Are slugs useful for anything other than Miners/Extractors?

[Yffriium]

Obligatory "I'm new to this game."

The way I see it, overcharging non-extractor machines really isn't worth it. Overcharging machines only really increases space efficiency, but also significantly decreases power efficiency. The trade-off just doesn't seem worth it. I feel like it's only worth it on extractors since there's a limited amount of nodes and you can't simply iterate your factory setup. Have you all found good uses for slugs in your factories, or is my observation correct?

[Grandaddypurple]

In later game yea, you'll have to build literally hundreds of constructors / assemblers / refineries and whatnot, overlocking to 200-250% can really save some space and time. Extractors remain priority though, you won't pass by a miner without having it overclocked to the max
Earlier game yea, don't bother too much about it.

[Maehlice]

IMO, Power Shards are best utilized in Power Plants and Extractors.

Power Plants are actually more efficient overclocked, so it's pure profit. Extractors for obvious reasons.

[Yffriium]

Thanks for the help guys!

Originally posted by Maehlice:

IMO, Power Shards are best utilized in Power Plants and Extractors.

Power Plants are actually more efficient overclocked, so it's pure profit. Extractors for obvious reasons.

Is this true for all types of power generators, or just for nuclear?

[Bobucles]

Originally posted by Maehlice:

IMO, Power Shards are best utilized in Power Plants and Extractors.

Power Plants are actually more efficient overclocked, so it's pure profit. Extractors for obvious reasons.

Power plant efficiency doesn't change. The same ore node providing the same amunt of raw fuel items will power the same factory for the same amount of time. What DOES change is the maximum capacity of the power plant, so a 75MW generator can now act like a 150MW generator.

All generators in the grid operate at the same % of their max limit, so an overclocked plant will take more load than an underclocked plant. This is useful for the early game HUB biofuel. Overclock the 20MW to 30MW, so that it can burn the same fuel as regular biofuel generators and stay in sync.

[Grandaddypurple]

Originally posted by Maehlice:

Power Plants are actually more efficient overclocked, so it's pure profit.

Not true at all, as Bobucles explained. A fully overclocked coal generator for instance will output ~202% of power, but will consume coal and water ~202% faster all the same

Originally posted by Yffriium:

Is this true for all types of power generators, or just for nuclear?

Actually, Nuclear plants currently can't be overclocked because when working at 100%, they require 300m3 water/min, which is the maximum the pipe can handle

[Yffriium]

Originally posted by Grandaddypurple:

Originally posted by Maehlice:

Power Plants are actually more efficient overclocked, so it's pure profit.

Not true at all, as Bobucles explained. A fully overclocked coal generator for instance will output ~202% of power, but will consume coal and water ~202% faster all the same

Originally posted by Yffriium:

Is this true for all types of power generators, or just for nuclear?

Actually, Nuclear plants currently can't be overclocked because when working at 100%, they require 300m3 water/min, which is the maximum the pipe can handle

Thank you for the clarification. I haven't made it to nuclear yet so I didn't know about that limitation.

[zverozvero]

Later in Power is automated and overabundant so sacrificing some for convinience can be handy. Repurposing old production line for new complex parts, making cozy stack of refineries in confined space, speeding up gargantuan manufacturer fed by four containers while reconstruction needed to make proper chain supporting several such giants is in progress still.

[Maehlice]

Originally posted by Bobucles:

Power plant efficiency doesn't change.

I've been misinterpreting those numbers this whole time, then. I feel silly.

That being said, I wonder now if it's worth overclocking a power plant at all. I definitely like it for the smaller footprint there, but now I wonder.

What do you use your power shards on?

[Halliwax]

Miners of less common ores and generators are probably the best uses, but I have used them a little bit otherwise. Sometimes I build an assembler or some other machine that's not connected to a larger factory just to fabricate some part I need a few of right now, and it can be convenient to overclock that. Other times in factories you have your rates mis-matched, and maybe it would have been better to optimize it with an additional machine and to underclock them, but you didn't do it that way at first, you ran out of space and now it's sub-optimal, and a shard is a quick fix.

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Originally posted by Yffriium:

Obligatory "I'm new to this game."

The way I see it, overcharging non-extractor machines really isn't worth it. Overcharging machines only really increases space efficiency, but also significantly decreases power efficiency. The trade-off just doesn't seem worth it. I feel like it's only worth it on extractors since there's a limited amount of nodes and you can't simply iterate your factory setup. Have you all found good uses for slugs in your factories, or is my observation correct?

Almost every machine in the game can be overclocked.

[sansee]

Originally posted by Yffriium:

The way I see it, overcharging non-extractor machines really isn't worth it.

It's absolutely worth depending on the setup. I don't care about power efficiency so I often OC the last one instead of building another and UC that one.

There's plenty of slugs in the world so there's no excuse to not use them and have fun.

[Yffriium]

Originally posted by Aquafawks:

Originally posted by Yffriium:

Obligatory "I'm new to this game."

The way I see it, overcharging non-extractor machines really isn't worth it. Overcharging machines only really increases space efficiency, but also significantly decreases power efficiency. The trade-off just doesn't seem worth it. I feel like it's only worth it on extractors since there's a limited amount of nodes and you can't simply iterate your factory setup. Have you all found good uses for slugs in your factories, or is my observation correct?

Almost every machine in the game can be overclocked.

Uh... yea, I know. If you read my question, I asked if it was worth it to overclock certain machines.

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Originally posted by Yffriium:

Uh... yea, I know. If you read my question, I asked if it was worth it to overclock certain machines.

There are more than enough slugs on the map to generate enough power shards to overclock every possible machine in your entire factory that you could ever desire to overclock. There's no real reason to not overclock everything and/or anything you want to. You can even overclock most power plants as well.

[Bobucles]

Originally posted by Maehlice:

I've been misinterpreting those numbers this whole time, then. I feel silly.

The orange numbers next to the overclock bar are actually wrong. It is a UI bug. The true values are displayed next to the fuel. For whatever reason, 250% overclock gives 202% power plant, but the energy value of fuel always stays the same.

[4ndr34]

Overclocking, above all everything other than power plants, is all about production efficiency, energy and space.

Overclocking let's you to make your factory efficient, without any manufactory machine waiting for input or the opposite too slow to process the input. It makes possible to balance close to perfection whole production chains and doing that it's pure bliss.

Other than that, there is the matter of energy and space, given that you have already access to conveyor belts able to deliver the factory machines outputs. You can save space using 1 machine at 200% doing the job of 2 machines at 100%, given that you have enough energy and you have conveyor belts able to deliver the output of it.

Or you can save energy putting 2 machines at 50% doing the job of 1 machine at 100%, given that you have enough space.

Power plants are a bit different from manufactory machines, they keep constantly proportional their fuel consumption to the amount of energy produced, so in this case the space vs energy, produced in such a case, doesn't exist. Here it's more a matter of (produced) energy vs power plant time autonomy, it's always a constantly proportional ratio, but given that your whole factory or just a part of it, isn't consuming all the power of your power plant, you can gain more time autonomy of the power plant reducing its power. That is particularly important in the beginning part of the game when you have not yet access to coal power and you have to depend on biomass burners...

In the end the overclocking is a way to fine tune your factory to your needs and close to what you want.