Algae Bioreactor vs Chemical Canister Stack 3D

Bioreactor vs Canister Stack

Bioregenerative share 40%

Light intensity 80%

Crew size 4

Canisters remaining

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O₂ bubble rate

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Mission elapsed

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Bio loop maturity

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How it works

On the left, a translucent bioreactor tank fills with rising O₂ bubbles generated by photosynthesis — the bubble spawn rate scales with the light-intensity slider and ramps up over the reactor's first two simulated weeks, since a live algae/plant culture doesn't respond instantly. On the right, a stack of chemical LiOH canisters — sized to the fraction of the crew's load not covered by the bioreactor — physically shrinks as consumables are spent; each canister disappears once used up and is not replaced, which is exactly the resupply problem chemical scrubbing has that a closed loop doesn't.

bubbleRate ∝ light × bioShare × ramp(t)
canisterCount = ceil(chemFraction × baseCanisters)
chemFraction  = 1 − bioShare × light × ramp(t)

Bioregenerative share — how much of the load is routed to the algae tank instead of chemical canisters.
Light intensity — throttles the bubble spawn rate directly; low light starves the culture and more canisters stay in the stack.
Crew size — scales the base canister count the stack starts with.
Time ×1/×4 — speeds up the simulated mission clock so the canister stack's depletion and the bioreactor's ramp-up are visible without a long wait.

Real-world relevance: this is the physical version of the same trade the 2D chart shows — a bioregenerative loop (MELiSSA, BIOS-3-style) trims resupply mass but only once it has matured and only as far as its light budget allows.

O₂ bubbles (bioreactor) LiOH canister (chemical) Light source

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Algae Bioreactor vs Chemical Canister Stack (3D)