Prehistoric start / bionic bottleneck: Power

[Gurgel]

I have tried prehistoric (classic start) with regular and with bionic dupes and my usual approach of expanding beyond 3 dupes only when things have stabilized. Regular is easy, but with bionics I run into an energy supply problem. Self-powering with hamster-wheels means I get maybe half a dupe of workforce. I have managed to solve oxygen on that (using water), but it is exceptionally slow and tedious. Using up your metal or burning peat makes things faster, but comes with its own problems and is also quite limited. On other starting asteroids, wood was a good power source for a long time when running only with 3 bionics, but you do not get that here. 

Any thoughts on this? Is prehistoric just a lot harder with bionics? Or am I overlooking something? 

I am aware that a rapid expansion strategy might be quite different. I am not concerned about that one at the moment. 

Edited June 11, 2025 by Gurgel

[speckle21]

I don't use bupes for my starts, but i do agree that power is tighter for the prehistoric start.

My early strategy is to use peat for immediate power, and then drill straight down to the radioactive biome as soon as possible. if i'm going for super sustainable achievement i might just use hamster wheels instead of peat as i dig out the first uranium. Uranium batteries then takeover from peat and provide most of my power for early game. As i keep digging the uranium biome i eventually access the saturn critter traps and tap them for hydrogen power. I try to leave them in place and build around them so they don't use polluted water. Although if my colony has a large polluted water excess then i'll bring the saturn critter traps up and build a special hydrogen harvest room for them.

Eventually i switch exclusively to hydrogen power.

If there is a proper saltwater geyser (not a brine geyser), i use the geotuning station and boost it to 195c output and put steam turbines around the geyser to get power that way.  Prehistoric map has lots of ways to get and make bleach stone. 

Although i only did this once so i can't say if its broadly applicable to most Prehistoric map seeds. And steam turbines are mid-game tech so maybe you've already solved the power issues by the time you get steam turbines. 

 

[Gurgel]

26 minutes ago, speckle21 said:

Although i only did this once so i can't say if its broadly applicable to most Prehistoric map seeds. And steam turbines are mid-game tech so maybe you've already solved the power issues by the time you get steam turbines. 

Yep. At that time, things are pretty solved. I have though about using uranium for early-game power. Not yet tried though. Boosting a geyser and then putting turbines on it is something I still have to try as well. Thanks for your input!

[nessumo]

From my experience quick open electrolyzer gives enough surplus hydrogen for early game to transition to something more stable - and it can be done very early. That and occasional metal batteries seems enough to me, unless you are on hardest settings and full achiv run - but that is another story and we shouldn't balance game around that probably (-:
Later, I concur with atomic batteries being the best on this map.

[Wharflord]

Peat generators are a great way to get power on the prehistoric map. There's a lot of peat on the map to start, and its very easy to set up Lumb ranches (2 ovagro nodes feeding 4 lumbs) early to generate sustainable peat. After burning the peat you get polluted water as a byproduct which can be recycled to hydrate the ovagros. This is not quite self sustaining, but close. The biggest problem in my experience is disposing of the CO2 - so it is useful to dig to the surface early to vent gasses.

[Jurij I. Gorkij]

Myself, I went straight to this:

Before it started I was crafting metal batteries for my 3 dupes, now this is providing necessary power and oxygen. Water is currently brought by dupes (in the right) as I am trying to draw all normal water around map via pitcher pumps.

Later I've added shipping to exchange full/empty batteries with great hall below. Surplus power is send to the main grid, surplus hydrogen is sent to other specific machines (radbolt gen. for example).

[SkunkMaster]

I usually build a pump in the top of the base and leave open electrolyzers. Use a few thermal pipes to cool down the air with the very water used.

base stabilizes at around 40c with 30c water.

Result is more hydrogen than you know what to do with. - i don't build any other power buildings for a very very long time once this setup is going. i even take down all the hamster wheels after this point!

 

The only real bottleneck on Relica is Wood.

Edited June 12, 2025 by SkunkMaster

[ChrisPBacon000]

On 6/11/2025 at 9:41 AM, Gurgel said:

I have tried prehistoric (classic start) with regular and with bionic dupes and my usual approach of expanding beyond 3 dupes only when things have stabilized. Regular is easy, but with bionics I run into an energy supply problem. Self-powering with hamster-wheels means I get maybe half a dupe of workforce. I have managed to solve oxygen on that (using water), but it is exceptionally slow and tedious. Using up your metal or burning peat makes things faster, but comes with its own problems and is also quite limited. On other starting asteroids, wood was a good power source for a long time when running only with 3 bionics, but you do not get that here. 

Any thoughts on this? Is prehistoric just a lot harder with bionics? Or am I overlooking something? 

I am aware that a rapid expansion strategy might be quite different. I am not concerned about that one at the moment. 

I am currently at cycle approx 140 with an all-bionic colony.  I have 8 of them.  For the longest time I was at 3 because I couldn't print more (darn RNG) but it wasn't a power issue.  I moved to peat burners directly running powerbank chargers quite early, making sure to use generator tune-up on them to maximize energy production without overloading on heat.  I eventually got a SPOM and oxygen cannisters + hydrogen power, and that bridged the gap until I got atmo-suits and then Steam Power from down in the magma biome.

