Mechanitor - How do mech charge levels work during caravan travel?

[Santa Claus Jr]

Basically the title. Got a new event of a mech cluster with a climate machine 8 tiles away I gotta wipe up. Only got a couple horses, was considering sending my mechanitor with the soldier mechs, I assume they still lose charge during travel? What would even happen if they lost all charge while out in the caravan?

[di eshor ribly]

From what I've seen from my few mechacaravans is that your mechs do not lose charge while travelling. Once they reach their destination, however, you will need to start worrying about their charge. Bring enough materials to build a solar panel/battery/charger (or a vanometric power cell if you have one).

Keep in mind that mechs (combat ones in particular) lose 10% total power per day from operating. You have ten days (give or take) before you need to worry about charging your bots back up, fewer days if you have to do any repairs.

[Santa Claus Jr]

can I 'haul' inactive mechs then and just activate them when I arrive at the destination?

[di eshor ribly]

As cargo? I think so... but that's really only for destroyed or immobilized mechs. Mechs are fairly heavy, so if they can move on their own let them.

If your caravan heads out with mechs at.. say, 11% charge, they will stay at 11% until they reach the destination tile, then it will start to decay again. While they're travelling they're in stasis.

If you're planning to be on that tile fighting or working for more than a few days you'll need to bring or build a power supply and charger. If it's just a quick raid and you left with mechs in good order you can just do what you need to and leave.

[marcusaddamsson]

I originally kept my 'working' mechs on 30-100 charge. And then when I'd be planning on heading out in a day or three, I'd set it to 75-100 charge. And then I kept forgetting to set it back to 30-100... and frankly 75-100 works pretty well, given there's always a bottleneck at the charger.

If I'm bringing mechs on a caravan, I'd prefer they were charged at least 75%... and higher would be better. It's less to do with the burn rate once they're on-site at destination.. as you can just move 'em to a safe place and shut 'em down. The big issue is the repairs. Recall that repairing a mech costs energy... so each encounter you have will wear your mechs down, charge-wise.

Not sure I've ever actually built a recharge station on the road yet... but the plan was always to drop a tox generator, and then either leave it all... or cart it all back with me. Shrug. I have dragged several dead mechs back to my base tho... ;)

[jordanleemn]

I personally tell my mechs to charge at 90% just so I don't need to wait to long for it to be back up.and running

[Laurie]

They recharge by putting the charging cable up the mechanitor's bum