Wood-fired generator

A wood-fired generator is a power source that runs by burning wood as fuel, producing some heat as a byproduct.

Acquisition

Wood-fired generators can be constructed once the Electricity research project has been completed. They require 100 Steel, 2 Components, 2,500 ticks (41.67 secs) of work, and a Construction skill of 4.

Summary

The wood-fired generator consumes 22 wood per day and generates a constant 1000W as long as it is switched on and fueled. It can hold up to 75 fuel at a time, for a maximum run time of 3.27 days. Fuel consumption is not dependent on how much power is actually drawn. Fuel has to be delivered to the generator by a hauler colonists. It can be switched off; in the off state it will neither consume fuel nor produce power.

It outputs light in a 6 tile radius, with the nearest 3.442 tiles being above 50% light level and considered lit. Note that the light source is centered at the bottom-left tile of the generator, rather than the "true" center of the generator. It heats at a rate of 6 heat per second^{^{[Exact mechanic unclear]}}.

Analysis

Wood-fired generators incur considerable labor costs for chopping and hauling wood, but provide an improvement from neolithic technology.

Wood powered appliances

A variety of buildings are powered directly by wood, such as campfires and torch lamps. It is significantly more efficient to fuel a generator and run the electric equivalents, if all 1000 W of power is used. The generator does not scale with power use, so if power is wasted, then fueled versions may be superior. In addition, electric buildings require more infrastructure, and are vulnerable to solar flares and other interuptions.

Wood-powered appliance	Wood per day	Electric equivalent	Equivalent wood per day^[1]
Campfire^[2] (roofed)	10	Heater^[2]	3.85
Passive cooler^[2]	10	Cooler^[2]	4.4
Fueled stove	160^[Verify]	Electric stove^[3]	7.7
Fueled smithy	?^[Detail]	Electric smithy^[3]	4.62
Torch lamp (roofed)	2	Standing lamp^[4]	0.66

↑ Equivalent wood per day is assuming is the percentage of a wood fired generator power generation multiplied by the generators wood consumption. Note that this assumes that the generators entire production capacity is used.
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 ^2.3 Campfires and passive coolers regulate temperature at the same rate as heaters and coolers, but have a maximum/minimum temperature. In addition, both campfires and passive coolers are unable to be turned off, consuming wood until none is left.
↑ ^3.0 ^3.1 Fueled stoves and smithies only consume power when being actively worked, while electric stoves and smithies have to manually toggled off to save power. This comparison assumes they are on for the same length of time.
↑ Standing lamps don't produce heat, unlike torch lamps, but light a larger area. This also does not include the effect of the Advanced lighting halving the power consumption.

Wind turbines

Wind turbines are also unlocked via researching Electricity. They require no labor to maintain, but do require a large amount of space free of structures and trees. This can make them difficult to defend, and completely unsuitable in certain base layouts. Wind turbine power output is variable, realistically forcing the construction of batteries to smooth out periods of low power production. Since you can turn off a wood generator, there's no restriction to having both wind and wood generators, keeping the latter in reserve until you need them.

Chemfuel powered generators

Each chemfuel powered generator generates 1,000 W of power. Assuming the colony is running a biofuel refinery to make chemfuel from wood, each consumes 9 wood per day and an extra 257 ticks (4.28 secs) of work. Powering the biofuel refinery takes -170 W of power, but takes only 2,000 ticks (0.8 in-game hours) to produce enough fuel for 3.89 in-game days of fuel, or on average equivalent of a constant load of only 1.46 W.

The extra 257 ticks (4.28 secs) of work is not nothing, but the reduced wood saves at least 390 ticks (6.5 secs) of work in tree cutting work, assuming the most efficient harvest tree and that the tree doesn't have to be planted first. This means that a pawn requires a Plant Work Speed of 152% to make it more work efficient to use the wood fired generator, and this increases to a massive 489% if the tree has to be planted as well. The wood-fired generator will always require more growing space as well.

Also, you can make chemfuel out of raw food; corn or even rice are faster to cultivate than trees, while insect meat can be extremely plentiful.

One flaw is that Biofuel Refining costs 700 points of research to acquire. However, boomalopes require no research to acquire. If you have them, chemfuel becomes even more efficient, assuming they can graze for extended periods of time.

Version history

0.13.1135 - Added.
0.15.1279 - Fueled generator will consume fuel faster. Fuel duration 5 days -> 3 days 9 hours.
Beta 18 - Name changed from fueled generator to wood-fired generator to prevent ambiguity with the Chemfuel powered generator, which was added in the same update. No other changes made.
1.1.0 - Refueling is now toggleable.

Architect

Power: Power conduit (Hidden, Waterproof) • Power switch • Wood-fired generator • Chemfuel powered generator • Wind turbine
(research): Battery • Geothermal generator • Solar generator • Watermill generator • Toxifier generator • Bioferrite generator
(uncraftable): Vanometric power cell • Unstable power cell
Related: Ship reactor • Electroharvester

[1] Equivalent wood per day is assuming is the percentage of a wood fired generator power generation multiplied by the generators wood consumption. Note that this assumes that the generators entire production capacity is used.

[temperature-2] 2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 ^2.3 Campfires and passive coolers regulate temperature at the same rate as heaters and coolers, but have a maximum/minimum temperature. In addition, both campfires and passive coolers are unable to be turned off, consuming wood until none is left.

[production-3] 3.0 ^3.1 Fueled stoves and smithies only consume power when being actively worked, while electric stoves and smithies have to manually toggled off to save power. This comparison assumes they are on for the same length of time.

[4] Standing lamps don't produce heat, unlike torch lamps, but light a larger area. This also does not include the effect of the Advanced lighting halving the power consumption.

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