The plug slug challenge

[Sasza22]

So a while ago there was a lot of hate towards the slugs. They were regarded useless, not worth the costs and even pests that should be killed on sight. That`s why i decided to try a challenge where i will rely solely on the plug slugs for power to see how long it will last before the colony crumbles. Rules are simple:

1. Allowed power sources are:
 a) slugs
 b) hamster wheels (preferrably only used at the beginning before the system stabilizes)
 c) hydrogen generators (powered mostly by slug hydrogen)

2. Slugs need to be tamed and fed.

That`s basically it. I started on the cluster worldgen on the metallic swamp (since it`s the one with slugs) Seed: M-SWMP-C-1388599-182-OID2

Spoiler

Nice and cool with a lot of slugs available right away.

Also has some nat gas that i can use for cooking later.

 

I rushed the ranching tech to get the slug power going.

Spoiler

Early ranch with a handful of wild slugs. They will be tamed soon enough.

Taming them one at a time to supplement the growing power needs. Groomed slugs are kept in the top room where i make sure they won`t overcrowd while extra ones go to the bottom where overcrowding doesn`t hinder their power output as long as they are fed.

Slug numbers grow pretty fast. At this point the system gives a sabile source of power but it`s still not enough to have some buildings work with 100% uptime. Good thing is that the planetoid is cold so i don`t need active cooling and it`s full of metal volcanoes meaning i don`t need to keep the metal smelter going all the time. But i can have a jukebot, fridge, 3x rock crusher (since there is almost no sand), sludge press and the incubator all working as well as a few pumps here and there.

 

Ok it works but what about the bad things. First off it`s hard not to waste power. You can see the how many batteries i got and they still tend to run out before the night occasionally.

Spoiler

The battery diagnostic panel tells a better story. You can see a bit of overproduction but it seems pretty optimal.

On the other planetoid imported slugs aren`t doing that well but the system isn`t fully ready yet. You can see the power going out in the middle of each cycle. There also is an electrolizer for oxygen production and the extra hydrogen might affect how the system performs (ideally it should gather up in the tank as the generators only turn on at low power)

 

And of course the elephant in the room which is ore consumption. The screenshots are from cycle 107 where i still had around 80 tons of cobalt ore and still several undug tiles of it. Currently i`m past cycle 130 and there is still 70-something tons (and there is still a lot of gold amalgam i didn`t use yet). Yet i can`t say it`s all in the slugs. A good amount is in the batteries, wires and structures. Since i got so much free refined metal the next thing on the list is to replace the batteries with smart ones. The other planetoid has much less ores though. I don`t want to burn iron ore since it`s needed for steel so i`m considering sending ore via the teleporter when needed.

So here it is. I played with slugs as the main power source and i`m alive after 100-something cycles. Next i`m sending slugs dupes to other planetoids to see how they fare. There`s a lot of ore there so it should be fine.

I`m taking it slow as i don`t have too much time to play but i`ll keep you updated how it goes further.

[Gurgel]

Hmm. I have run colonies pretty much forever just on hamster wheels. Does that count?

[meekay]

[NewWorldDan]

4 hours ago, Gurgel said:

Hmm. I have run colonies pretty much forever just on hamster wheels. Does that count?

Early-mid game, I get 90% of my power as surplus hydrogen from the SPOM. I've actually vented oxygen to space so as to produce more surplus hydrogen. I sometimes get the "super sustainable" achievement purely by accident.

On my current game, I did, in fact, use some domesticated slugs for a while. 2 breeders and starvation ranch the rest.

[Neotuck]

If they could eat refined metal they would be much more sustainable

Usually I just trap them wild in a room and enjoy the free 40Kw every night

[Sasza22]

17 hours ago, Gurgel said:

Hmm. I have run colonies pretty much forever just on hamster wheels. Does that count?

I guess i could do that and call it a day but i have quite a bit of fun generating 60-90% of my power via slugs with the wheels just filling in the power gaps.

13 hours ago, NewWorldDan said:

Early-mid game, I get 90% of my power as surplus hydrogen from the SPOM. I've actually vented oxygen to space so as to produce more surplus hydrogen.

While i use hydrogen as well again it`s a secondary source of power when the slugs aren`t sleeping.

10 hours ago, Neotuck said:

If they could eat refined metal they would be much more sustainable

They aren`t sustainable but what i`m trying to do here is show people that you can go pretty long on slugs alone before you run out of resources. A lot of people have the misconception that letting them eat a bit of ore is terrible when in reality it usually doesn`t matter if you waste half of your ore given how much of it spawns on each map.

