How do I get out of the coal trap?

Question

In Oxygen Not Included I am stuck with coal as my power source. There is a natural gas geyser and a steam geyser on the map but both require a "tenured scientist" and I am not even close to getting a dupe at that level.

There is some oil at the bottom of the map, but from what I have learned it takes a long time and a lot of power investment (ie coal) to process the oil before it can be used as a power source. Since I have very little coal left and have been scraping the map for every ounce of it, I don't think increasing my coal expenditure would be viable.

What is the general strategy for getting out of coal?

BTW YouTube videos are not useful because they show people using geysers and not needing a tenured scientist. In the newest patch Expression, a tenured scientist is needed which is not viable for me.

Answer 1

You don't need a tenured scientist for anything. The geyser will be in one of the following states:

• Idle: It is active but currently not emitting stuff
• Active: It is emitting stuff
• Dormant: The geyser is sleeping for a prolonged time

The only thing a tenured scientist will find out is the time span of the geyser being in a dormant state. However, this does not affect the duration of the states.

A geyser will always switch something like this:

(idle > active) x n --> (dormant x m) --> (idle > active) x n

n being the activity cycle length
m being the dormant cycle length