Oxygen Not Included is a survival colony sim from Klei Entertainment about keeping Duplicants alive inside an asteroid. The early game is less about building a perfect base and more about learning how oxygen, food, water, waste, power, temperature, stress, and space all push on each other.
Rating note: no official ESRB or PEGI rating is listed here, so this guide uses
contentRating: not-rated.
Scope note: this is a base-game beginner guide. It avoids exact colony builds, automation math, exploit loops, seed-specific plans, rocket routes, and DLC-only systems unless they are clearly called out.
Essential Tips
1. Stabilize Needs Before You Decorate
Oxygen, food, toilets, beds, power, and safe paths matter before polish.
Your first goal is not a beautiful colony. It is a colony that keeps breathing, eating, sleeping, and working without creating a bigger emergency every cycle.
2. Treat Every New Duplicant as New Demand
More hands also mean more oxygen, food, space, morale support, and waste.
Printing a Duplicant before your base can support them can turn a stable start into a resource spiral. If the colony is already chasing oxygen or food, slow down and fix the system first.
3. Use Overlays Before Rebuilding
Most problems are easier to see than to guess.
Check oxygen, temperature, plumbing, power, priorities, and other overlays before you tear out a room. Oxygen Not Included is full of invisible pressure: gas pockets, heat, clogged pipes, power load, and bad access routes.
4. Plan Waste Paths Early
Polluted water, carbon dioxide, heat, and bad air are not gone just because they moved.
Keep waste products contained and readable. A short-term pit or storage area can be fine, but treat it as a temporary answer that will eventually need a better system.
5. Separate Temporary Survival From Permanent Systems
A quick fix is useful when you remember it is a quick fix.
Early oxygen, food, and water solutions often buy time rather than solve the whole colony. Mark the systems that will need upgrades so you do not build your entire base around a stopgap.
6. Protect Water Like Infrastructure
Water feeds too many systems to spend casually.
Water can support food, oxygen-related buildings, research, sanitation, and other systems. Before committing water to a new setup, ask whether that same supply is already carrying another survival need.
7. Keep Heat Away From Farms and Living Space
Temperature mistakes can arrive slowly and become expensive to undo.
Do not place hot machinery, hot water, or hot industrial paths through your best growing and living areas unless you know how you will control the heat later.
8. Learn Gas Behavior Instead of Fighting the Map
Carbon dioxide sinks, gases spread, and opened rooms can change the whole base.
When you dig into a new area, pause and check what gas is inside. A new connection can improve airflow, dump carbon dioxide into a low area, or flood your base with an unwanted gas pocket.
9. Research the Bottleneck You Actually Have
Research is strongest when it answers the current emergency.
If oxygen is failing, research toward oxygen control. If waste is backing up, research plumbing and sanitation. If power is unstable, solve power. Do not chase advanced systems while a basic need is already slipping.
10. Leave Service Space for Pipes, Wires, and Ladders
A cramped base is harder to fix than a slightly messy one.
Leave room to run pipes, ventilation, wires, ladders, and future access. Oxygen Not Included rewards bases that can be serviced and rebuilt without trapping Duplicants or blocking critical routes.
11. Watch Stress and Morale Before They Break Workflows
Duplicants are not just work orders with legs.
Stress, morale, and skills can turn a colony problem into a labor problem. Keep an eye on schedules, errands, skill choices, and morale support before stress reactions interrupt essential work.
12. Save Before Big Breaches and Rebuilds
Opening a new biome or moving a major system can create several problems at once.
Before digging into unknown areas, rerouting plumbing, changing power, or opening a gas pocket, make a save. The point is not to avoid experimentation; it is to make experimentation cheaper.
Base Game Priorities
| Priority | What To Check | Beginner Goal |
|---|---|---|
| Oxygen | Oxygen overlay, carbon dioxide buildup, airflow paths | Keep breathable areas stable and readable |
| Food | Food trend, farming temperature, water use, labor demand | Avoid relying on a single fragile food source |
| Waste | Toilets, polluted water, storage, bad air | Contain problems before they spread through the base |
| Water | Clean water access, polluted water separation, competing uses | Know what every major water consumer is doing |
| Power | Generator load, battery location, wire routes, critical buildings | Keep essentials powered before adding convenience |
| Temperature | Heat sources, hot liquids, farms, living space | Do not cook your food chain by accident |
| Labor | Priorities, travel time, blocked errands, new Duplicants | Make essential work reachable and prioritized |
| Stress | Morale, schedule pressure, decor only after survival | Prevent avoidable stress from halting work |
This is a priority map, not an exact build order. The right next job depends on the map, Duplicants, resources, and which system is failing first.