[pether]

5 minutes ago, Sasza22 said:

A lot of people have the misconception that letting them eat a bit of ore is terrible when in reality it usually doesn`t matter if you waste half of your ore given how much of it spawns on each map.

I always run out of my ores even without slug ranching. So it's not really misconception, more like different playstyle that leaves no room for additional ore spending.

Anyway, cool experiment, thanks for posting the results

[Neotuck]

1 hour ago, Sasza22 said:

They aren`t sustainable but what i`m trying to do here is show people that you can go pretty long on slugs alone before you run out of resources. A lot of people have the misconception that letting them eat a bit of ore is terrible when in reality it usually doesn`t matter if you waste half of your ore given how much of it spawns on each map.

Fair point, I tend to have so much copper ore on my starter asteroid that I barely use a quarter of it before switching to steel

[Neotuck]

@Sasza22 I'm going to give "The plug slug challenge" a try

I'll post updates here 

[ghkbrew]

Bonus points if you can do the Carnivore achievement by only eating plug slugs.

[6Havok9]

I hope you find a way to sustain this via rocket delivery! I guess it depends heavily on your starmap?

[suicide commando]

Actually, slugs are pretty sustainable, several of the nearby asteroid fields can contain ores, so you can always just go get some more food for them from outer space.

 

[Sasza22]

21 hours ago, suicide commando said:

Actually, slugs are pretty sustainable, several of the nearby asteroid fields can contain ores, so you can always just go get some more food for them from outer space.

True, i`m trying to get the drillcone but it takes a ton of orbital research and i`m yet to make a base on the oil planetoid. The data banks i`m getting from the volcanoes and gravitas stuff only got me half way. I also need to get a better engine as on my start i can only build the CO2 rocket and maybe the steam one if i get enough steel.

 

[Neotuck]

@Sasza22 question

would a steam turbine be allowed if it's only purpose is heat management?

I ask because I'm having to build a lot of batteries and could use some cooling

[Sasza22]

13 hours ago, Neotuck said:

would a steam turbine be allowed if it's only purpose is heat management?

I didn`t think about that. I guess if the turbine isn`t connected to the power grid and just powers itself it should be allowed. In a sense it`s free cooling but since without it the only option would be dumping heat into space i guess it`s ok.

[Sasza22]

I should probably add that using engine power and solar modules in rockets is allowed since there isn`t enough room to get an entire slug setup. But you are free to try with ungroomed or wild slugs (i tried it before and it`s a bit messy).

[Neotuck]

@Sasza22

Wanted to give you an update on my challenge

I started off slow on terra did all of my early and mid game power generation with hamster wheels

Now I'm importing slug eggs from the next asteroid and building my plug slug power plant

The ranch is simple enough, 8x13 with 2 four tile islands in the middle

The design is stackable so I'll keep building them as I go 

I am recording video, been a pain cutting over 6 hours of video down to 30 minutes lol

[Sasza22]

15 hours ago, Neotuck said:

Wanted to give you an update on my challenge

Looks nice. Much cleaner design that what i`ve been using but really i`m just trying the crude approach to see how long it can last. Looks like you are on a good way to make it sustainable. Depends on the starmap though.

Currently i`m sick and don`t really feel like playing. My colony is at around 200 cycles and still has pretty big ore reserves. I`d post a few screenshots later today.

[Neotuck]

2 minutes ago, Sasza22 said:

Looks nice. Much cleaner design that what i`ve been using but really i`m just trying the crude approach to see how long it can last. Looks like you are on a good way to make it sustainable. Depends on the starmap though.

I went past cycle 250 before going into the teleporter for the first time, I wanted to see how far I could get on only hamster wheels.  I have plenty of copper ore to sustain multiple ranches until I'm ready to explore the starmap and hopefully have a sustainable supply.  Currently I have lots of hydrogen so I'll be setting up some H2 gens to deal with it

[Sasza22]

So the current state of my base. Beyond cycle 200 staying strong on slugs. Still over 60k cobalt. Got some back by upgrading heavi power wires to coductive and switching to smart batteries. The gold and cobalt volcanoes are comming in handy. I also made a digital screen showing the battery charge level:

Spoiler

Speaking of volcanoes one of them ended up producing tons of steam from my cooling attempts so i decided to use that for a steam rocket. Currently importing iron from the teleport planetoid to make some steel.

Spoiler

Also established a colony on the radioactive planetoid. The oil one should be first but it`s much harder to habitate due to world generation so i took the other one first (both are super close). I send the first lug there as well.

Spoiler

That`s it for now. I`ve been sick for the last week so didn`t play but i think i`ll get some more done here soon. Too bad the starmap doesn`t seem to have minable ore anywhere nearby but there are still a few question marks in the range of the steam rocket so not all is lost yet.