We need to talk about Plug Slugs...

[JaxckLl]

...and how garbage they are right now. I'm going to link to a reddit thread which makes the point better, but in essence a full Plug Slug ranch consumes half a ton of metal (480kg) for less power than a single Petroleum Generator (1.6kW per cycle, but it's all produced in 3 hour which means more metal on power storage). This is insanely bad; Plug Slugs are pests not critters and should be exterminated.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Oxygennotincluded/comments/kbm2n3/lets_talk_plug_slugs/

The obvious suggestion is to change the formula, so the player gets more Power per Metal consumed. I don't believe that's a viable way forward. Metal, in particular Refined Metal, is a goal of the game. It's acquisition should not be the point at which an early game critter becomes useful. It's almost like having a critter than consumes glass, plastic, or ceramic, it's just a bad idea.

My suggestion would be to keep the numbers where they are, but change the input material from Metal to Ice. This has a couple of major advantages:

1. Ice is renewable & abundant in the starting area
2. There are several clever ways to produce Ice
3. Having Ice as an in-demand resource early encourages new players to explore temperature management and to experiment without the temp being base critical
4. It makes sense where the Hydrogen farts of the Plug Slugs are coming from
5. Plug Slugs would now occupy a cold-biome niche which is currently underfilled compared to hot biome critters

Ice seems like such an obvious fit that I almost wonder whether Plug Slugs were swapped to Metal at the last minute. Metal is a terrible design decision which encourages new players to exhaust vital & non-renewable resources on a low-value pest.

[Darryl000999]

Their really over powered in my view  they gives you lots of power till you can get late game stuff up and running, if they makes the changes you want no one would use anything but plug slugs and I do not think that's right  even as it is I did not use early power generators and just waited till I had steam up and running

[Sasza22]

1 hour ago, JaxckLl said:

a full Plug Slug ranch consumes half a ton of metal (480kg) for less power than a single Petroleum Generator

We need to get this clear. Plug slugs are an earlygame power source that requires very little setup and resoures abundant in earlygame not requiring any refinement. Compared to that a petroleum generator requires cooling, waste management and refined crude oil or ethanol refined from wood both of which take power to refine.

Plug slugs are easy to set up and can give power for minimal effort giving your dupes more time to set up more advanced systems. Their output is enough to sustain earlygame systems even if it`s really low but compare it to hamster wheels that aren`t usually operated 100% of the time.

That said maybe the amount of ore they need could be looked at. It`s ok for wild ranching but taming them can deplete your reserves pretty fast. You should only do it temporarily as you set up a more sustainable power source.

[blakemw]

I like the concept of an ice-eating Morph. Water can already be converted into power by using a SPOM (especially with direct to space oxygen venting), so Ice->Power is a reasonable concept. But it should be a morph, not the base form.

[DeleteMePLS]

1. 1.6kW over cycle, with one, but ONE actually produces enough hydrogen, to run hydrogen gene during the day, for even more "free" power
2. you dont have to feed them, they can be hungry/wild, and you can still abuse its power, like many people do with dreckos
3. if you dont like it, dont use it, instead of asking to remove them... i like the idea and i used them for over 250 cycles (6 of them), and stored enough hydrogen, to fill up 11-12 gas reservoirs, so i can kill them, get some meat, and still have power for another 30 cycles, while new eggs will pop up another free power
4. they eat ORE, not refined metals... and tbh, sitting on 40t of copper ore, 30ish~ tons of iron ore, and probably same amount of cobalt
5. free power for early 20-50 cycles (even tho, they live longer), that you dont have to feed them, is OP
6. comparing them to petroleum generator, that generates lots of heat, that you have to take into consideration power costs of removing it, pushes even further line, how great they are

[SelenSewar]

Ohhh, this is a very nice idea. They indeed fit the cold biome nicely. 

[Thanatos994]

Quote

Plug Slugs are pests not critters and should be exterminated

This point is very important imo. For new players, having your ore disappearing without realizing what's happening can cripple runs without ever letting you figure out what's happened. Hatches sometimes had a similar issue, eating important resources, but they are far easier to pen in and it's also easy for them to be benign since they usually feed on abundant (in early game) resources.