I currently have steam turbines putting about 1400 kJ into the colony every cycle, running 6 power bank chargers basically non-stop.  Minor contributions from hydrogen and peat pick up the slack if demand goes up (say from refineries or recreation buildings).  

One point of note is that I made sure to have an electrical engineering bionic right from the get-go, and I made extra engineering boosters to maximize uptime on the tune-ups.  Going from 3 cycles to 4 cycles per tuneup seems small but it saves a lot on microchips.  

I never really got close to running out of peat though I did set up 2 mini Lumb ranges (1 Fig Node + 2 mimika for pollination)  I did it more to make sure I had peat coming in, not because I faced a shortage.  I probably didn't need to ranch them at all (but the meat is nice to feed to Rhex).

I will edit and add that I actually found Bionics to be EASIER than expected on this map.  The huge amounts of nickel ore, huge peat reserves, PLUS uranium in large quantities was like a perfect setup for Bionics.  I never tried all-bionics before so I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to do everything with them.  Even if you have less of them, each is more productive than an organic Dupe in my experience.  Their ability to dig far and wide without a care for the atmosphere is so powerful early game!

Edited June 12, 2025 by ChrisPBacon000

[speckle21]

I honestly love that this game gives you multiple pathways to get the same ends.

I use Uranium  batteries and Saturn Critter traps.

Others use Peat and SPOM.

Others use sustainable peat and Lumbs/ovagro

 i'm sure someone somehow has managed to get biodiesel power to work or something.

I love this game. 

[SkunkMaster]

4 minutes ago, speckle21 said:

 i'm sure someone somehow has managed to get biodiesel power to work or something.

Why should biodiesel not work? - also biodiesel can be a good source for tallow

[speckle21]

I didn't say that? In fact i said i'm sure someone has gotten it to work.

Like a complete sustainable biodiesel setup for early game power. I haven't seen a complete build yet. But i'm sure someone has. 

[M3mory]

There’s plenty of ore on the map, so why not just rely on batteries for power? If you rush research early and start producing batteries quickly, you can generate electricity that way. Classic starting maps are huge—there’s so much metal that you won’t run out anytime soon.

 

With a large number of batteries, you can support a big team of bionic duplicants. Even on the highest difficulty, this setup works well if you're aiming for achievements.

 

You should give this method a try!

[mitboy]

1. Spend like 20 tonnes of nickel on metal powerbanks

2. Rush down to find radioactive biome and load beeta hives.

3. Scoop some enriched uranium 

4. Rush molecular forge and atomic powerbank research - Manual radbolt generation with enriched uranium and a few databanks from ruins or geyser research.

5. Make the atomic powerbanks and enjoy unlimited* clean** power! 

If you are fast, you will get there in 30-40 cycles. 

Edited June 29, 2025 by mitboy

[Diggdugg]

I am doing a full bonic dupe space out run with the new dlc, Power was an issue at the start but got kinda lucky when I found a NG geyser super early (20ish cycles in) also got the teleports up kinda early (70ish cycles) and had a dupe go over and get some basic oil sent back for quick petrol making. now im 400 cycles in and have a CLRR up and running 40 steam turbines. Not to mention the industrial steam brick that got a tamed volcano in it for even more power. The biggest issue I had was plastic, but I didn't know about the new amber stuff, got a ranch up and running and that's all taken care of. 

[KittenIsAGeek]

On 6/29/2025 at 4:51 AM, mitboy said:

1. Spend like 20 tonnes of nickel on metal powerbanks

2. Rush down to find radioactive biome and load beeta hives.

3. Scoop some enriched uranium 

4. Rush molecular forge and atomic powerbank research - Manual radbolt generation with enriched uranium and a few databanks from ruins or geyser research.

5. Make the atomic powerbanks and enjoy unlimited* clean** power! 

If you are fast, you will get there in 30-40 cycles. 

I'm a bit late to the party, but I figured I'd drop my two cents into the mix.  Started a pre-historic with all bionic dupes.  Started off making metal batteries and did first slot of power research.  Used 2 compact dischargers, a large battery, and a hamster wheel for in-base power to run an oxygen diffuser, research stations, and crafting station.  Then found a radioactive biome, planted a couple saturn traps next to a hive, and by cycle 20 I had more than enough hydrogen for power and started using rechargables.  Had more than enough PW for the saturn traps just making gear balm.  The step that slowed me down the longest was researching the bottle drainer to feed PW directly into the pipes.  Or maybe it was my side project getting deoderizers up and running.  Whatever.  =^.^=

[Gurgel]

Ok, thanks everybody. Seems bionics work best when you rush things. And, unlike regular dupes, rushing bionics seems to be relatively easy. 

[KittenIsAGeek]

On 10/25/2025 at 7:49 AM, Gurgel said:

Ok, thanks everybody. Seems bionics work best when you rush things. And, unlike regular dupes, rushing bionics seems to be relatively easy. 

Don't really have to rush things -- unless you are short on metal for batteries to keep your bionics running.  Maybe I'll try a metal-starved run next and see how it goes.