Summary
The Spray Coater's purpose is to apply Proliferator sprays to the items passing through it. These sprayed items receive various bonuses depending on how they are used. The Proliferators enter the spray storage of the Spray Coater through the top belt passage, while the item to be sprayed passes through the bottom belt passage.
The Spray Coater's storage holds sprays instead of Proliferator items, which get converted to sprays when entering. Each type of Proliferator gives a different amount of sprays per Proliferator item consumed, but the Spray Coater's storage capacity is always 600 sprays. If its storage is full, or the entering Proliferator is a different type than the one already stored, the entering Proliferator will simply pass through the Spray Coater.
If stacked cargo passes through the Spray Coater, the Proliferator is applied to the entire stack at once, using sprays equal to the number of items in the stack. If a stack is sprayed, the power consumption of the Spray Coater increases proportional to the stack size.
Spray Coaters can be installed directly onto a conveyor belt (even one that is in the air), or vertically stacked. The base stacking limit is 7, increased by 3 per each level of the Vertical Construction upgrade, up to a maximum of 25. It is worth noting that once 25 Spray Coaters are stacked, conveyor belts will not be able to automatically provide Proliferators to the topmost Spray Coater (as belts cannot be constructed this high); the player must manually provide the Proliferator to the 25th Spray Coater. In addition, Spray coaters will distribute power between themselves if build on top of each other, exceeding the usual maximum for power distribution height, similar to Matrix Labs.
Note that a Spray Coater will only consistently spray all passing items when the power grid is fully saturated.
Proliferators Summary
Proliferator Tier |
Number of Sprays |
Extra Products |
Production Speedup |
Energy Consumption |
---|---|---|---|---|
12 | +12.5% | +25% | +30% | |
24 | +20% | +50% | +70% | |
60 | +25% | +100% | +150% |
Proliferator Bonuses
An item sprayed with Proliferator will be marked with a small yellow triangle(s): 1 triangle for Mk.I, 2 triangles for Mk.II, and 3 triangles for Mk.III. Items that have different mark levels can be combined into a single stack, but doing so will cause the mark level for the entire stack to average out.
Items sprayed with Proliferator will receive various bonuses, depending on the type of activity they are involved in. The bonus amount depends on what tier of Proliferator was used.
If the items are used to fabricate something either Production Speedup bonus or Extra Products bonus can be selected in the production facility. This also applies an energy consumption penalty to the building that processes the sprayed item.
Activity | Bonuses | Energy Penalty | |
---|---|---|---|
Production | Any production building (except the Fractionator, see below) can have either the Production Speedup or Extra Products bonus if ALL the recipe ingredients have had the same tier of Proliferator applied to them. The bonus can be selected via a toggle Menu by the player (the default is Extra Products). If any one of the ingredients has a lower-tier mark, that lowest bonus is the one that will be applied. If any of the ingredients has no mark, then no bonus is applied.
The production of Antimatter, Antimatter Fuel Rod, the X-Ray Cracking recipe, and recipes that use other buildings as material (such as Mk.II and Mk.III Conveyor Belts, Sorters or Assembling Machines) cannot receive the Extra Products bonus. Production of these can only benefit from the Production Speedup bonus. The Production Speedup bonus is multiplicative with bonuses on the building's crafting speed. For example, applying Proliferator Mk.III to all ingredients will result in a final crafting speed of 3x the base amount when used by an Assembling Machine Mk.III (+100% to the Assembly Machine Mk.III's 1.5x crafting speed). |
Yes | |
Research | When used in research, sprayed Matrices produce bonus hashes according to the Proliferator's Extra Products bonus. | Yes | |
Fractionation | Proliferated Hydrogen will increase the Fractionator's conversion rate by the Proliferator's Production Speedup bonus. For example, a Proliferator Mk.III will yield a 2% conversion rate (+100% compared to the base 1%).
