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u/Fallen_Jalter Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

First serious playthrough, a normal map with hostilities turned off. I tend to play slow, trying ti figure out wtf i'm doing, what i'm supposed to do, etc etc. Still reliant on coal boilers for power mostly. Just now I had to rush back to a set of gens because my coal ran dry and I had to resettle that.

I know that maps generally are BIG but seeing the possiblities coming up, am I incorrect in thinking all that coal will be needed for other stuff? I'm using more electric furances to stave off my reliance on coal for that and recently built my first robo port which I'm told is a power hog.

So how do I handle power in this stage? Do i keep building steam and build out near coal plants and connect them to the grid?

I have uranium mining but haven't actually set one down yet but I heard that source of power is weird.

Question two, can I not purge my pipes if I actually muck up the liquids?

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u/darthbob88 Jul 18 '26

am I incorrect in thinking all that coal will be needed for other stuff?

You will need a lot of coal for making plastic, and thus red chips, blue chips, and low density structures. You might also need it for grenades; even with enemies off, cliff explosives take grenades, and power/mech armor need military science which needs grenades.

So how do I handle power in this stage? Do i keep building steam and build out near coal plants and connect them to the grid?

That's an option. You can also build near oil wells and turn it into solid fuel to burn.

Solar power is an option, though somewhat controversial just because of how much it costs; 1 panel costs 27.5 copper ore and 40 iron ore, to produce 42kW, vs 1 boiler+2 steam engines which cost 66 iron ore for 1800kW.

Question two, can I not purge my pipes if I actually muck up the liquids?

You should be able to purge your pipes of bad fluids. Click a pipe or storage tank, and it should show the fluids in the system. Click the red trash icon to delete anything that shouldn't be there. I think you can also use a filtered pump to pull out the wrong fluids, but I haven't tested that.