Resource and Overlay Habits
| Habit | Why It Helps |
|---|---|
| Check oxygen before expansion | New rooms can change airflow and carbon dioxide behavior |
| Check temperature before farming | Heat can break food plans slowly |
| Check plumbing before adding water users | Water often has several competing jobs |
| Check power before adding machines | A building that flickers off may be worse than no building |
| Check priorities after emergencies | Duplicants may ignore the errand you think is obvious |
| Check access routes before digging | A stranded Duplicant can turn a small job into a crisis |
| Check storage locations | Long travel routes quietly steal labor from survival work |
| Recheck overlays after loading or rebuilding | A solved-looking base can hide a new bottleneck |
DLC and Patch Boundaries
Oxygen Not Included now has multiple DLC packs and recent official update notes split changes between all versions and specific packs. Treat any guide or strategy as version-sensitive unless it clearly states the game version and DLC setup.
| Content | Beginner Boundary |
|---|---|
| Base game | Oxygen, food, water, waste, power, heat, stress, priorities, research, and basic colony growth are in scope here |
| Spaced Out! | Multi-world play, expanded rocketry, radiation, new planetoids, and related systems are DLC-specific |
| Aquatic Planet Pack | Swimming, marine-world content, pool critters, flooded flora, and submersible buildings are pack-specific |
| Other DLC packs | Frosty, Bionic, and Prehistoric systems should not be assumed in base-game advice |
| Current patch | Klei update 737790 was current on July 7, 2026; recheck patch notes before exact numbers or advanced builds |
If you are playing with Spaced Out! or other packs enabled, this guide still helps with fundamentals, but DLC-specific systems deserve their own guides.
Stuck Routine
- Pause and open overlays - Check oxygen, temperature, power, plumbing, priorities, and access before guessing.
- Name the failing system - Decide whether the problem is oxygen, food, water, waste, heat, power, labor, or stress.
- Stop adding demand - Delay extra Duplicants, new machines, and deep expansion until the failure is contained.
- Find the byproduct - Look for carbon dioxide, polluted water, heat, waste, travel distance, or power load created by your last fix.
- Make one temporary repair - Buy time with a contained, readable fix rather than rebuilding everything at once.
- Research toward the bottleneck - Pick tech that addresses the system currently blocking survival.
- Recheck after one cycle - Watch whether the fix is stable or only moved the problem somewhere else.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
-
Do not print Duplicants just because they are available - Population is a resource demand, not only a labor upgrade.
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Do not ignore carbon dioxide - It can settle into work and living areas if you leave it nowhere useful to go.
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Do not spend clean water without a plan - Water supports too many core systems to treat as disposable.
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Do not put heat wherever space is open - Early convenience can create a later farming or living-space problem.
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Do not build machines before power can support them - Flickering power wastes labor and hides the real bottleneck.
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Do not trust one food source blindly - Farming, temperature, water, labor, and storage can all interrupt food.
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Do not dig every direction at once - New areas can introduce gases, heat, hazards, long travel paths, and distraction.
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Do not copy advanced builds without checking DLC and patch version - Many popular designs rely on exact mechanics, resources, or DLC systems.
Summary
| Category | Top Tip |
|---|---|
| Oxygen | Use overlays and give carbon dioxide somewhere readable to go |
| Food | Keep food plans simple until temperature and water are stable |
| Water | Track every major water use before adding another |
| Waste | Contain polluted water, bad air, and byproducts early |
| Power | Keep essentials stable before scaling machines |
| Heat | Keep hot systems away from farms and living areas |
| Labor | Use priorities and access routes to make essential work happen |
| Stress | Watch morale and schedules before stress interrupts survival |
| DLC | Treat Spaced Out! and other pack mechanics as separate guide scope |
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8 checked for this guideEvery factual claim in this guide was checked against at least two independent sources before publication. These are the references used for Oxygen Not Included.
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