in production rate. It depends on how much free labour there is on the ship, but anticipate maybe about a 5% reduction. Having a robot arm to unload the compost will greatly reduce this. If there is no habitation deck, no sewage is produced. Currently there is no penalty for not collecting sewage from the habitation deck (game version A16C). I would recommend at least collecting it and bottling it, even if only to sell. Ice grinder is good for getting more water. Don't rely on it to keep crew alive though. Ice -> waste water -> water -> O2 can make mining comets a modest money source. 100 water ice processed into 1000 oxygen will make 4000 credits. It's a bit slow though. Water is one of the main constraints in late game survival. It's consumed to grow food, and you won't be able to buy enough in the late game. If you are building a survival ship, make sure to store plenty of water in tanks, have ice grinders and store up some ice in crates. Food (Incomplete) Farm information from the wiki is contradictory - I'm not sure what's correct. This is what I've got: 200 crew eat 1 food per second. Farm plot yield: (each farm has 6 plots) Time: 425 seconds Food: 15 (22.5 with +50% crop yield research) Water Used: 22.5 (is this correct? Possibly lower?) Compost Used: ? (2.5 or 5, not sure which - think 2.5 is more likely) Seeds: 1-2 (varies, but gradually produces more seeds over time) Source: https://www.tls-wiki.com/wiki/Hydroponic_Garden A full farm should produce 15*6/425 food per second = 0.212 food/s This should feed 42 crew per farm. With +50% yield tech this rises to 0.318 food/s. This should feed 63 crew per farm. From playing survival in v19, these numbers seem roughly accurate. I had 5 farms feeding 300 people with some surplus. Farms are modest money earners from selling seeds and food, even if you have to buy the water and compost for them. Compost availability in trading is bad, so they only work at scale if you have a lot of people on board the ship. For most ships it's easier to just sell compost and buy food. In survival you can unlock tech to upgrade farm yield immensely if you spend a research chip. Hydroponic Garden has the highest value increase from it's raw materials of any item in the game for profitable manufacturing, so it's worthwhile to research even if you don't use farms. It's now water purifiers that are the most profitable. Devices Required Table A useful table to help people who don't want to crunch the numbers. If in doubt, just go up to the next bracket. For example, if you want 180 crew, use the 200 row and you'll have a little extra capacity. Number given is with 100% efficiency tech. In brackets will be the number for no tech where applicable. If no bracket number, then it is the same as 100%. Crew Airduct CO2 Scrubber Air Reprocessor Sewage Pipe Waste Treatment Plant Water Purifier Hydroponic Farm 60 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 (2) 100 1 1 2 1 1 (2) 1 2 (3) 150 1 1 2 (3) 1 1 (2) 1 (2) 3 (4) 200 1 2 3 (4) 1 2 (3) 2 4 (5) 250 1 2 3 (5) 1 2 (4) 2 (3) 4 (6) 300 1 2 4 (5) 2 2 (4) 2 (3) 5 (8) 350 2 2 4 (6) 2 3 (4) 2 6 (9) 400 2 3 5 (7) 2 3 (5) 3 7 (10) 450 2 3 5 (8) 2 3 (6) 3 8 (11) 500 2 3 6 (9) 2 4 (7) 3 8 (12) 550 2 4 7 (10) 3 4(7) 4 (5) 9 (14) 600 2 4 7 (10) 3 4(8) 4 (5) 10 (15) 650 3 4 8 (11) 3 5(9) 4 (6) 11 (16) 700 3 4 8 (12) 3 5(9) 4 (6) 12 (17) 750 3 5 9 (13) 3 5(10) 5 (7) 12 (18) 800 3 5 9 (14) 4 6(10) 5 (7) 13 (20) 850 3 5 10 (15) 4 6(11) 5 (8) 14 (21) 900 3 5 10 (15) 4 6(12) 5 (8) 15 (22) 950 4 6 11 (16) 4 6(12) 6 (8) 16 (23) 1000 4 6 12 (17) 4 7(13) 6 (9) 16 (24) 1100 4 7 13 (19) 5 7(14) 7 (10) 18 (27) 1200 4 7 14 (20) 5 7(14) 7 (10) 20 (29) 1300 5 8 15 (22) 5 9(17) 8 (10) 21 (31) 1400 5 8 16 (24) 6 9(18) 8 (12) 23 (34) 1500 5 9 17 (25) 6 10 (19) 9 (13) 24 (36) 1600 6 9 18 (27) 7 11 (20) 9 (14) 26 (39) 1700 6 10 19 (29) 7 11 (22) 10 (15) 27 (41) 1800 6 10 20 (30) 7 12 (23) 10 (15) 29 (43) 1900 7 11 22 (32) 8 12 (24) 11 (16) 31 (46) 2000 7 12 23 (34) 8 13 (25) 12 (17) 32 (48)