They just need slugs to use some other material for food, then they might be used

6:06 a great moment where you could have said "which isn't a lot, but it's honest work"

I've still not seen anybody give the simple advise of not grooming the plug slugs. The power output is dependent on them being tame and wel fed but when they are glum they eat 80% less while still giving 1600 Watts of power. You only need to groom them if you want more eggs.

I'm looking into using a smog slug in a rocket interior to collect CO2. Probably locked in the bottom room with a proper ceiling, so I don't get metal debris falling in, when last-minute design changes inevitably happen. EDIT: Actually, it can safely go into the 1x3 bathroom. The slug will keep collecting gas even if it can't discharge it, so a slug saves quite a bit of space that would otherwise be taken up by gas filtration (and possibly pumping, if you're not even using atmosuits).

I have been starvation ranching about 13 sponge slugs to completely vacuum out an ocean asteroid and put it into one infinite storage, can attest, very effective no power needed and I don’t have to think about it

I found them a great alternative when going for the renewable energy achievement. When starting in their swamp biome, you can easily ranch and feed them some of the vast amounts of cobalt ore you find.

I believe this assessment on plug slugs might be based off of old information judging by the wattage chart. I have a 1000 cycle base running mostly off of a trio of 8-slug bio-reactors feeding into a stored battery bank and I only groom them if I need to get replacement slug eggs. Each tame glum slug will output 1600W and a single metal volcano at an average output should be more than sufficient to feed a large number of these guys at 20% metabolism. More slugs translates to more power for aquatuners to make more volcano-taming loops. The hydrogen production is not really a problem if you just make the top of the pen out of mesh or airflow tiles and just handle the hydrogen outside of the pen itself. I think you can get away with a 8 wide x 12 high 96 tile size room which is just wide enough to hold a non-cramped number of slugs each with a resting spot on the ceiling. I haven't found a good way to use sponge slugs yet, but a single smog-slug in a pen of plugslugs can be used to pipe out any unbreathable gas that might otherwise cause them to keep laying smog slug eggs. I wouldn't be surprised if they get nerfed in their current state, but for the time being, they are quite a bit more powerful and I would recommend you give them a try.

if your not exploiting the game and melting your rocket open so you can build a strong power station within your rocket, plug slug might be a nice easy way to ensure you have power on your rocket without adding a solar unit to it. the slugs do feel like they need a buff though for their cost.

i found plug slugs were best use as alternative power to your main geysers, since they shut off a ranch of 3 to 4 can sustain through the dormant stages

Plug slugs are indeed only usefull early on in a colony/base when your power needs are low and you don't have better options. I believe sponge and smog slugs were only put in the game to nerf the critter. As I've experienced that randomly roaming sponge or smog slugs can cause allot of wrong element damage etc to your base infrastructure. Kinda similar to the delactavole, introduced in the same update.

Possible use for the slugs is a biological Sweepy for gases and liquids. There are a lot of mechanical solutions to many problems out there that are pristine and precise - slugs may allow for more rough-and-ready designs to be found

If you are trying to get the super sustainable achievement, then plug slugs are the best early game source of reliable power.

Wanted to farm these cute slugs for a while , thanks for the guide ! ❤

Lovely presented... Kudos for the detailed chapters in the description. Well done!

From what I understand sponge/smog slugs don't have a limit to their gas/liquid capacity, which is apparently not inhibited by being unhappy, so they appear to be capable of functioning as a time limited, but more portable infinite storage.

The biggest problem with plug slugs is smog slugs. Having a infinite supply of 100w of power seems you never need to manage seems like a good idea before you have enough material to build a across map or multiple power grids. But the need to keep it at 1.8kg oxygen press plus adds just enough effort that dumping a hamster wheel or coal generator feels like less hassle.

