Hamster wheels

[mendaere]

For anyone going for the "Hamster-Powered" achievement, or just trying to develop a power budget for their bunker, experimentation shows that hamster wheels produce 10kw of power. So the same as a steam engine or 1/3 as much as a generator.

For those who have not gotten to this point in the DLC, hamster wheels operate similar to a combined generator and battery. If you have a hamster cage, a feeder, one or more hamster wheels, and, of course, one or more hamsters, the hamsters will run on the wheels at random intervals throughout the day. When they do so, they will both produce power (the generator half) and charge a fuel gauge on the wheel (the battery). When they are not running on the wheel, the battery will slowly discharge. The amount of power produced, whether due to the hamster running or from the battery discharging, is constant.

The amount of power a wheel puts out does not seem to be affected by room type, hamster type, what you are feeding them, or any of Mr. Prepper's skills*, though I suspect all of these things will affect how quickly the hamster wheel's battery charges when a hamster is running on it (more experimentation required).

* At least of the ones I have obtained so far. I have only acquired one of the DLC skills so far.

[[SG] Shingo-_-Yabuki]

Very good effort in arriving at this information juncture.

I have a query; if a particular wheel block still has charge as indicated as the lower arc (upper arc is the bunker's combined output), will a random hamster still come and run on it?

If so; if the charge is full, will the hamster hop off to go to the next wheel?

[animal_PLANET]

I made a large hamster cage. Put in 6 hamsters. Only attached 2 wheels. My whole base filled with things that need power and I am using all area below the house.

When I went to sleep the next day I got the achievement. So I literally got it within minutes. Room was not upgraded either. So I am assuming it really doesnt matter how much power is needed.

[[SG] Shingo-_-Yabuki]

I noticed that too. It believe it's a bug to our advantage. See, every morning, all machinery power status go through a kind of reset. If you noticed, the very moment the black loading screen disappears, you press "P" to pause. You'll noticed some rooms and items are offline. Generators, appliances, etc. Only hamsters are running. So zero consumption, with just a little hamster power, the achievement unlocks. I LIKE!