Plug Slug

Plug Slug
Plug Slugs are dynamic creatures that generate electrical Power during the night.
Location	Swampy Biome
Health	25
Max age	100 cycles
Can Drown	No
Can Be Entombed	No
Comfortable Range	10 ↔ 40°C 283.15 ↔ 313.15 K 50 ↔ 104°F
Livable Range	-100 ↔ 100°C 173.15 ↔ 373.15 K -148 ↔ 212°F
Diet	Metal Ore 60 kg/cycle Refined Metal 60 kg/cycle
Excrete	Hydrogen 5% of the metal ore consumed Power 100W if wild at night (hunger) 400W if tame at night(hunger) 400W if wild (satisfied) 1600W if tame(satisfied)
Decor	10 (Radius: 1tile)
Drops	3200 kcal Meat
Wranglable	Yes
Capture Method	hand
Reproduction Rate	wild: 60 cycles groomed: 6 cycles
Incubation Time	base: 20 cycles lullabied: 4 cycles

Smog Slug
Smog Slugs are porous creatures that draw in unbreathable gases. At night, they sleep near exposed Gas Pipes and deposit their cache.
Health	25
Max age	100 cycles
Can Drown	No
Can Be Entombed	No
Comfortable Range	-10 ↔ 40°C 263.15 ↔ 313.15 K 14 ↔ 104°F
Livable Range	-100 ↔ 100°C 173.15 ↔ 373.15 K -148 ↔ 212°F
Diet	Metal Ore 60 kg/cycle Refined Metal 60 kg/cycle
Excrete	Hydrogen 5% of the metal ore consumed
Decor	10 (Radius: 1tile)
Drops	3200 kcal Meat
Wranglable	Yes
Capture Method	hand
Reproduction Rate	wild: 60 cycles groomed: 6 cycles
Incubation Time	base: 20 cycles lullabied: 4 cycles

Sponge Slug
Sponge Slugs are thirsty creatures that soak up liquids during the day and deposit the liquids into exposed pipes at night.
Health	25
Max age	100 cycles
Can Drown	No
Can Be Entombed	No
Comfortable Range	-10 ↔ 40°C 263.15 ↔ 313.15 K 14 ↔ 104°F
Livable Range	-100 ↔ 100°C 173.15 ↔ 373.15 K -148 ↔ 212°F
Diet	Metal Ore 60 kg/cycle Refined Metal 60 kg/cycle
Excrete	Hydrogen 5% of the metal ore consumed
Decor	10 (Radius: 1tile)
Drops	3200 kcal Meat
Wranglable	Yes
Capture Method	hand
Reproduction Rate	wild: 60 cycles groomed: 6 cycles
Incubation Time	base: 20 cycles lullabied: 4 cycles

Plug Slug is a Critter found in the Swampy Biome (Spaced Out). They produce Hydrogen, Eggs, Meat, and generate Power. They can be domesticated. The Morphs act as biological pumps for non breathable gasses and liquids.

Behavior

Similar to Dreckos and Pips, Plug Slugs are able to scale walls and walk along the ceiling. During the night Plug Slugs will nest on a ceiling and hang down, creating a socket two tiles below the ceiling (the lower tile of the slug) from which power can be drained. They will prefer to plug themselves onto exposed wires. Two Slugs cannot sleep on the same tile, and their socket cannot overlap buildings such as Storage Bins.

They emit up to 400 Watts if wild, or up to 1600 Watts when tamed. The output for slugs will be lower if they are hungry, down to 40 W when starving.

Since Nighttime lasts 75 seconds on a 600s cycle, this means they generate up to 50W, or 200W on average (up to 3 basic batteries or 3/4 of Jumbo Battery per wild slug per night). However these numbers can be lower in practice, since Slugs first have to path to a nesting-place come nightfall, and immediately wake up come sunrise. For reference, this puts a fully fed domesticated Plug Slug (or four wild) on par with a Manual Generator.

Plug Slugs can eat all kinds of unrefined Metal Ores and Refined Metal, and excrete Hydrogen when they do so.

Cracking a Plug Slug Egg yields 1000g of Raw Egg and 100g of Egg Shell.

It drops 3200 kcal (2 kg) of Meat on death.

Variants

The Slug has three variants, each with the same diet preferences. Each variant has it own unique ability to manage power, liquid, or gas.

For details on how to get the different variants, see Critter Morphs.

Location

A number of Plug Slugs can be found on the Swampy Asteroid in the Spaced Out DLC. This number varies, but at minimum is 5 fully mature Slugs. More will spawn when starting on the Swampy Asteroid, although the generation rules seem to be similar between the Terra & Swampy starts. Additional Plug Slugs can be printed or found in Swampy pockets on other Asteroids.

Plug Slug

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Output Calculation

Tame Plug Slug have a base output of 1600W, reduced to 1200 W below 5000 kcal and 800 W below 3000 kcal, with wild slugs producing only 1/4 as much. Starving slugs produce 40 W whether tame or wild.

Power output is independent of happiness and other statuses.

Plug Slug Energy Output

Modifiers	Calories
	≥ 5000	≥ 3000	> 0	Starvation
Tamed	1600W	1200W	800W	40W
Wild	400W	300W	200W	40W

Smog Slug

→ →

This variant will intake unbreathable gas during the day and at night it will output the collected gas into a pipe. Similar to critter replacement of gas pump.

Sponge Slug

→ →

This variant will intake liquid during the day and at night it will output the collected liquids into a pipe. Similar to critter replacement of liquid pump.

Ranching

vs Hatches for Power

Well-fed Hatches produce 70kg Coal per cycle. A Coal Generator uses 1kg Coal per second to produce 600W. Effectively generating 0.6*70 = 42 kJ of energy per critter per day.

Well-fed Plug Slugs produce 1600 W of power per Night (75 Seconds) or 1.6*75 = 120 kJ of direct energy per critter per day.
Well-fed Plug Slugs also produce 3kg of Hydrogen per day, which can power an 800W Hydrogen Generator for 30 seconds for an additional 24 kJ of storable energy per critter per day.
This combines to a total of 144 kJ per critter per day.

If the Plug Slugs are tame but glum, then food requirement and hydrogen output is reduced by 80%, but the direct power production remains the same. Per unit of food tame-glum Plug Slugs are 5x more effecient at producing power than tame-happy Plug Slugs, and 4x more efficient than Wild Plug Slugs.

Semi-starvation exploit

Starving Plug Slugs can be fed just before night to generate 800 W instead of 40 W at night, while starving for the rest of the day. This is much more efficient per-food than feeding the Slug all day. To take this exploit even further, Plug Slugs decide how much power they will generate at the moment they become drowsy and it doesn't matter if they subsequently cross a threshold that should cause them to produce less power, this means they only need to be non-starving for a few seconds when they become non-drowsy and so only a little food need to be given right before they become drowsy (allocating enough time for the Slug to react to the food and eat it). Approximate food requirements:

State	Power Production	Food required per cycle	Energy/food
Fully fed, happy	1600 W	60 kg	2 kJ/kg
Fully Fed, glum	1600 W	12 kg	10 kJ/kg
Fed at night	800 W	1.8 kg	33.3 kJ/kg
Fed when drowsy	800 W	0.5 kg	120 kJ/kg

It can be seen that dramatic improvements in energy to food ratio can be achieved by exploiting the particular mechanics of power generation, with the most exploitative strategies producing at least 60x more energy per food than grooming and feeding the Plug Slugs.