How do you deal with plug slugs?

[Xenologist]

I've got a question, what do all of you do with plug slugs? I've seen brothgar put one in a space ship, but I've got a question on what else everyone else does with them? I'd personally like to kill them all off but I've got a question regarding whether or not it would be worth it? Forcing the wild ones to stay away from your cobalt ore and getting them onto an island to maximize their free power output within 100 cycles is improbable, and I've found their hydrogen byproduct annoying, not to mention the idea of loosing precious metal ore, even if it is tens of kilograms, part of this is savoring the abundant metal resources early game and also the fact that there is no cobalt volcano to regenerate the cobalt similar to aluminum or copper. Maybe a better way of capturing plug slugs easily to enable you to dig around without fear of a metal stealing slug coming around to deposit hydrogen around the base. Not to mention other problems (Not getting food poisoning in your main polluted water pool and missing dirt) I think easy management of plug slugs would work fine, but I wanna hear how other people deal with plug slugs too.

Just a quick note - I would rather teleport slugs away than have them eat my precious metal resources.

[misotoma]

The real question is can you starve ranch them? If so.. just produce like.. 100's of em lol

If you can't starve ranch them.. I have no idea what you can do with a plug slug. I certainly wouldn't stick it in a rocket.. or send it to another planet.. maybe it can help the first 50 cycles but after that.. And the fact that it generates energy only at night time means I would restrict my rockets to a schedule. Seems like a neat idea but I would probably not rely on it.

[ghkbrew]

43 minutes ago, misotoma said:

The real question is can you starve ranch them?

Yes, but it's not great. You have to groom them and not overcrowd them. And because their output is linked to their current calories, they average a small fraction of their max output.

Edit: you're essentially trading dupe labor (grooming, and probably critter transport) for power. You may be better off just having the dupe run on a hamster wheel.

[QuQuasar]

25 minutes ago, Xenologist said:

Forcing the wild ones to stay away from your cobalt ore and getting them onto an island to maximize their free power output within 100 cycles is improbable

How so? A critter drop-off and a rancher are all you need to move them, and you can leave them wild in any room with closed doors. They don't produce much power, but it's free. And you can drop some cobalt in with them if you need to amp up power production.

As for ranching them, I wouldn't bother in their current form, but I've got my fingers crossed for some additional critter morphs. Their power plug mechanic makes for some interesting possibilities. In particular, I would absolutely ranch an inverted plug slug (a slug plug?) that absorbs power and excretes metal ore. Bonus points if you can choose what type of metal it produces by what you feed it(eg, feed it sandstone, it excretes copper ore. Feed it sedimentary rock, it excretes cobalt ore).

[Neotuck]

Given that power generation is limited due to lack of fuel, I believe it's best to find a balance between tamed and wild plug slugs depending on how much metal ore you can spare

Also make sure you have a compactor with metal ore set to 9 priority to avoid losing cobalt to the slugs.  I did the same thing with copper/algae and hatches 

2 hours ago, QuQuasar said:

I've got my fingers crossed for some additional critter morphs. Their power plug mechanic makes for some interesting possibilities. In particular, I would absolutely ranch an inverted plug slug (a slug plug?) that absorbs power and excretes metal ore. Bonus points if you can choose what type of metal it produces by what you feed it(eg, feed it sandstone, it excretes copper ore. Feed it sedimentary rock, it excretes cobalt ore).

interesting idea, but it may be too op

[Sasza22]

I feel like people overprice the early metal ore. Or maybe they just want to jump straight to lategame. I mean why not just let the slugs eat some of the 60-80 tons of cobalt you start with? Just put all of the wild ones in one room with your batteries and feed them. It`s almost effortles power giving you a lot of dupe time to build up your early and midgame colony until your power needs exceed what they produce and by that time you likely will have other power options. You could also use the hydrogen they produce for an extra power boost.

Then after they are no longer needed just stop feeding them (if they are still wild) or use in niche areas like on the spaceships.

[minespatch]

I put two plug slugs in my generator rooms so I can get equal power and then let them vibe for the rest of the day.

[Neotuck]

1 hour ago, Sasza22 said:

Just put all of the wild ones in one room with your batteries and feed them. It`s almost effortles power giving you a lot of dupe time to build up your early and midgame colony until your power needs exceed what they produce and by that time you likely will have other power options. You could also use the hydrogen they produce for an extra power boost.

That's pretty much what I'm doing in my new game, I wrangled 5 wild slugs and transported them along with their eggs to the island above my printing pod, at the moment I don't need much power so I haven't started feeding them, but I will as I need power while climbing the tech ladder until I can switch to solar

5 hours ago, Xenologist said:

Forcing the wild ones to stay away from your cobalt ore and getting them onto an island to maximize their free power output within 100 cycles is improbable

I took this screenshot at cycle 15

[kerosene]

Just keep them wild in a closed room and harvest their electricity. Later on you can ranch a few of them them to get more eggs and grow your herd of wild hugs, or you can just leave them as they are. They aren't as good as solar panels but I suspect solar panels will be rebalanced.

Putting slugs into rockets is a brilliant idea.

 

 

[Neotuck]

2 minutes ago, kerosene said:

closed room

I prefer an open room using a small island so you don't have to worry about the overcrowded depuff while keeping them confined so they will have shorter pathfinding and sleep longer to maximize their efficiency 

[misotoma]

9 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

why not just let the slugs eat some of the 60-80 tons of cobalt you start with?

