Episode 6 of Season 4 opens on yet another colony. The commentary explains that the save from last time ran out of dirt, which the mush bars needed, so "I started up a new one," this time "trying to focus more on doing some farming stuff." It has been played off camera: the top bar reads Cycle 58, with 14 duplicants and about 142,800 kcal of food. The hour brings a carbon dioxide room, a starving mistake, a critter stable and a gold volcano that costs the colony a scientist. When the stream stops it is Cycle 69, with 17 duplicants, and the farms are still too hot.
A farming colony
The tour starts in the farms. The resource list shows more than 138,000 kcal of Gristle Berry, and crops get turned into Liceloaf. The trouble is heat: "it's too hot over here for these plants." New ventilation shafts carry the gases that are not oxygen up and away, to be filtered later, with a second channel planned for oxygen. A big water tank waits to be expanded, with some unexplained pollution in it, and there is a dirty water tank below. One floor belongs to a herd of critters, 13 of them, because "if there's other stuff on the floor they get grumpy about it."
Then a card for something new: a gold volcano, "a large volcano that periodically erupts with molten gold." The commentary says an earlier try at analyzing it went badly: "it was too hot and my guy started to burn to death." Coal is down to five tons. A print brings in Meep, picked over Ruby and Frankie.
A carbon dioxide room
Natural gas power is not researched yet, so the plan changes to a carbon dioxide room up by the pipe shaft. A carbon skimmer goes in, with a wire bridge over the bigger cable, a gas filter to send carbon dioxide inside, and clean water in with dirty water out through a liquid bridge, "so that might be a traffic jam later on." A gas pump goes on the floor below, "because right now most of the CO2 is all dropping down," though at first its power cable does not reach.
Starving on a full pantry
The alerts read Starvation and Unpermitted food. "Why are you guys starving?" The consumables screen has the answer: the wrong food was blocked, the finished meals instead of the raw ingredients. "So they have been starving. I apologize everybody." Once that is fixed, a second print screen offers Ruby, Frankie and Liam, and jobs get sorted, with one duplicant set to operations and carrying.
A stable for the critters
A Grooming Station card says it lets the assigned Rancher care for critters and is needed for a stable room. The Exosuit Forge shows up in the menus too, making Atmo Suits. A pen goes in with an airlock, the grooming station, a shearing station, a drop-off and a feeder. Building it squeezed the herd's floor: "now there's only eight of them, because now they're overcrowded."
The gold volcano
The research screen gets Temperature Modulation, for cooler crops. Then the same scientist who checked the volcano before goes back to analyze it. The alerts turn red: Scalding, then Incapacitated. Nisbet's panel reads "Dying," with 42 seconds left. "Someone help them!" Then: "None of you are helping." The "Duplicants have died" alert appears and the count drops to 15. The commentary: "they died, got incapacitated for some reason and then died. I don't really understand." Later the commentary says the volcano needs "a very high level scientist" before anyone can work with it. A new print brings the colony back to 16, and another duplicant becomes the researcher.
Trying to cool the farms
The new research brings a Hydrofan, which "dissipates a small amount of the heat" while a duplicant works it. It goes up and does not do much: "That seems very silly." A Thermo Regulator card says it cools gas piped through it, but it needs HVAC research, so the commentary heads there. An Atmo Suit needs reed fiber, so harvesting gets turned on for wild Thimble Reed plants. Then the power runs out, with coal still low and the critters not making enough of it.
Where it ends
One more print adds Travaldo, for 17 duplicants. An unused room is cleared for a "cold air area": "Make oxygen, cool it off, and then send it down." Crops get swapped, and the new ones turn out to want polluted water for their irrigation, which has to wait. "That'll be it for today." The top bar reads Cycle 69, with 17 duplicants and about 118,000 kcal, and the alerts still warn about oxygen.