Scrubbers are a way to go?

[ShaTiK]

I will start off by saying that I don't know whether that was intentional or not - maybe it is the way devs wanted this system to be used.
So, I started playing this game and a I noticed how big maintenance was. Not in the beginning, no - but as I progressed, I build more stuff, as you do. Expanding food, energy, living space, research (big on that) - but not so much in terms of producing machine parts, metals and electronics (polymers are less of a problem). I had a single factory of everything, gradually increasing the number of shifts and upgrading them. But at some point it became evident that I need a second line. Second line is a big deal - I need more rare metals, more metals, a lot more people, food, new dome, infrastructure. It was all a bit of a snowball.
But then I read on this forum that 2 scrubbers negate each others maintenance. So I went to check it out by myself. Fast forward a few days of gameplay - now I can't play without them. Scrubbers are my everything. Without them I will find myself in a vicious cycle of ever expanding base. I will spread out, mine out stuff and leave basically useless mining domes behind, only to place another one, and another etc.
Now, by that time I will most likely have a Mohole, which covers most of a mid to large sized colony needs - but only if I use scrubbers literally everywhere. The fact that one institute, one uni and one school have combined maintenance cost of around 1.5-2 electronics per sol is insane. As much as the fact that 2 scrubbers (10 electronics once) negate these costs completely, at a cost of 30 energy.
And that's the last bit - scrubbers give you basically free energy. You just need to place down anything you like, depending on breakthroughs and elevation.
So, I might be totally wrong, but after 65 hours I see scrubber a single most important building in the entire game. Which is, by definition, a bit of a bad design. Now I don't want devs to just nerf them to the ground or just remove from the game - just that I see this ridiculous overimportance of a signle building a bit concerning.

 

[spannbeton]

In the Modding community we have already discussed it. Wouldn't be too hard to nerf them.

 

[ShaTiK]

In the Modding community we have already discussed it. Wouldn't be too hard to nerf them.

But that's the thing - nerfing them could go two ways. Either you will have some base maintenance no matter how much scrubbing is there for EVEY building in the game - and that will tone down scrubberanza, but will in turn reignite this whole 'everexpanding' thing, just on a smaller scale. Or they will have scrubbers not affecting each other, but still affect other buildings - that will mean that your late game colony will have a huge demand for electronics, but only for them, since everyhing else will be pretty much covered by a single mohole, full time machine part/polymer.
I honestly don't know which is better. Or, for that matter - worse. Having to constantly plop down, say, building plots is C:S is one thing, but doing the same for domes.. It come dangerously close to the border of 'tedious' and that's never good.

 

[spannbeton]

Yes right now scrubbers eliminate maintainance completely. which imho is too powerful.
Getting it down to half would be good enough for example. But I guess that is game-balance.

I'm not an expert on this. Most mods are quite unbalanced.

 

[Wandering Sentinel]

Scrubbers aren't this all-powerful force to turn the game into easy mode: I've seen it happen where a scrubber might not do its job and you have to babysit each one for two ingame hours to make sure it fires off a pulse before you can do anything else. On top of that, they can't prevent maintenance needs from idiot colonists and it's possible for an idiot guru to pass that trait on, meaning that there's always the chance for manned buildings to spontaneously shut down and it's even possible for a few idiots to hit half the colony with this flaw. The result of this is you'll always need a reserve of machine parts ready for when an idiot (probably) collapses a mine or blows up an out-of-dome factory, as well as electronics for when they burn down some in-dome building.

 

[ShaTiK]

Scrubbers aren't this all-powerful force to turn the game into easy mode: I've seen it happen where a scrubber might not do its job and you have to babysit each one for two ingame hours to make sure it fires off a pulse before you can do anything else. On top of that, they can't prevent maintenance needs from idiot colonists and it's possible for an idiot guru to pass that trait on, meaning that there's always the chance for manned buildings to spontaneously shut down and it's even possible for a few idiots to hit half the colony with this flaw. The result of this is you'll always need a reserve of machine parts ready for when an idiot (probably) collapses a mine or blows up an out-of-dome factory, as well as electronics for when they burn down some in-dome building.