[JaxckLl]

On 12/13/2020 at 10:26 AM, Ravalion said:

1. 1.6kW over cycle, with one, but ONE actually produces enough hydrogen, to run hydrogen gene during the day, for even more "free" power
2. you dont have to feed them, they can be hungry/wild, and you can still abuse its power, like many people do with dreckos
3. if you dont like it, dont use it, instead of asking to remove them... i like the idea and i used them for over 250 cycles (6 of them), and stored enough hydrogen, to fill up 11-12 gas reservoirs, so i can kill them, get some meat, and still have power for another 30 cycles, while new eggs will pop up another free power
4. they eat ORE, not refined metals... and tbh, sitting on 40t of copper ore, 30ish~ tons of iron ore, and probably same amount of cobalt
5. free power for early 20-50 cycles (even tho, they live longer), that you dont have to feed them, is OP
6. comparing them to petroleum generator, that generates lots of heat, that you have to take into consideration power costs of removing it, pushes even further line, how great they are

1) It's not 1.6kW over the cycle, it's 1.6kW over 1/8th of the cycle. In practice it's actually even worse than that, because the Plug Slug has to find a spot to sleep. That's less than 200W per cycle, on par with a Mousewheel. However a Mousewheel consumes calories (in the form of dupe time), a fully renewable resource.

2) Wild Plug Slugs produce a quarter of the power of domestic ones, meaning a single wild Plug Slug produces a maximum of power under 50W per cycle. That's the worst source of power in the game and its not even close.

3) Capitalization & grammar are important bro. I'm not advocating that Plug Slugs be removed, but they need a fundamental redesign to be relevant for long time players.

4) Please reread my post.

5) Eh? There's plenty of "free" power available early in the form of Mousewheels & Coal. The entirety of the default wild population of Plug Slugs (5-6 slugs) barely provides more power per cycle than a single Mousewheel, and needs significant power storage (and thus additional metal & dupe time) to actually function.

6) The Petroleum Generator's additional heat is negligible on the cold Swampy Asteroid. By the time its a problem, it's actually an advantage. The minimal amount of Plug Slug Hydrogen is comparable to the heat produced by other Generators; a problem in the early game and a potential advantage when scaled.

[Munkie5150]

I will start off by saying I am no Francis John or Brothgar, but what i can say is this.  I have now started 3 different colonies since the dlc went live into early access, and the following is my opinion on plug slugs.

1st base i played as normal set up a slug ranch (96 tiles for max critters) and fed them, as soon as i had the research to automate the hydro to be pumped out to a gen i got that going.  They chewed through my cobalt till i had none left. I eventually made it to the other asteroids and set up drecos oils hatches got steel and plastic going basically all possible endgame stuff currently open to us.

2nd base I ignored the plug slugs for a while till i could get a fully automated food management system in place to starve them and still feed them to conserve ore. Same results as base 1 on around the same time line

3rd base i ignored them fully just used hamster wheels in key locations and two coal gens to pump out solar panels and moved to that. Same results as base one, but about 50 cycles faster (I assume because i was less focused on getting a system for them and more focused on getting a better system overall)

TLDR: Till they are changed to something better I personally wouldn't use plug slugs they are a time sink to make work well and a drain on resources.  They are nothing more than a novelty and can be skipped and still reach your end goal

[JaxckLl]

9 hours ago, Munkie5150 said:

I will start off by saying I am no Francis John or Brothgar, but what i can say is this.  I have now started 3 different colonies since the dlc went live into early access, and the following is my opinion on plug slugs.

1st base i played as normal set up a slug ranch (96 tiles for max critters) and fed them, as soon as i had the research to automate the hydro to be pumped out to a gen i got that going.  They chewed through my cobalt till i had none left. I eventually made it to the other asteroids and set up drecos oils hatches got steel and plastic going basically all possible endgame stuff currently open to us.

