Mech recharger
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Mech recharger
Lightweight mechanoids can recharge here. During recharge, this recharger produces toxic wastepacks and stores them internally. Haulers must remove the wastepacks from time to time.
Base Stats
- Type
- Building
- Market Value
- 300
[Note] - Mass
- 25 kg
- HP
- 150
- Flammability
- 50%
Building
- Size
- 3 × 1
- Minifiable
- False
- Passability
- PassThroughOnly
- Power
- -200 W
Creation
- Required Research
- Basic mechtech
- Work To Make
- 8,000 ticks (2.22 mins)
- Resources to make
125 + 
1- Deconstruct yield
- 62 - 63 + 0 - 1
- Destroy yield
- 31 - 32 + 0 - 1
Mech rechargers are buildings added by the Biotech DLC that allow the recharging of light mechanoids.
Acquisition
Mech rechargers can be constructed once the Basic mechtech research project has been completed. They require 125 Steel, 1 Component and 8,000 ticks (2.22 mins) of work
Summary
Mech rechargers constantly require 200 W of direct, electrical power, even when not actively recharging a mech. They are placed on the ground and can't be minified, or uninstalled.
Mech rechargers can recharge light mechanoids. This includes:
A recharger gives the mechanoid 50% of their power need per day. This accumulates the recharger's waste meter. When a recharger is full of waste, a hauler can pick up 5 toxic wastepacks from the recharger. The exact amount of waste technically depends on the mechanoid, but all light mechanoids excrete 5 wastepacks. The existence of waste does not stop the recharger.
Suitable mechs will seek a recharger once reaching a configurable amount of charge, and a control group of mechs can be commanded to recharge (or avoid recharging) at will.
Analysis
As active mechs use only 10% of their power per day, and this structure provides a whopping 50% per day, theoretically a single mech recharger can support five always-active mechs. In practice this number will always be lower due to non-optimal utilization, but you can comfortably have several times fewer mech rechargers than mechs.
For colonies that utilize mostly combat mechs, which often spend most of their time dormant and self charging, this ratio can be even better. Dormant mechs recharge at a rate of 1% per day, meaning that combat mechs can be left without using a recharger at all except when heavily damaged and repaired.
Repaired mechs can then use the recharger on an as needed basis. The final ratio of rechargers to mechs will depend on your raid frequency and the frequency with which your mechs get damaged, but is almost always significantly less than always active mechs.
Version history
- Biotech DLC Release - Added.