Unstable power cells

[P O P]

Just got a mech cluster with one of these bad boys right in the middle. 4 turrets and 1 pikemen guarding it. Middle of winter. Lots of snow. Should I nab the cell or just blow it up and practically skip the encounter? Or will all the snow and low temperature instantly snuff the fires and make it do almost nothing? On top of the fact that it is -7 outside, there is also a weather terminal dropping it an additional 10. How much power does it even get me?

[Triple G]

It´s not as good as the venometric (or something) power cell You get from quests. I´m actually unsure how much power it gives - but these items are neat for having the ore drills going, as You don´t need to lay cables for it, or when You go on a caravan and want to use turrets (which i never did).

Also -17 isn´t really cold, when a standard cloth parka gives -30. Also the turrets are trivial if You have either a smokepop belt, or even better a smoke launcher. Imho what´s worth the most are these shield items You need for the low shield belts, as they´re single use items.

[MadArtillery]

Always worth if you can get them though it's pretty rare given the mech turrets can explode and often do. Tends to make a massive chain reaction.

[ikegami178]

For me it would depend on how close they are to the turrets and if youre on commitment mode or you can savescum

If you cant savescum and the cells are too close to the turrets, prob better to just blow it and skip the fight
If you can save its prob worth a few tries at getting it, the cell might survive one or two turret explosions, but you may have to dedicate a pawn to uninstall it during the fight if all four are close to the cell

And the snow do dont do much to snuff fires, it takes some seriously intense cold to kill fires in time to be relevant in a fight with enviroment temperature and temperature in general dont interact with explosion damage wich i think its the most important thing here

The power output from unstable cells is very modest, just 400W, but the big value comes from the fact its completely reliable if you can keep them out of danger. They are like geothermals: 24/7 perfectly stable power output that isnt disrupted by any event on the game, but unlike geothermal, can be placed anywhere with no hard number limit, and is not uber rare like vanometric power cell that is superior, but so rare, its borderline one of a kind

[P O P]

Sooo It got destroyed in the cross fire :/

[Triple G]

Like said: if You have smoke - the turrets wouldn´t fire at You at all...

[Vermillion Cardinal]

Unstable power cells to me are like red barrels in FPS games: to be shot at to trigger explosions on your enemies. I've never gone out of my way to preserve them when I could use them tactically instead.

[NecoGrimReaper]

I would explode it (i hate mechanoid clusters and think the easier the better)