2nd base I ignored the plug slugs for a while till i could get a fully automated food management system in place to starve them and still feed them to conserve ore. Same results as base 1 on around the same time line

3rd base i ignored them fully just used hamster wheels in key locations and two coal gens to pump out solar panels and moved to that. Same results as base one, but about 50 cycles faster (I assume because i was less focused on getting a system for them and more focused on getting a better system overall)

TLDR: Till they are changed to something better I personally wouldn't use plug slugs they are a time sink to make work well and a drain on resources.  They are nothing more than a novelty and can be skipped and still reach your end goal

Essentially my experience as well. Dump them in the room with the Printer (needs to be a ranch anyway so shines can be domesticated easily from eggs), let them just hang out and occasionally generate a few measly watts.

[natanstarke]

I really like them but for now i just put them all into a room and let them there with proper wirings because of the no way to make metal ores. Same problem with smooth hatches. 

[KonfigSys]

a morph which eats refined metal should work well. There are plenty of refined metals available in the middle of the game but no ore.

I have never ranch them as I know that any ore is not replenish able but I always take them from the printer and have plug slugs on 4 planets - just a wild live park adding some free watts to the power grid.

[irOninfernO]

LOL. I think plug slugs should be aggressive critters that invade your base like termites and eat off all your metal (wood for termites).

For my experience with plug slugs, I just feed them copper ore when i find some and let them die off in the wild when I decide they are a nuisance. Maybe they will come back to change the plug slug issue later. They are overpowered though cuz 1600 watts no overload on circuit, hydrogen, while they climb walls and poop out nice looking eggs. 

[JaxckLl]

On 12/19/2020 at 6:02 AM, irOninfernO said:

LOL. I think plug slugs should be aggressive critters that invade your base like termites and eat off all your metal (wood for termites).

For my experience with plug slugs, I just feed them copper ore when i find some and let them die off in the wild when I decide they are a nuisance. Maybe they will come back to change the plug slug issue later. They are overpowered though cuz 1600 watts no overload on circuit, hydrogen, while they climb walls and poop out nice looking eggs. 

I get the sense that people saying Plug Slugs are "overpowered" don't understand how to pick up a calculator. It's 1600W for 1/8th of a cycle, or a maximum of 200W/cycle. With pathing issues and the decline in power output as they get hungry & crowded, Plug Slugs end up being the worst power source in the game. It's not even close. A full ranch of Plug Slugs is barely comparable to a couple of Mousewheels maned by dupes with decent Operation.

On 12/19/2020 at 12:42 AM, KonfigSys said:

a morph which eats refined metal should work well. There are plenty of refined metals available in the middle of the game but no ore.

I have never ranch them as I know that any ore is not replenish able but I always take them from the printer and have plug slugs on 4 planets - just a wild live park adding some free watts to the power grid.

A morph which ate Refined Metals would be the most frustrating thing in the game. Refined Metals are the goal of the mid game. A critter which consumes Refined Metals is encouraging the player to take steps backwards.

That's a strange printer strategy considering how much more Oxygen is available in the early game. We can comfortably push up to 24 dupes across the Terra & Swampy asteroids.

[Sasza22]

3 hours ago, JaxckLl said:

I get the sense that people saying Plug Slugs are "overpowered" don't understand how to pick up a calculator. It's 1600W for 1/8th of a cycle, or a maximum of 200W/cycle. With pathing issues and the decline in power output as they get hungry & crowded, Plug Slugs end up being the worst power source in the game.

When it comes to min maxing and stuf actually consuming serious power this is true. But in the early game when dupe time is important and resources are abundant it`s decent. It can give you power for very little labour which is really valuable. It`s a stepping stone to get o the midgame faster.

3 hours ago, JaxckLl said:

A morph which ate Refined Metals would be the most frustrating thing in the game. Refined Metals are the goal of the mid game. A critter which consumes Refined Metals is encouraging the player to take steps backwards.

Not necessarily. Later in the game you might get free refined metals from volcanoes or meteors (if they come back) and such a morph could require less mass for the same efficiency or be more efficient overall being a better midgame power option than the basic morph.

Eventually they could add a morph feeding on nuclear waste which would make those things worthwhile to get rid of that stuff.

[JaxckLl]

The nuclear waste morph is the most likely direction they're going with Slugs. Who knows, perhaps the existing Plug Slugs will be a shitty base morph we have to power through, kinda like Hatches or Slicksters.

