What do you spend your caterium (Quick Wire) on?

[Edmund Greyfox]

I'm wondering what people who have finished the game or at least made it to the final tier use their caterium for, and why the choose that use over others?

I'm just starting tier 8 and since I'm in the rocky desert i have a decent amount of caterium that's not to far away. I'm already using the alternate recipe for caterium circuit boards and i was thinking about switching to caterium for computers as well (since it has the best output/minute). I know I'm going to need a lot of both and the caterium recipe is going to give me the best production output, but I'm worried that if i tie a lot of it up making those items that I'm going to find i should have saved it for something else i haven't unlocked yet.

Any advice is appreciated.

[Paragon]

Quickwire

[Dustorm]

I attach everything to the same input lines and let them fight.

[phadin]

So far, mine has gone towards Circuit Boards, AI Limiters, and Caterium Computers (since I lacked copper when I was first setting that product up.)

[Clawyer]

Don't worry too much about using up a resource, the world map is large enough for you to find multiple other deposits.

[Edmund Greyfox]

Originally posted by Paragon:

Quickwire

Well yeah. Guess i should have been more specific and asked what you spend your quick wire on.

[spam]

Quickwire; some recipes use a lot. There are alt recipes that let you make wire with it, but I've never needed to do that; if I'm short on copper, Iron Wire is my go-to since Iron nodes are everywhere.

[Edmund Greyfox]

Originally posted by Clawyer:

Don't worry too much about using up a resource, the world map is large enough for you to find multiple other deposits.

I know, but since I'm not a big fan of trains I'm moving everything around with belts. I'd really prefer not to have to tap every caterium node on the map. :)

[Gal Kraft]

Smart splitters (via AI Limiters) and MK2 power poles happen a lot. Takes awhile before there's a constant need for quick wire though.

[MrBishop077]

Ai limiters for the sink.

[Doombringer]

High-Speed Connector and AI limiter require caterium.
(used by supercomputer, alt crystal oscillator (used in radio control unit which is used in turbo engine and other late-game things), electromagnetic control rod (which is used in alt motor & turbo motor & nuke power))
AI limiters for smart splitters (you don't actually need a ton of these), high-speed connector for mk3 power (quickwire for mk2) and quickwire for thermal & fuel power generators.

You can use copper/caterium to increase the supply of each other with alt recipes.
(fused quickwire, fused wire, etc.)

[nfgman]

Long time ago, set up a big factory for supercomputers in the rocky desert. Did get used briefly for phase 4. At the time, it ate 4 pure nodes of caterium with overclocked mk3 miners. Was able to whittle that down with pure recipes, which I didn't like for caterium but now is almost standard. Also use it for nuclear and those control rods.

[Wolfgang]

All the stuff I need quickwire for.

[NukeAJS]

Pretty much all the alt recipes that use quickwire are good, even really great

Probably the best use is in making motors, though. You can get an insane amount of quickwire/wire from caterium/copper and then use steel pipes to make an equally insane number of rotors/stators to make motors. If you really want to get out of control -- add crystal oscillators to your motors and now you are making x250 motors a minute off of a single copper/caterium node and steel plant.

All of those recipes are alts, btw.

Quickwire has two main advantages. First, some of the alt recipes that use it are just better. Caterium computer is a very good recipe (though crystal computer is probably better most of the time).

The other, main advantage, is that caterium takes copper completely out of a production chain. Why is this important? It's because copper is used in a lot more products than caterium. You're just going to need a lot more copper than you will caterium because there are many recipes where you can't replace copper. The only caterium recipe that can't be replaced is AI limiters.

So, basically, if you have a chance to replace copper with caterium, it's usually wise to do that.

[Huillam]

Originally posted by Edmund Greyfox:

I know I'm going to need a lot of both and the caterium recipe is going to give me the best production output, but I'm worried that if i tie a lot of it up making those items that I'm going to find i should have saved it for something else i haven't unlocked yet.

There's enough nodes on the map to output a total of 15,000 caterium ores per minute.
While I wouldn't suggest doing that that number could in theory be increased by 30,600 using recipes unlocked in the late game.

Are you close to using even 15,000? If the answer is no, you're fine.

[Ray Garraty]

High speed connectors
Infused uranium cells