And that's the reason why I usually have a farming dome for idiots, since they can't break a farm and idiocy have no effect on performance

 

[Gilmund]

And that's the reason why I usually have a farming dome for idiots, since they can't break a farm and idiocy have no effect on performance

But you're a martian khmer!
(its just a joke, don't burn me at the stake).

 

[spannbeton]

But you're a martian khmer!
(its just a joke, don't burn me at the stake).

I'm worse put them all in a dome and turn off life support.

 

[ShaTiK]

I'm worse put them all in a dome and turn off life support.

I did that with old people to test. It turns out they need almost 2 full days to die. Which is too much from gamebalance point imo. No sense of urgency

 

[Kexessa]

Fast forward a few days of gameplay - now I can't play without them. Scrubbers are my everything. Without them I will find myself in a vicious cycle of ever expanding base. I will spread out, mine out stuff and leave basically useless mining domes behind, only to place another one, and another etc.
So, I might be totally wrong, but after 65 hours I see scrubber a single most important building in the entire game.

I'm on sol 381 on my current map and have never used a scrubber. I've built 3 wonders, 4th is in the works & have over 1000 colonist. You can definitely play without them. Things did get easier after I build the Mohole & Space Elevator. Balancing electronics is something I'm still working on. Where do some of your people work if they aren't in the machine parts & electronics buildings?

 

[ShaTiK]

I'm on sol 381 on my current map and have never used a scrubber. I've built 3 wonders, 4th is in the works & have over 1000 colonist. You can definitely play without them. Things did get easier after I build the Mohole & Space Elevator. Balancing electronics is something I'm still working on. Where do some of your people work if they aren't in the machine parts & electronics buildings?

I'm usually around 500 colonists by sol 120-ish. So, anywhere - food dome alone takes 35. Tech, mining, few polymer, big dome with full staff of electronics/machine parts, research also a big manpower sponge.

 

[Vanu Kaos]

How do you get said scrubbers? I haven't had them pop in my research yet at Sol 140. Are they an engineering tech?

 

[Bryartuck]

How do you get said scrubbers? I haven't had them pop in my research yet at Sol 140. Are they an engineering tech?

It's a physics tech, and tends to come rather late in the tree (cost 7000-20000)

 

[Vanu Kaos]

It's a physics tech, and tends to come rather late in the tree (cost 7000-20000)

Thank you, Sir.

 

[Makto]

Each play through I always build a 19 x 19 x 19 hex grid for my power array consisting of 156 large solar panels and 72 Stirling generators all feeding 24 atomic accumulators. Usually enough power until late game when I just build another somewhere. I place 7 scrubbers around the grid and it covers them all. There is never any maintenance to any of this, reducing resource consumption. This is great for early to mid-game while still building up the colony. But eventually I need to turn off the scrubbers because my resources begin to overflow my storage and I need higher consumption. I do not place scrubbers side by side, because I feel that's a bit of a exploit.

 

[Shadeseraph]

Each play through I always build a 19 x 19 x 19 hex grid for my power array consisting of 156 large solar panels and 72 Stirling generators all feeding 24 atomic accumulators. Usually enough power until late game when I just build another somewhere. I place 7 scrubbers around the grid and it covers them all. There is never any maintenance to any of this, reducing resource consumption. This is great for early to mid-game while still building up the colony. But eventually I need to turn off the scrubbers because my resources begin to overflow my storage and I need higher consumption. I do not place scrubbers side by side, because I feel that's a bit of a exploit.

Your definition of "early to mid-game" baffles me

 

[Makto]

Well I usually spend the first 80 SOLS scanning sectors, collecting anomalies, building up stock piles of resources and building the huge power grid... then maybe I start building a dome. I really don't worry about "Evaluation".

 

[Promethian]

I have stopped using them to negate each other but I do use them a lot. Put your electronics factory, science institute and casino close to each other and a single scrubber can negate 8 electronics maintenance. I also put them next to drone hubs and build some power in the radius.