I still disagree that Slugs are an acceptable early game power source in their current state. Their rate of consumption is insane, especially for the mediocre return. Now if Plug Slugs could generate more power (such as if they slept 1/2 of the cycle instead of 1/8) or consumed 10% of what they do right now, they *might* be an option. As of right now, you are going to get more return on resources invested with a couple of Mousewheels & a Coal Generator.

[ASnogarD]

I have 4 wild slugs in my 'power room' early game, the only reason is to keep my o2 producers going, I dont see them as a power source, more like a top  up on the batteries while my dupes sleep.

I leave 'em wild, they top up my batteries until a dupe can run the hamster wheel, so they do the job they are suppose to do ... tiny amounts of power early game until you hook up with other planets... a kickstarter.

It may be something cool to breed them and evolve them to something more potent... a reason to actually keep the alive, As it stands, you use them then let them die off rather quickly.

It is sad that much of the early game stuff is phased out... bug pots, Lice Meal... good early, then you abandon the lot for more 'efficient' stuff.

[he77789]

I think that the problem isn't only being useless, it's being a noob trap. 

You could say mush bars etc are also noob traps only, but mush bars are useful for when SHTF, and new players would quickly see that there are other foods that give more morale, either by the hint from berry sludge, or clicking on the consumable menu.

However, the plug slug is not like that. Its pitiful power output means that you are better off just using a manual generator even if SHTF or in early game.

[SkyNet_65]

Since nuclear power will be a thing soon and because there is already a critter that consumes metal ores, why not make the Plug Slugs consume nuclear waste and excrete refined radioactive materials instead? Also let it consume energy for converting the materials.

[Sasza22]

19 hours ago, he77789 said:

Its pitiful power output means that you are better off just using a manual generator even if SHTF or in early game.

You overestimate the amounts of power you need earlygame. A typical hamster wheel is only active for a small part of the cycle. With a jumbo battery sometimes only once per a couple of cycles. A plug slug or two can fulfill most of your power needs early on, when you basically just use the research station, grill and maybe some oxygen generation. Most other early game tech uses no power.

[JaxckLl]

5 hours ago, Sasza22 said:

You overestimate the amounts of power you need earlygame. A typical hamster wheel is only active for a small part of the cycle. With a jumbo battery sometimes only once per a couple of cycles. A plug slug or two can fulfill most of your power needs early on, when you basically just use the research station, grill and maybe some oxygen generation. Most other early game tech uses no power.

What? A single wild Plug Slug produces 50W per cycle MAX. In practice it's usually producing 10-20W. An Algae Oxidizer sucks down three or four times that easy. You *might* be able to run a single machine off ALL the wild Plug Slugs.

Compare this to a Mousewheel, which comfortably produces 200W while maned, potentially enough to run ALL your research & Oxygen needs with a single Wheel. Transitioning to Coal is easy, especially with the abundance of Dirt that can be fed to Sage Hatches.

[Yunru]

15 hours ago, JaxckLl said:

An Algae Oxidizer sucks down three or four times that easy.

That's because Oxidizers are noob-trap garbage that should never, and I mean never, be used. 

[Sasza22]

14 hours ago, JaxckLl said:

What? A single wild Plug Slug produces 50W per cycle MAX. In practice it's usually producing 10-20W. An Algae Oxidizer sucks down three or four times that easy. You *might* be able to run a single machine off ALL the wild Plug Slugs.

Compare this to a Mousewheel, which comfortably produces 200W while maned, potentially enough to run ALL your research & Oxygen needs with a single Wheel. Transitioning to Coal is easy, especially with the abundance of Dirt that can be fed to Sage Hatches.

The thing is on the swamp planet you don`t really need anything to run constantly in the early game. You say 20W average per cycle is nothing but what does consume that? You don`t need algae deoxydizers (or oxygen diffusers as they are called now). A sublimation station won`t run 100% of the time with so much stuff offgassing around and can be skipped early.

The research stations take constant power but they aren`t active all the time either. Dupes need to sleep and eat, also resource delivery can take time. Lets say the the basic research station is active 75% of the time. That`s 45W average, looks managable. 90W for the bigger one is harder but that`s only if you rush your research.

