Some machines in The Planet Crafter are essential to continuing the game. Drills and heaters give you air pressure and heat, solar panels and nuclear reactors give you power, and so on. Machine optimizers don't perform an essential function like that, but they can make all these other machines more effective.
Like the name says, a machine optimizer can boost the productivity of other devices: heaters can produce more heat, drills can produce more pressure, ore extractors can work faster, and power plants can produce more power. The only problem is that these optimizers need special fuses to work, and you'll need to know where in The Planet Crafter to look to find them.
The Planet Crafter: How to Deconstruct
The first thing a planet crafter needs to learn is how to construct items and buildings. But the second thing they must learn is how to deconstruct.
How to Unlock Machine Optimizers in The Planet Crafter
The Planet Crafter features two machine optimizers. The first version unlocks relatively early into terraformation, at 70 MTi, and the second one unlocks when you reach 1.85 mK.
Both optimizers have the same basic effect, but the T2 model is better in a number of ways:
Resource Cost | Power Cost | Perimeter | Machine Capacity | Fuse Capacity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Machine Optimizer | 2 Explosive Powder, 1 Uranium Rod, 2 Iron, 1 Cobalt | 50 kW | 60 m | 5 Machines | 1 Fuse |
T2 Machine Optimizer | 2 Explosive Powder, 1 Uranium Rod, 3 Obsidian | 150 kW | 75 m | 8 Machines | 3 Fuses |
How to Use a Machine Optimizer in The Planet Crafter
Machine Optimizers won't do a thing if you don't put a fuse inside it (see below to learn how to get fuses). Once an optimizer has a fuse, it can boost a specific type of machine's output, based on the type of fuse you add.
For instance, say you build five T2 Heaters and place a Machine Optimizer next to them. Each T2 Heater generates 4.5 heat per second on its own, so five gives you 22.5 heat. If you then place a Heat Multiplier Fuse in the Machine Optimizer, this will boost the heat generated by five nearby machines by 500 percent. This boost adds to the existing total, so your heat generation will go up to 135 per second.
You can boost this effect even further with more machine optimizers and more fuses. A second Heat Multiplier Fuse added to the setup above will increase heat production by another five times, or 112.5 heat per second for a total of 247.5. Note that the multiplier added by Asteroid Attraction Rockets applies separately to this boosted total.
Machine Optimizers follow a few rules regarding which machines they affect:
- If an optimizer could affect more than one type of machine, it'll choose the one that produces the highest number. So an optimizer with an Energy Multiplier Fuse will target every nearby Nuclear Fusion Generator first, then any T2 Nuclear Reactors, then any T1 Nuclear Reactors, and so on.
- If several identical machines are in the optimizer's radius, it'll choose the nearest ones first.
- The T2 Machine Optimizer can hold up to three fuses, and each fuse can affect up to eight machines. So if you place one T2 Machine Optimizer between eight drills, eight heaters, and eight outdoor farms, and you give the optimizer one Heat, Pressure, and Plants fuse, the optimizer will affect all 24 machines.
- You can see which machines an optimizer is affecting by getting close enough to it to see its stats. While the stats are on the screen, all affected machines will glow green and arrows will point down at them.
- Multiple optimizers can affect the same set of machines. If you set two T2 Machine Optimizers next to eight Nuclear Fusion Generators and install six Energy Multiplier Fuses, they'll end up generating 106,920 kW (11,880 kW times nine).
The Planet Crafter: How to Get Pulsar Quartz
Pulsar quartz is the rarest mineral in the game and used for top-tier items. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to find and craft this material.
How to Get Fuses in The Planet Crafter
Machine optimizers are easy to get, but fuses aren't. Fuses can randomly spawn in crates, but mostly they appear in shipwrecks and hidden bunkers. They're particularly likely to appear in the safes you can find in the rooms locked behind Fusion Energy Cell doors.
The Space Trader sells most fuse types, but they can be expensive:
Fuse Type | Cost (in Terra Tokens) | Effect |
|---|---|---|
Pressure | 2,500 | 500% Pressure Multiplier |
Heat | 2,500 | 500% Heat Multiplier |
Plant | 2,500 | |
Oxygen | 2,500 | 500% Oxygen Multiplier |
Production | 5,000 | Faster Item Generation |
Energy | 6,000 | 150% Power Multiplier |
Trade Rocket | Not For Sale | Reduces the Trade Rocket return time by about 10% |
Something to note is that the Production Multiplier Fuse specifically works on machines that generate new resources and hold them in an inventory. This means a Production Optimizer will work on beehives, water life collectors, and gas extractors, but not on food growers, outdoor farms, or algae generators.
The Trade Rocket Multiplier Fuse doesn't appear in the Space Trader's shop. The only way to get one is to find it, usually by reaching the secure room of a procedural wreck with 5 rarity.
The Planet Crafter
- Platform(s)
- PC
- Released
- April 10, 2024
- Developer(s)
- Miju Games
- Genre(s)
- Open-World , Survival
- How Long To Beat
- 19 Hours
