Water Purifier energy math?

[Priestie]

Has anyone done the math on the water purifier energy consumtion? I know in RL, water purification through desalination or however you spell it takes alot of power. However, I have in my base two bioreactors, each filled with a baby electric eal. Supposedly those give 9k energy a piece. With both reactors running on full, they were both drained before the second bottle was finished. Is that right?

[ImHelping]

Bio reactors are always slow no matter what you put in them. 50 fuel wortk, 10,000 fuel worth, you only get roughly "5 enerrgy every 12 seconds" from bio. Bio reactors are essentially glorified batteries. Great for keeping the lights on or an infrequently used outpost, but it's tiny output won't keep up with a base that sees real use.

That said? The water purifier machine is HILARIOUSLY drainy. It's roughly 2,400 energy for a full cycle of the water machine as of the last time I checked the wiki.

Imagine how many sports bottles you could have crafted (in less than 15 minutes) with that amount of energy via the fabricator.

But an entire corner of your room dedicated to a machine that does nothing but make water? If you want to use it regularly rather than "Well if I spam solar panels, it will shut off before I get a blackout!" occasionally? Welp, better hook up the nuclear reactor if you don't have time to set up unlimited thermal power first.

[Priestie]

It still doesnt make sense that the eels would have disappeared from the bioreactors. I makes me think they were used up, which shouldnt have been the case. Unless there is a glitch that when the last power is used up whatever is in the reactor goes poof. As to why i'm using the purifier, I just think it looks cool, and I'm making a cantina. It's about as useful as the vending machine I put in there, but hey, we work with what we have.

[frogger]

The efficiency of water purification goes down as the scale also goes down. A lot of the sources I'm looking at also seem to take into account transportation as part of the cost (both monetary and energy) and additionally, the qualities of the source water itself also wildly changes the cost. I would assume that based on the salt removed from the water the water in Subnautica is quite salty and requires more energy to purify.

The numbers I found on theenergycollective indicate that it takes between 10 and 13 kwh to desalinate 1000 gallons of water. On an excellent day, the solar panels on my house produce 40 kwh and there's a bit over 20 of them. Consider it closer to mid-20s on average. Taking into account that you have 10-20 times fewer panels and lose light to water I'd roughly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that over the course of an ingame day making a bottle of water is feasible except that water desalination plants are quite a bit larger than the unit ingame (I'd imagine, anyway...)

I'd do the hard math if I gave more of a damn and it wasn't 1 am but it's definitely an interesting question. It helps that the quantities of (clean, bottled) water we're dealing with in Subnautica are reasonably restricted.

[ImHelping]

The purifier machine is poorly tuned, but it's always had it's uses yes. Free salt means not having to scrounge it up off the ground, and cured fish is worth much more than a bag of chips as travel food.

As for vanishing eels, well the power system is very 'gets the job done' levels of detailed.

It has a tendency to skim off the top of all your power sources over time. It's why if you build a base with 20+ solar panels, a nuclear reactor you add after will (eventually, slower than if it were your only source) run out of fuel just from getting nickle and dimed because oh no your solar panels are all at 99% power

[Bandit Hadron]

I have no idea why everyone else has such a bad time with the Bioreactor. I fill up mine with Reginalds (it has 2 solar panels supporting it, but only two), go on a journey for 30-ish minutes, I come back and there's 2 more water bottles waiting for me. I have a locker filled with them in a couple of in-game days.

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by Bandit Hadron:

I have no idea why everyone else has such a bad time with the Bioreactor. I fill up mine with Reginalds (it has 2 solar panels supporting it, but only two), go on a journey for 30-ish minutes, I come back and there's 2 more water bottles waiting for me. I have a locker filled with them in a couple of in-game days.

Well again, output, and time.

You're letting it sit there for the huge amount of time it takes for the bio reactors to fill up in the first place. Then you're leaving your base unnatended for twice as long as it takes for a single purifier cycle.

Even ignoring your supplementary power. You're basically skipping out on ever seeing how hard it drains your base that way.

Like, if the wiki numbers are still anywhere near accurate. That means the Bio reactor only puts out 25 energy per minute. So in the full cycle of a water filtration machine that takes about 2,400 power it has... given you 375 more power.

[Priestie]

When my two eels disapeared, both reactors were at 500 power each. But ya I think the eel is glitched as a power source. I added a single thermal reactor (250 power) filled one reactor with plant mater, and one with a eel. I came back, still had plenty of power, and the eel was gone and that bio reactor was off.

[MaGicBush]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

Originally posted by Bandit Hadron:

I have no idea why everyone else has such a bad time with the Bioreactor. I fill up mine with Reginalds (it has 2 solar panels supporting it, but only two), go on a journey for 30-ish minutes, I come back and there's 2 more water bottles waiting for me. I have a locker filled with them in a couple of in-game days.

Well again, output, and time.

You're letting it sit there for the huge amount of time it takes for the bio reactors to fill up in the first place. Then you're leaving your base unnatended for twice as long as it takes for a single purifier cycle.

Even ignoring your supplementary power. You're basically skipping out on ever seeing how hard it drains your base that way.

Like, if the wiki numbers are still anywhere near accurate. That means the Bio reactor only puts out 25 energy per minute. So in the full cycle of a water filtration machine that takes about 2,400 power it has... given you 375 more power.

I use 2 solar powers a thermal and a bio. I keep my scanner running all the time and have a water purifier. It works great. The power stays around 700+. I stopped having to hunt for water all the time. It gives salt to so I can make bleach and grt basically 3 water bottles every few minutes.