Lets try pumping some water for the bog buckets. How often does the pump need to be active? Lets say 10% of the time. That`s 24W average. An extra 12 if you want to sieve it.

What else do we got? Electric grill might take another 30-45W. It`s still around 5-6 plug slugs overall. The centrifuge could be too much at this point but we got compost to get dirt so it can wait.

My point is that they can provide enough power early so that your dupes don`t have spend half the cycle running on the wheel and can focus on digging out the asteroid without the base falling apart. You can still use the manual generators as auxillary power when the consumption spikes and you probably should but the slugs are a real dupe time saver early. For them to work you need to contain them somewhere and you want to do that anyway to keep them from eating too much metal ore later.

[JaxckLl]

@Sasza22: You've just done the math yourself, now add it all up. With pumping, research, oxygen, & grill you're looking at at least a base line of 200W per cycle, by your own math. That means over a dozen wild plug slugs on a starvation diet. Those slugs will have to be broken up into at least two stables to prevent overcrowding, taking up literally hundreds of square tiles. Meanwhile you cannot scale your power needs for peak periods, and must rely exclusively with whatever you have in your additionally expensive batteries. Your dupe fail to cook stuff on time? Tough luck, guess you guys are eating uncooked crap this cycle. Run out of power & sand at the same time? Guess your dupes are breathing in PO2 instead of lovely Deodorized O2. The alternative system is a single Mousewheel. A single 2x2 machine which requires less than a full dupe's attention can provide more than enough power for ALL of those processes.

The issue with Plug Slugs is not the idea of having a power generating critter (although unless well fed in uncramped stables Plug Slugs can fail to produce any power), the issue is the balance. Metal Ore for power is almost always a bad trade. Keeping Plug Slugs alive is more effort than it is worth. I'm extremely surprised that they were nerfed so hard out of the gate, because 400W for 1/8th of a cycle is nothing. It's deeper than just a balance issue, I honestly do not see a way to make Plug Slugs an attractive option no matter the numbers.

• Another way to approach Plug Slugs would be to make their reproduction difficult, and restore their initial power output (aka their power no longer scales with hunger & cramping). The advantage of this change would be that it does not require a fundamental redesign (although I would argue that such a redesign is badly needed, and now is the time to do it). I'd expect the reproductive success of Plug Slugs unaided to be 50%, meaning their population will eventually decline and wipe itself out.
• Plug Slugs thus become an attractive early game option which encourages rapid expansion. However they would be difficult if not impossible to maintain as a primary power source, encouraging transitioning to alternative generation methods. This would give new players an easy power base line, allowing them to develop more advanced infrastructure earlier.
• Plug Slugs really need something else in their diet which is NOT metal. Ice is my suggestion, it just fits the best. However rock of some kind could also work, as could existing power resources such as Coal. Plug Slugs would then yield different amount of power based on their diet. 100% with metal ore, 75% with coal, 50% with ice, 25% with nothing. This is a more forgiving system which could also be attached to their reproductive success (this would make Plug Slug populations stable with Ice, and positive with Coal & Metal Ore).

[Sasza22]

5 minutes ago, JaxckLl said:

A single 2x2 machine which requires less than a full dupe's attention can provide more than enough power for ALL of those processes.

I never said you should completely ignore the manual generators. I`m saying that slugs can fulfill most of your needs and free the dupe to use the wheel 10% of a cycle rather than 50%. Early on it makes a difference. I also don`t think batteries are expensive. I`ll use much more ore on mesh tiles than those and i can keep it until solar which needs a battery bank as well.

15 minutes ago, JaxckLl said:

the issue is the balance. Metal Ore for power is almost always a bad trade.

I feel they are still a good option in the early game to top off your batteries and make sure you aren`t running out of power during the night. I don`t value ore that high in the early game. It`s more valuable later when you get large projets going. That`s when plug slugs are an issue. Taming them, reproducing and feeding will cost too much. They would need to eat something renewable. Ice might be an option but feels weird for them to transition from ore to water. Maybe salt instead? We got a nice source of it and no real uses unless we want extra chlorine or some table salt.