Reactor upgrad in winterhome

[charlylxbg]

Hi!
I m in winterhome and sealed every toxic holes, got my geothings going but i cant use that energy. I want to upgrad the reactor since i think that will give me the access to the steam usage but i cant find the upgrade for the reactor (looked everywhere for it.).
i have the first two upgrades researched and didnt go the "oil only" way.
So how can i use the steam? how can i upgrade the reactor in WH (if thats possible and the way to go here)

thanks a lot for any help!

[Airatome]

You can strictly only upgrade the reactor in your main colony.

[charlylxbg]

ok.. but how can i use the steam then? is the core/reactor using it automatically?

[Airatome]

Originally posted by charlylxbg:

ok.. but how can i use the steam then? is the core/reactor using it automatically?

Are any of the tooltips when you hover over your incoming heat sources at the top or look at what your reactor is burning SAY that you're using steam? Because it will tell you, very clearly, if you're using steam.

Otherwise your answer is: You can't. The Winterhome engine is not equipped to utilize steam unless you start a utopia mode playthrough on the Winterhome map as your main city and the appropriate upgrades.

[Paraleo]

In story mode as it is right now, the key to use the steam power is not keeping oil or coal in storage in winterhome and you just supply through transfer flow (trade route) the extra it needs after you see the gennie is starting using steam, but it is quite heavy on micro if you keep developing the city.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3340710446

[Airatome]

Like Paraleo mentions, Winterhome outputs a certain amount on its own but you would have to have an export route set up to the main city that empties all the coal and oil leaving only steam. It's not as efficient as what you can attain by being able to upgrade the Winterhome engine but it should be enough for an expansion city

[Paraleo]

Yeah but resource priority for the generator is quite buggy though,
In my utopia playthrough I can cover everything with steam power in the main city but the game just chooses oil now for everything since I upgraded the genny to level 3, even with steam optimization on and since I got almost all my depots there I can't apply the same trick.
The game still needs some patches, and to fix some UI glitches, you can actually click through the build menu on stuff that is behind by example.
The automatic start of harvesting after you build a path, probably should be a settings option. But I digress, let's stop here.

[charlylxbg]

Hi guys,
thanks for the replies.
But isnt that super bad game design?
I would never let coal and oil run out just to "try" if it switches to steam.
Plus we "learned" from the reactor in new london, that you need to upgrade your core to use certain fuels.
I would have been stuck here forever because it doenst make sense.

[Paraleo]

I would say in regards to Official Post, they (devs) just need to make sure that if steam is available for the player in a colony to be used with the highest priority since you can't move it or store it. In the main city it should use what is chosen in the focus (steam,oil,coal) even if the resource runs out by example.
I am surprised this bug passed QA as well as the bug with the drills.