Power in Oxygen Not Included Oxygen Not Included Guide
Last update: 09 August 2019
Electricity will quickly become an extremely important "resource" in the game, almost equal in rank to oxygen and food. Without it you will not be able to use many of the essential objects in your base, such as the Algae Deoxidizer, which is necessary for oxygen production. All elements of the grid require Raw Metals to be constructed and have a negative effect on the decor.
The first category are the facilities used to produce electricity. The manual generator utilizes power from the leg muscles of your duplicates to produce electricity. It is a cheap and effective method, especially useful if you do not have access to or you simply cannot use other forms of production at a given moment. Then there is the coal generator. This furnace uses large quantities of coal. It occupies a lot of space, and produces a lot of heat and carbon dioxide during combustion. Build it far from your base, preferably in the lower parts, so that the CO2 does not run rampart through your base.
There are several other options to produce energy even more efficiently. The hydrogen generator is a means of producing clean energy. It only needs a supply pipe for hydrogen. Ensure adequate supply from areas that are rich in this gas, make sure to use filters in the pipes so that only hydrogen reaches the device. Although it produces no by-products or waste, it generates enormous amounts of heat. Build it on the opposite side of the base, away from your crops or dwellings. Natural Gas Generator uses gas, which can be found being emitted from randomly generated geysers. After you pump the gas through a system of pipes, you'll have to create a pipe to remove CO2. You'll also have to arrange for proper work environment for the generator, as the machine will produce polluted water. Geysers tend to produce significant a volume of natural gas, enabling you to supply up to two generators with a single geyser.
In order to provide devices with power, as in reality, you will use electrical wires and Heavy-Watt Wire (1). The first cost a small amount of 100 kg of metals, the second consumes as much as 200 kg of a particular metal, but they are resistant to extreme temperatures. Use them only in very hot areas. Normal cables can be laid not only in empty fields, but also under ladders and in tiles/segments. This makes the base look much cleaner and is less impactful on the decor. Heavy-Watt Wire, however, can only be placed on empty spaces under the ladders. They are perfect to connect generators and batteries (2). Then, place a Power Transformer (3), able to adjust the current to a reduced voltage (4) that can be sent via normal cables, protecting your grid from overloading. This will enable you to divide your base in to sections (5) and solve the problem of faulty devices and electric grid.
You can also control the grid through various switches, which may be placed on fields with cables. The first one is a typical power switch on the fields with wires. You can block access to a particular part of the electrical grid. When switched over, the bulb will turn red and not a single watt of electricity will flow through the switch. Thermo, Atmo, Hydro Switch - this group of switches influences temperature as well as gas and liquid concentration. You can set when a switch is to cut off the rest of the grid. There are two types of such switches: maintaining the conditions either below or above a value of your choice.
The last group of objects are batteries, the tiny battery and its 4 times as large superior - the battery. They are used to "store" electricity when it is not being produced. It is worthwhile to build a couple of them, so that the duplicates are not burdened by the need to continuously deliver coal and run on the manual generator, and so that there is a supply of power at night time when everyone is asleep. A large amount of them in one place can create enormous temperatures. It is worth to build them away from the base or to surround them with insulated tiles.