Rebalance Power Bank Charger

[vonVile]

Power Bank Chargers eat way too much power at 480w and are too slow at recharging Eco Batteries. My Bionics only base fell apart at 170 Cycles just because of this one mechanic constantly draining all my power. I only had 7 Dupes with 3 Chargers. With them being so slow to fill I never was able to get away from building the basic Batteries, which then ate up all my Copper. All I had was a Hydrogen Generator, 2 Coal Generators and 2 Wheels.

There is no way to get out of this death loop until you switch to Natural Gas. Upgrading to Eco Batteries before then is a waste of time. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish my Natural Gas power system in time before all my Dupes cease functioning.

Please, either half the power consumption to 240w or half the charge time of Eco Batteries.

[PowerPowerPower]

If power bank chargers were 240w they would take twice as long to charge. Power banks have a fixed amount of power stored in them, and Bupes eat a fixed amount of power per cycle. Running out of power with them is equivalent to running out of food in a dupe colony

[vonVile]

Well, then Klei needs to half both power and recharge time.

I'm currently running an all-Bionics base with just 6 Dupes. I have 2 Natural Gas Geysers (one good and other crappy) and they can't keep up with Dupe demand of slowly draining all the Natural Gas to keep 4 Bank Chargers running. I can't go down to 3 Bank Chargers because they can't keep up with demand of each Dupe needing 3 Eco Batteries to recharge. The Natural Gas system is there only to charge Batteries. I have a separate smaller power system just for research, which before Bionic Dupes with everything connected there would be a massive excess of Natural Gas.

I just added 4 Solar Panels to slow down the power bleed. I'm hoping that's enough to begin a Natural Gas surplus.

[6Havok9]

Have to disagree here. There is a setting to adjust bionic dupe power consumption. 

You need either more hydrogen generators, preferably boosted, or less bionic dupes until you have enough power.

 

[vonVile]

On 3/31/2025 at 8:59 PM, 6Havok9 said:

Have to disagree here. There is a setting to adjust bionic dupe power consumption. 

You need either more hydrogen generators, preferably boosted, or less bionic dupes until you have enough power.

 

That's the problem. You need to go Nuclear to have enough power to have a Bionic Dupe only base. I was lucky with my world and having 4 Natural Gas geysers to maintain 7 Dupes with 4 Battery Banks. You need Heavy Watt Wire to connect them all to a Battery because they over tax other power lines. I believe you need 1 Battery Bank for every 2 Bionic Dupes to keep them alive to constantly have enough Batteries charged.

[cyberwarlord]

 

I mean...

Edited June 7, 2025 by cyberwarlord

[6Havok9]

17 hours ago, vonVile said:

That's the problem. You need to go Nuclear to have enough power to have a Bionic Dupe only base. I was lucky with my world and having 4 Natural Gas geysers to maintain 7 Dupes with 4 Battery Banks. You need Heavy Watt Wire to connect them all to a Battery because they over tax other power lines. I believe you need 1 Battery Bank for every 2 Bionic Dupes to keep them alive to constantly have enough Batteries charged.

You could try Ceres. While it's a very hard start with bionics, once you have the geothermal pump running you can sustain a lot of dupes.

I play with their consumption set to energy vampire. I had one bionic at the start, two after some cycles.

Now they are 7, eating batteries from 8 chargers. I almost exhausted my cinnabar ore reserves before reaching sustainability, it was stressful but I enjoyed it. I failed and had to restart quite a few times, but it's doable.

And they are so incredibly strong that I would never dial back their consumption to the default setting. Heck, they even provided free microchips for tuning turbines and hydrogen generators during the transition from metal power banks to eco power banks.

An only bionic start with max settings on a map with no oil or nat gas and crappy sunlight, like Ceres Minor, is almost impossible tho. It's hard enough on the default settings. I think they are meant to be an addition to your roster, not a replacement for standard dupes. But, that's why you can adjust the settings.

So, gl with your bionic only colony! I'll stay away from that. 

[PowerPowerPower]

Bionics costing lots of power is a main part of their balance. An all bionic base is a challenge run, not the intended use. If you really want to have an all bionic base without worrying about power you can half their consumption in the difficulty settings from the asteroid selection page when you start a new save

Edited June 8, 2025 by PowerPowerPower