how do I get good power

[Moist Cat]

i am on tier 2 right now and my power goes out fast is the solid biofuel good?

[Mod Sloth]

Solid biofuel is the best biofuel, that I know of, but coal power is so much better than bio. Just rush coal power as quick as you can. It will save you a lot of time and effort once you get it setup.

[Harmor]

In tier 3 you'll unlock coal power which is automatable. For now just convert all biomass to solid bio fuel. Just build what you need to get to Tier 3 and you'll be golden.

[IPWIW]

you don't get better/other options until coal

[JoshBologna]

Build a small bio-fuel power plant with several generators,and a grass + wood solid bio-fuel converter chain. Having more generators will mean more time between top offs. Collect a large amount of wood/grass and let it convert. It should hold you over until coal.

[Moist Cat]

thanks guys I have made 4 biomass burners and everything is going smooth currently but everything is moving slow like making iron rods takes me 7 seconds is that normal? and my biomass is burning really slow

[Harmor]

Things are going to be slow. Later on you'll unlock these canisters that overclock the machine up to 200%. You'll also unlock faster belts.

[Blackwater Jack]

I got tired of fighting power so I downloaded a couple of mods to help with the power burden.

[Bobucles]

The total endurance of biofuel depends on how much fuel is in the system. Build TOO many of them, then max them all out on biofuel. It'll survive longer between manual refueling that way.

Coal power is a major mid game milestone. Veterans rush it but biofuel will last very well into 500MW territory.

[hehehemann]

Once you get coal the game changes dramatically. No longer do you need to keep going wood cutting and making biomass fuel. Coal will be automated for your power delivery and let you focus on factory building and mass production.

[Infern]

Well there are a ton of power alternatives... However, they are later down the line.

Biofuel - The obvious starting path... High maintenance...
Coal - Takes a while to setup but worth make sure to build it by water. Easily scalable. Tier 3 milestone. (This also can become a passive generation of power).
Geothermal Generators - At the end of the caterium research tree Expensive to build but 200 power passively if built on geysers.
Fuel Generators - The most popular form of powering unfortunately tier 6
Nuclear - The top tier generation haven't reached that far myself. Heard toxic waste is also a problem.

[Ruges]

T0 You start out burning leaves and wood that you pick up.
T1 You can convert those leaves and wood that you pick up into biomass. for a 600-900% increase on efforts.
T2 You get a chainsaw which allows you to clear cut forests and you can now convert that biomass into biofuel for an additional 25% gain on efforts. (and while you might say ohh only a 25% increase is not much, Your burn time is going to increase by 250% (IE you dont have to refuel as often). with a proper setup you can easily operate 10 biofuel generators that will tide you over till coal.
T3 you get into coal.
T5 allows you to start burning petro coke to burn off your excess.
T6 lets you get into fuel generators.
T7 puts you into Nuclear.

And depending on your hard drive luck you can add in the different types of fuel IE compacted coal, or turbo fuel.

Originally posted by CryingCat:

everything is going smooth currently but everything is moving slow like making iron rods takes me 7 seconds is that normal? and my biomass is burning really slow

Iron rods are 15 parts per minute. or 1 every 4 seconds. So if your geting one every 7 seconds that means your not suppling enough iron ingots. or you lowered the clockspeed on the constructor. Or your trying to time it with a stop watch and your off on your calculations or you trying to time it with a stop watch and you sim speed is low. (which is not going to happen at T2 unless you trying to play on your phone).

[ColdCell]

you dont need good power, you just need lots and lots of coal

[zoiks]

Yes, solid biofuel is extremely good until you move fully into coal/oil.

It allows you to spend more time exploring rather than just running around picking up leaves and cutting down trees to keep your factory running. And exploring = finding better resource node, finding other resources (which can unlock important tech trees), and fighting aliens... Which means getting lots of hides that are used to unlock techs, including converting them into biomass as well as personal inventory improvement, an additional tool slot, and creating a better early weapon. And the hides are WAY better than leaves or wood for creating biomass. Even beyond being renewable, the aliens respawn fairly quickly, a single stack of hides will generate 25-50 stacks of biomass once you've unlocked the tech.