A couple of questionable buildings

[gussmed]

A couple of buildings are on my "almost never build" list.

The Airblast drill. 3.43 ore / sec, 8.78 with water, 180 power / sec, 16 tiles. Which sounds OK until you realize it's exactly as efficient in ore extraction as the laser drill (0.214 ore / tile), but costs 50% more power (11.25 power / tile vs. 7.33 / tile) and is substantially more expensive to build.

If you're mining a spot that's exactly 4x4, and want to get it all, it's kinda power efficient, since you'd need 4 laser drills to cover every single spot, which is both larger and costs 264 power / sec. But if the spot is anything else - a strip that's 3 tall or 5 tall - it's better to use laser drills.

The Thermal pump. At 90 liquid / sec for 9 tiles, it's less efficient than a rotary pump, which gets 48 liquid liquid / sec from 4 (10 liquid / tile vs. 12). It's less power efficient too, generating 5 liquid / power vs. 5.3 liquid / power.

[Cooky-CC]

The Airblast drill and the Thermal pump are useful when power is not a problem.

[Fumo Bnnuy n Frends]

Originally posted by Szaok:

The Airblast drill and the Thermal pump are useful when power is not a problem.

P much this.

The whole point of higher tier items is they require electricity/water and higher tier'd items to power. They cost more but the payoff is better. This is especially true if you wanna make things like cyrofreeze and other water based items that require more water.

As for the drill yeah it's also for mote surface are and helps expand land usage. Also a larger building/structure= more surface area meaning you can make more connections. On a drill that extracts say thoridum or coal in mass quantities you can distribute them several directions all for only 1 drill or place buildings directly in front with more surface area. Helps with conpact building.

Best example is the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ expanded core and mega core where people connect via vaults and containers. Normally they wouldn't be useful for much and take up space but around a core helps alot.

Same with batteries, especially if you got a ton of electrical based weaponary.

[Commanders]

I use oil to product coal usually if there a nuclear power plant up.Because they generate more coal then the ground airblast.So over all its depend the situation.Some of it are useful in certain situation even it cost more power but if you encounter with less space to build it does help. (Sorry i talking other thing) :P

[gussmed]

My point is that the Airblast drill and the thermal pump are _not_ more useful if you have unlimited power. You’ll get just as much ore per area from a laser drill, and more water per area from a rotary pump.

[Arpente Reves]

Airblast is useful when you have big veins. When using both airblast and laser you can optimize the production a lot.
Thermal pump is almost useless unless you have a cryofluid plant near. Even then, rotary pumps are still an option but given that almost everyone just use water extractor...

[PhailRaptor]

Originally posted by gussmed:

My point is that the Airblast drill and the thermal pump are _not_ more useful if you have unlimited power. You’ll get just as much ore per area from a laser drill, and more water per area from a rotary pump.

Agreed on the Thermal Pump. It produces less per tile, takes up more space, and uses significantly more Power. It downgrades everything involved.

I have to disagree, though, on the Airblast Drill. The rate per tile used is the same between the Laser and Airblast, so you can use them together to get the most coverage of a deposit without worrying about needing to minmax one type over the other. Yeah, Airblasts use triple the power. But depending on the resource configuration, you'd actually be saving power over using Lasers. Say you have a resource patch that's a 4x4 square. That's a full 16 tiles, which would fit exactly under a single Airblast. To harvest that same patch with Laser Drills would take 4 of them. Same resource output, but now you're using more Power with the Lasers than you are with the single Airblast. You need to use both together to really minmax power consumed vs resource generated.

[gussmed]

I did mention the case where you're mining a patch that's 4x4 exactly in my original post. In that particular case the airblast drill makes sense. But if it's not a multiple of 4, there's no advantage, and the airblast drill is both more expensive to build and more expensive to run.

It's odd, since the drills are otherwise in a progression.

[Fumo Bnnuy n Frends]

Originally posted by Arpente Reves:

Airblast is useful when you have big veins. When using both airblast and laser you can optimize the production a lot.
Thermal pump is almost useless unless you have a cryofluid plant near. Even then, rotary pumps are still an option but given that almost everyone just use water extractor...

True
Though water extractors take up more space while pumps can be more flexible and only take up water spaces you couldn't even build in to begin with

[crate]

I build airblasts over laser drills early on on some maps that have Thorium, since Thorium is actually cheaper than Graphite at times.

[Fumo Bnnuy n Frends]

Originally posted by crate:

I build airblasts over laser drills early on on some maps that have Thorium, since Thorium is actually cheaper than Graphite at times.

graphite isn't an issue though once you make a scrap converter setup. Then it's all about having too much copper and lead.



also op tested it out

if you got even 1 more spec of ore in a 3X3 square ore deposit then it favors the airblast drill simply for extra surface area. Tried it with an airblast vs lazer drill in several deposits and the less you have the more it favors the lazer while more surface area=better drilling. That and having both more surface area to distribute the materials and as someone else said it's somewhat easier to craft if you got plenty of thorium available.

the other setback is the space required where a lazer drill only takes out 3 x 3 while an airblast is 4x4 making room to place it in a factor. Seems airblasts work 10X better in sand and larger ore deposits while lazer and below work when space and less ores in the area are a thing.