Power Control Station
Assigned Duplicants must possess the Electrical Enginering Skill
Only one Duplicant may be assigned to a station at a time.
Duplicant operation
Electrical Engineering skill
Dedicated Room: Power Plant
Red: Disable
Power Control Station is a building used to process refined metals into Microchips to give Engie's Tune-Up modifier to one generator in any Power Plant room, which increases electricity production by 50% with no additional resource consumption for 3 or more cycles (regardless if the generator is running or not).
Duplicants need the Electrical Engineering skill to operate the Station.
Details
The Power Control Station consumes no power but requires duplicant operation. It uses 5 kg of Refined Metal per microchip. Errands will only be queued for the station if at least one eligible generator in a Power Plant lacks the Engie's Tune-Up boost. If no microchips are available, duplicants will use the station to manufacture one; otherwise, duplicants will deliver the microchip to the generator and tinker the generator (applying the boost when finished).
For a duplicant with zero Machinery, It takes 160 seconds to manufacture one microchip and 30 seconds to apply one microchip to one generator. Additional levels of Machinery will reduce the duration of these errands, as well as increase the duration of the Engie's Tune-Up boost.
| Refined Metal | Result | |
|---|---|---|
| Mass | Name | |
| 5 kg |  Aluminum
|
 Microchip
|
 Copper
| ||
 Iron
| ||
 Gold
| ||
 Tungsten
| ||
 Lead
| ||
Since the Engie's Tune Up buff lasts for 3 cycles or longer, the cost to boost a single generator continually is at most ≈ 1.67 kg / cycle (≈ 2.78 g / s). However, this does not factor in the time needed for a duplicant to fabricate a microchip, deliver it to the generator, and tinker the generator, so the real cost per generator is likely to be lower. Higher levels of Machinery reduce the time spent on these errands (which increases the average cost), but also increases the duration of the buff (which decreases the cost). For example: assuming zero time spent travelling or supplying, a duplicant with 20 points of Machinery takes 5 seconds to fabricate a microchip and 60 seconds to tinker the generator, and the buff will last 4.5 cycles (2,700 seconds), for an average cost of ≈ 1.09 kg / cycle (≈ 1.81 g / s).
Tips
- Power Plant rooms use to require a Power Control Station but now only require one heavy-duty generator and two Power Buildings so a planetoid can get by with just one Power Control Station.
- Manual Generators do not count as a heavy-duty generator.
- Due to the high value of Refined Metal in the early/midgame, wide-scale microchip production is usually not worth the opportunity cost until you can obtain a renewable supply of metal (e.g. Meteor Showers or Metal Volcanoes).
- However, since the cost is fairly low (at less than 2 kg / cycle per generator), it is feasible to boost a small number of generators in the midgame: Metal Refineries produce refined metal in 100 kg batches (enough to boost a single generator for over 50 cycles), and asteroids with Oil Biomes can gain access to potentially hundreds of tons of Lead easily in the midgame.
Bionic Duplicants naturally produce a microchip every 150 seconds when Defragmenting (during Bedtime schedule blocks). This has no cost, other than the normal oxygen, power, and gear oil usage of the bionic duplicant. As a bionic duplicant by default is scheduled for 150s of rest every 3 days, a single bionic duplicant generally naturally creates enough microchips to keep a least one generator tuned up permanently.
Notes
- Duplicants will only fabricate more microchips if none are available to use.
- Solar Panels and Manual Generators are not eligible for boosting.
