Incubator
Assigned Duplicants must possess the Critter Wrangling trait.
Red: Disable
An Incubator incubates the eggs of critters until they are ready to hatch. Eggs inside an Incubator can be lullabied by a Duplicant rancher, giving the egg a buff for one cycle that increases the incubation speed by up to 400% (5 times faster). For example, Pacu naturally take 5 cycles to hatch at 20% incubation per cycle, and the "lullabied" status adds 80% to this rate, guaranteeing the Pacu egg to hatch in 1 cycle.
Once the critter hatches inside the incubator, a duplicant will take it to a Critter Drop-Off. Critters can be also removed from the incubator by pressing the "Remove" button. If left inside the incubator (due to low priority or no critter drop offs with space available), the critter will leave incubator on their own when they turn into an adult.
Assigned duplicants must have the Critter Ranching I skill.
Usage
Incubators are highly practical helping kick-start Ranches, as fully populating a new ranch can take upwards of 50 cycles depending on the incubation time of the Critter in question. They are not, however, necessary to continue using after a farm is fully online, as incubators do not actually increase the number of eggs hatched per cycle in any way. The stable average amount of food produced by eggs each cycle is affected only by the rate at which those eggs are laid, not by how long each egg takes to hatch.
Automation
A disabled incubator will not consume any power and will be unable to be lullabied by a Duplicant. Duplicants will still bring an egg to a disabled incubator.
However, if an egg is lullabied and the incubator subsequently left unpowered, the egg will retain the increased incubation rate until the effect wears off. This can be combined with a clock sensor to the run the incubators briefly during part of the day and setting their priority high so that eggs receive the increased incubation rate without the increased power consumption.
Airlocks
Mechanized Airlocks can be used in automated setups to control the delivery of eggs to incubators. Incubators can be built on airlocks set to closed or auto. If an airlock is opened after an incubator is built on top of it, it will apply a "Missing Tile" status to the incubator.
- Auto-sweepers and duplicants will not deliver eggs to incubators with a "Missing Tile" status.
- Eggs in incubators with a "Missing Tile" status will continue to incubate.
- Duplicants will not lullaby incubators with a "Missing Tile" status.
- When a juvenile critter grows into an adult and falls out of the incubator, it will continue falling through an open airlock.
