The Tiers of the tech tree can be most easily approximated by the machines power requirements. However while the power requirement of a machine may be zero the actual power requirement can be calculated from the required torque and speed. Machines power requirements may not actually reflect the amount of power needed to allow the machine to be fully operational. For instance the Extractor's highest power requirement for any stage is 65kW however by multiplying the maximum torque and speed necessary the actual amount of power needed to keep the machine fully operational with out manual intervention is 4 MW.
Rotarycraft Handbook Description[]
"Not all machines are created equal; some are much more difficult to operate than others. A good metric of the relative position of a machine in the techtree is its power requirement, if applicable. There are exceptions to this rule, and of course different play styles can mean different paths to take, but it is generally recommended to be aware of this hierarchy. Also note that a zero minimum only means that there is no minimum cutoff, and that the effects of increased power are more complex."
Machines by Tier[]
Zero Power Requirement?[]
Many machines do not use a simple hard power requirement, and instead do things with a scale based on power, or require some power for one thing and more for another.
- Boring Machine: Requires 640W of power per hardness point of the blocks it is digging. For example, three stone (hardness 1.5) would require 2800W of power, and a full wall of gold ore (hardness 3) would require 67.2kW of power. Each obsidian block adds a requirement of 32kW.
- Pulse Jet Furnace: Does not specify a minimum power, but requires at least 131072 rad/s, so it effectively requires 131kW
- Player Detector: Gains 1m of range per 1kW power input
- Coil Winder: Has no minimum power, but requires nonzero torque in order to do anything useful, and nonzero speed to ever complete a step
- Music Box: Can be run without power by redstone activation, but requires 1kW of power to loop the music
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: Activates as soon as it receives any power, then explodes if that power is lost
- Rock Melter: Thermal input is a function of power input; higher power inputs mean faster temperature rise and faster lava production
- Van De Graaff: Rate of charge buildup is proportional to power input
Tips & Tricks[]
- There are 2 ways to know a machines power requirements: by an actual power requirement, and by multiplying the torque and speed requirements together.