Do smog/sponge slugs absorb faster when happy?

[ButterStuffed]

I’ve been playing around with the slugs to see how useful they are.

So far I’ve learned that they don’t appear to have a limit to how much they can store within themselves, but it is somewhat limited by how slowly they absorb elements.

Do they absorb faster when happy?

I’m very interested in using them for space travel, and potentially other applications.

[asurendra]

As I can see, there is no difference. Tame/wild, happy/gloom, fed or starwing, slug works the same. There is a bit random in how often they breathe but not much

[Farsight]

I don't think so.

But it wouldn't matter anyway, as their limitation is the amount they can expel into pipes at night. It's way below what they can absorb, to the point that slugs that live in an environment with unlimited material will almost certainly release a massive amount on death. Absorbing more would be really dangerous for base safety.

[Farsight]

To follow up, I did a little test on my own slugs...

Sponge slugs currently drink a bit more than 740kg a day, and can expel 740kg at night, meaning they can 'overeat' a bit each day, so expect some spillage each time one dies.

Smog slugs current suck in a bit more than 37kg a day, so while they should be able to expel 74kg at night, they currently can only do about half that, meaning half of their night will always be idle.

I made a post in the suggestions forum, hoping we can get the smog slugs buffed to match their spongey kin.  

[ButterStuffed]

2 hours ago, Farsight said:

To follow up, I did a little test on my own slugs...

Sponge slugs currently drink a bit more than 740kg a day, and can expel 740kg at night, meaning they can 'overeat' a bit each day, so expect some spillage each time one dies.

Smog slugs current suck in a bit more than 37kg a day, so while they should be able to expel 74kg at night, they currently can only do about half that, meaning half of their night will always be idle.

I made a post in the suggestions forum, hoping we can get the smog slugs buffed to match their spongey kin.  

So based off of your data, assuming the slugs have access to a pipe, it takes just above 8 slugs to match the moving power of an equivalent pump.

If you were to block off access to any viable sleeping space I imagine their absorption per cycle would be higher since they appear to continue absorbing if they can't find a sleeping space. There is probably some convoluted setup that could be made to limit their sleeping space until whatever gas/liquid they have in them is needed, but I can't currently think of a situation where moving a large amount of gas/liquid couldn't just be done with a pump.

I will have to experiment more with them I guess, since it doesn't look like there are many community contraptions made with the slug variations in mind.

[Farsight]

8 hours ago, ButterStuffed said:

So based off of your data, assuming the slugs have access to a pipe, it takes just above 8 slugs to match the moving power of an equivalent pump.

If you were to block off access to any viable sleeping space I imagine their absorption per cycle would be higher since they appear to continue absorbing if they can't find a sleeping space. There is probably some convoluted setup that could be made to limit their sleeping space until whatever gas/liquid they have in them is needed, but I can't currently think of a situation where moving a large amount of gas/liquid couldn't just be done with a pump.

I will have to experiment more with them I guess, since it doesn't look like there are many community contraptions made with the slug variations in mind.

Yeah, about 8 to match a pump running 100% of the time. Of course, we rarely have pumps running 100% of the time...

I'm running a low-power base now and exclusively using slugs for pumps, and I'm finding 2 is enough for many geysers, and 4 is plenty for nearly all.

One thing that would help is to rethink the geyser room itself. If I rebuild my geyser rooms bigger to hold more output and let the slugs catch up during dormancy, I can probably use just 1-2 slugs on most geysers without any overpressure worries.

I think most people don't use slugs much for pumps because of the metal requirement. By the time you have plenty of metal to feed them, you also probably have plenty of power to not need them.

I'm using them now mostly as a challenge... I have a base with 7 dupes that is running on about 40W, with plenty of food, o2 and cooling. Wild Slugs are providing the po2 coolant, water, hydrogen for AETN cooling, and co2 removal. I'm currently brainstorming a powerless gold volcano tamer to try to get even a trickle of sustainable metal to tame one.