Cobalt is a good resource. Feed them copper. Cobalt has 55 thermal conductivity. Not as good as aluminum but better than steel and a high melting point. It’s better than copper at least. In any case just don’t feed them. Just go to glass forge and your problems are done... in under 70 cycles you can have a good ten solar panels. 

[Xenologist]

On 12/10/2020 at 2:47 AM, kerosene said:

wild hugs

Only if there were any critters that nuzzled dupes, and alot more when tamed.

[sakura_sk]

Like it was mentioned before, first thing you should do is making a storage bin for metal ore with 9 priority before start digging near slugs. Then you either leave them wild and farm the energy, feeding them from time to time to fill up batteries in one night or you tame+feed 1-2 for more power

I ranch my slugs like dreckos (until something changes..). Taming and feeding 1-2 (set feeder to 100-200kg), leaving the rest in a room for meat +whatever power and having 1-2 wild just in case. In my last colony, I put above them air flow tiles and a pump with element sensor to feed hydrogen generators until solar come to aid. (...and an electrolyzer until a better setup is ready)

Cycle 173, 24+ tons cobalt remaining, no other planetoid visited:

Spoiler

*Many things constructed of cobalt can be deconstructed later on

 

 

[Slvrsrfr]

another trick to messing with them, that I use. Many of the tactics above, high priority storbox, use doors. But, also use the night inactivity to your advantage. At a time when I know I want to rearrange the living arrangement of them. Wait until night time, they are inactive, and won't wake-up to get at metals that fall around them. I wait until all my dupes use bathroom, then on schedule I click the sleep boxes into work boxes, and then I can do whatever I want to the slug environment, while they sleep. Just get done before they wake up!

Then I put them into custom boxes two tiles high filled with batteries.

My preferred way to deal with any critter, keep them contained until they drop an egg. Have a storebox ready in the target room, worries over.

[Sasza22]

On 12/10/2020 at 6:30 PM, misotoma said:

Cobalt is a good resource. Feed them copper.

True it might better to feed them copper. Either way you should probably transition out of using them as your power source long before your cobalt ore reserves get low.

[Sith515]

How do i deal with plug slugs, you might ask? Simple

Fully fed wild ones produce as much as a single hamster wheel running for 3/24 of a cycle, so 50 watts per cycle per fully fed wild slug.

8 wild fully fed slugs make up for a single 100% uptime hamster wheel.

Fully fed tamed ones are 4 times as much, so it's 200 watts per cycle.

Now, if you regularly feed them 60 kg ore each cycle, they produce 5% hydrogen of consumed mass. 3 kg then. If you manage to capture all of it, it's 24 kJ worth of power from a h2 generator. Which is a bit over a single smart battery, assuming no run-offs and you somehow capture all of that hydrogen.

Now you have a contradiction, where to have an enclosed stable you'd use either o2 masks, which aren't renewable, or atmo suits, which are midgame tech, but once you're at that level you already have better power solutions.

Now if you don't feed the slugs, they will drop down to 40 watts per night. Which is 5 per cycle. Which is a single deororizer at no run-off, which isn't a thing.

Conclution: till there's a renewable metal ore source, kill them now.

[Yunru]

Wait wait wait, deoderizers use power now? 

[Sith515]

4 minutes ago, Yunru said:

Wait wait wait, deoderizers use power now? 

A whooping 5 Watts.

[LiveActionPixel]

I set up a ranch with 4 ASAP and generally let the game run with that population. 
Good early power, a little food and they look cute.

[Yunru]

52 minutes ago, Sith515 said:

A whooping 5 Watts.

Do they at least no longer require sand? 

[Sith515]

1 minute ago, Yunru said:

Do they at least no longer require sand? 

Sand, power and even heat production.

[Yunru]

Ewwwww.

[misotoma]

1 hour ago, Yunru said:

Ewwwww.

They should've made it work better.. nope still weak lol

[ZanthraSW]

On 12/11/2020 at 9:25 PM, Sith515 said:

How do i deal with plug slugs, you might ask? Simple

Fully fed wild ones produce as much as a single hamster wheel running for 3/24 of a cycle, so 50 watts per cycle per fully fed wild slug.

8 wild fully fed slugs make up for a single 100% uptime hamster wheel.

Fully fed tamed ones are 4 times as much, so it's 200 watts per cycle.

Now, if you regularly feed them 60 kg ore each cycle, they produce 5% hydrogen of consumed mass. 3 kg then. If you manage to capture all of it, it's 24 kJ worth of power from a h2 generator. Which is a bit over a single smart battery, assuming no run-offs and you somehow capture all of that hydrogen.

Now you have a contradiction, where to have an enclosed stable you'd use either o2 masks, which aren't renewable, or atmo suits, which are midgame tech, but once you're at that level you already have better power solutions.

Now if you don't feed the slugs, they will drop down to 40 watts per night. Which is 5 per cycle. Which is a single deororizer at no run-off, which isn't a thing.

Conclution: till there's a renewable metal ore source, kill them now.

I assume where you use watts per cycle you mean watt cycles per cycle? 1watt cycle being 600 Joules.

[mathmanican]

A priority 1 ladder construction order blocks them from pathing to that spot at night.  No need for a rancher to move them. Just block off all ceiling spots you dont want them to sleep at and they will move to your desired containment room. Close the door when they enter and done. Way faster than a priority 9 compactor to collect metal ore.