My immediate instinct is to try breeder rooms instead of ranches. Feeding one or two and keeping the eggs for starvation/wild utility around the base seems to be the best use case. Just dropping one or two of the appropriate slug egg in a room and sealing it up. Maybe remote pockets you don't want to build a lot at; just run your supply lines and then set up a basic room around something like a cold slush geyser, then drop a couple sponge slug eggs in and forget about it. Your point of it being worth it is really the issue, who cares about an automated water pump? By the time you're thinking about setting up an industrial sauna or some other super project power is generally not an issue. Just 3 coal generators, fed by a hatch ranch or two, and a single smart battery can take you right up until your first steam turbine. So they would only be useful in situations where power is an issue, and I can't really think of any that don't have a more efficient solution. I already mentioned the only reasonable use case I can come up with on paper, and that wouldn't work for most geysers, being to hot or cold, ironically making the slug even more useless.

No heat - one of the biggest advantages of plugslug. Probably they can be used in rocket designs, where space is an issue.

There is a mod out there that can change the basic Plugslug diet (to whatever you want, and as efficient as you want of mass conversion to hydrogen. I had made a fair setup using any rock types (granite, Igneous, etc.) as food, with POOR efficiency to hydrogen. But ICE is the one i picked for good efficiency. However MUD does seem like a great idea instead based on what I have been reading here in the comments. Like a really good idea.

From my understanding on ranching and critters. Ill say the best way to use plugslugs is have a breeding room of 1 or 2 plugslugs being groomed so produce as much eggs as possible and use those new slugs n put them into their own room for power generation. Because eggs from groomed/tamed critters hatch already tamed, grooming does not affect the slugs power generation only their reproduction, and with that being the case the glum debuff is actually great because they will eat less metals and output the 1600 watts So in theory 1 metal volcano should support like possibly 6-8 slugs with the glum debuff. I could be wrong tho...

Wild unfed smog slugs are reasonably efficient. Putting one of them on top of your colony will remove all the hydrogen from open electrolyzers and they clean up all the natural gas, chlorine and carbon dioxyde at the base without a care what ratio is in there. Trapping critters that can go through water is trickier and they usually only stay smog slugs for one generation before the gases run out but the sweepers sorting the eggs take less power than the gas pumps. Them leaving the oxygen is quite nice, too. Kinda wish there was a way to put oxygen into pipes without pumps so I could attempt a challenge run not using any pumps. Another minor issue is that two slugs actually have enough throughput for one pipe, requiring you to set up gas tanks to smooth out the throughput over the day. In my run using only wild critters the slugs were quite versatile and even the surplus was generally the most useful just needing a wire under the storage place and feeding a little bit of power to the grid, not leaving random resources in weird places like hatches, pips or dreckos.

smog slugs are amazing for a rocket interior, just 1 wild unfed slug will suck up all your dupe's CO2 without needing any additional piping. They seem to have infinite capacity and as long as they are kept wild they don't need anything to sustain them. This stops you needing a gas pump (which is industrial so removes a precious room bonus. Also my SPOM sometimes pumps Hydrogen into my rockets by mistake and it's hell to remove as it floats (and my small rocket has the top slot used up by a orbital data collection lab) but the smog slug can fix these small leaks. Not amazing but wild plug slugs do help out a lot in 2 scenarios: 1. trying to get super sustainable achievement quickly. 2. eggs can be dropped on a new planet with some rovers to deal with making a new base without worrying how to power it as the rovers are very limited in how they can make power.

I believe 4:02 is incorrect, I've been using unhappy plug slugs (not groomed) to power my base. because they are unhappy they only eat 10% of the ore, and if you feed them they do 1600W as well (this was patched a while back)

2:42 - I'm actually surprised that the sponge slug would pump out 750kg, as that's the hard limit on how much a single pipe can take in the 75 seconds that the night lasts. The smog slugs in my tests never came even close their limit of 75 kg/cycle, although I did manage to get ~45kg in a cycle, by having it suck 2 different gasses, H2 and CO2. And this was a tiny 3x4 room, in a larger room even more time would be wasted by the slug moving into position.

these are my thoughts on the subject. in general, plug slugs are not required early on. however, they may be the only alternative to manual generators for a short term, depending on starting asteroid type. while they do consume metal ores, the amount of tamed slugs used will not be generally more than 3 or 4, when paired with manual generators. once a more resource stable system is established, they can be sent to other asteroids to serve as a power source, either temporarily or permanently. not much power is required to maintain small colonies on other asteroids. furthermore, plug slugs in general do not obstruct buildings placed in space ships, so it may be effective to use them to save space for more equipment. smog slugs and sponge slugs do not require plastic to use, which may be a problem on certain maps. this is required for the small liquid and gas pump versions. furthermore, they do not produce heat which is a problem with the pumps. smog slugs could be important in a colony where rust deoxidizers are being used. this is because saltvines hang upside down, making only farm tiles and hydroponics tiles useful, but they obstruct gas flow unlike planter pots. as for the sponge slug, the only thing that comes to mind, is for power and heat free liquid pumping on small asteroids that are only supporting a 1 to 3 duplicant colonies. one last thing to keep in mind is that you do get the same 80% reduction in metabolism when glum, so it may be effective to feed the bulk of any of these slugs without using the grooming station.

Slugs are kinda useful if you are trying to get the carnivore achievement. "Oh look! A 4000kcal BBQ pinata!"

Smog and Sponge slugs would be useful for removing liquids and gasses from an area without connecting that area to a power grid. The slugs can apparently hold an extreme amount of material, so you do not need a long pipe either. Of course they release the gas when they die, so you need to pay attention to temperature and the slug's age, and have a place to empty the slug. Plug slugs are either very early game or very late game. When you do not have better options a plug slug ranch can suffice for a while. Once you have tamed all the volcanoes, but still want more hydrogen, a creature that converts metal to hydrogen is useful.

Thanks for another amazing Bite, Fungus!

Great tutorial 👍

I found Plug Slugs useful in getting the Super Sustainable achievement, but after I got it I shut down the ranch and built more reliable power gen.

Plug slugs can be usefull if you are looking for the super sustainable achievement.

i thought that with them being able to eat refined metal they'd be more usefull since it's renewable from metal volcanoes instead of needing to mine asteroids. i never realized how much they eat since i never actually ranched them

I really like the idea of plug slugs as an early game power source. If the other two variants were actually treated the same way, they might be useful too. But that raw/refined metal diet is a killer >.

As inefficient as these big boys are, I’ve had a ton of fun building a big plug slug power plant in the early game for emissions free power (nearly bo starting water made other resources limited)

They are alright early on to generate some basic power output, but long term I just find it easier to kill them off. Too much effort on ranching them for what they give. As for variants, they seem pretty pointless.

Plugslugs are so close to being an actually insanely good. The issue, you cannot sustain them at all without multiple volcanos. They will eat through your metals super super fast and unless youre on the normal large world you probably dont have much metal. By the time you can tame volcanos you kinda dont care anymore, at that point you have tons of geothermal or a nuclear power sources. The two variants are...weird....i dont know why you'd ever willingly trade metal for mild water/gas pumping.

Is it possible that the smog slugs and sponge versions create extra gases and liquid volumes? When they die they certainly release this to the environment. However when left in the wild in an open tank, the volume of liquid seems to increase.

If you manage your base poorly and let gasses flow freely throughout, smog slugs could be useful as powerless filters with minimal setup to have lying around in a few key areas in your base. However, this is generally easily avoidable so not useful for experienced players who would actually know how to use it.

I love the idea of having "utility critters" like these, it's a real shame that they are so weak. Klei should really buff them at some point, or even give tamed critters more intelligence / functionality. Imagine if tamed Sponge Slugs actively cleaned your base and dropped the fluids at some designated point, that would be so much more interesting.

They need to increase the amount of power, gass and liquid that the slugs create/move

If left in the wild, do they eat ore from unmined metal ore tiles like Beetas do, or only mined ore left lying around?

I view these more as pests rather than helpers.

Awesome, I actually wanted to ask if you could please add to the critter tutorials

What happens if a smog slug eats all the gasses but has no pipe to release? Will they drop gas canister on death, or will they release it in a gas explosion? 🤔

I comment to help statistics

Amazing!

Any guides on slicksters?

7:31 AND gate? Shouldn't that be an Or gate ? An And gate would just make things worse won't it ?

these critters aren't useful at all, they're walking calories waiting to be consumed.

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Completely useless critters as they currently are in my opinion. I kill them on site in the wild to stop them from eating my ores.

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