Note that passing through the Fractionator does not remove the Proliferator mark from the Hydrogen, unless it gets converted. |
Yes | |
Dyson Sphere Construction | Proliferated Solar Sails and Small Carrier Rockets will increase the launching speed in an EM-Rail Ejector or Vertical Launching Silo by the Production Speedup bonus. For instance, launching a Solar Sail sprayed with Proliferator Mk.III will be 100% faster than normal. | Yes | |
Proliferators | Spraying the Proliferator itself gives more sprays in the Spray Coater, increased by the amount of Extra Products bonus. This is always worthwhile, creating extra Proliferator sprays out of effectively nothing. | No | |
Foundation | Proliferated Foundation gets the Extra Products bonus: placing Foundation gives more Soil Pile when lowering terrain, or costs less soil pile when raising terrain. | No | |
Power Generation (Dyson Sphere) |
Proliferated Graviton Lenses increase the Ray Receiver's maximum power collection rate by the Proliferator's Production Speedup bonus. This applies to both Power Generation and Photon Generation modes.
The Proliferator bonus is multiplicative with the innate bonus of the Lens; therefore, using a Lens sprayed with the Proliferator Mk.III would result in 400% of the baseline generation (+100% to the Graviton Lens's 2x bonus). |
No | |
Power Generation (Generic Fuel) |
Proliferated Fuel (except Antimatter Fuel Rods, Strange Annihilation Fuel Rods and Full Accumulators) increase both the fuel's energy capacity and the generator's power output by the Proliferator's Extra Products bonus.
When burning sprayed Fuel in the Mecha's Fuel Chamber, the Extra Products bonus applies to the Fuel Chamber Generation rate. The bonus is multiplicative with the Fuel's native Fuel Chamber Generation bonus. For example, Energetic Graphite sprayed with Proliferator Mk.III will have 187.5% the normal power output (150% × 1.25). |
No | |
Power Generation (Antimatter) |
Proliferated Antimatter Fuel Rods and Strange Annihilation Fuel Rods only increase the Artificial Star's power output, but by the amount of the Proliferator's Production Speedup bonus. It does not alter the Fuel Rod's energy capacity, resulting in a faster burn rate.
When burnt in the Mecha's Fuel Chamber, the Proliferator's Production Speedup bonus applies to the Fuel Chamber Generation rate instead. It is multiplicative to the innate bonus, thus resulting in 1200% and 2300% Fuel Chamber Generation, respectively. |
No | |
Full Accumulator | Similar to Antimatter Fuel Rods, Full Accumulators get their Fuel Chamber Generation rate affected by the Proliferator's Production Speedup bonus when used in the Mecha's Fuel Chamber.
Emptied Accumulator retains its Proliferator marks when returned to Icarus' inventory. Accumulator's abilities to store and transfer power when placed as a building are unaffected by the Proliferator bonuses. |
No | |
Energy Exchanger | Energy Exchanger's charge and discharge rate gets increased by the Proliferator's Production Speedup bonus applied to the input empty or Full Accumulator.
Output Accumulators retain their Proliferator marks in Energy Exchanger's either operational mode. |
No | |
Ammunition | Proliferated ammunition will increase the number of shots per item by the Extra Products bonus. | No | |
Jamming | Proliferated Capsules will increase the number of enemies that can be affected by the Jammer Tower per item by the Extra Products bonus. | No |
Production Chain
Recipe | Building | Replicator? | Technology |
---|---|---|---|
✔ |
Player Tips & Tricks
While Production Speedup may be a more enticing bonus at a glance than Extra Products, each option has its own pros and cons that players should consider thoroughly. Assume that Proliferator Mk.III is used for each of the following examples:
- Regardless of which bonus is selected, the energy penalty remains the same: +150% with Proliferator Mk.III.
- Production Speedup reduces the overall size of the factory by cutting down on the number of individual facilities, giving a +100% increase in production rate (effectively packing 2 facilities into one). The overall energy consumption per unit is 25% higher than normal (2.5 energy / 2.00 products = 1.25 energy per product).
- As a result, Production Speedup is generally more useful when the required materials are abundant, or the manufacturing process is particularly slow.
- Keep in mind that Production Speedup requires accordingly more raw materials. If the overall production rate is too high, more logistical infrastructure will be necessary to keep the facilities running. This is especially true when a process is already extremely fast (e.g. manufacturing Proliferator Mk.I). Applying the Production Speedup bonus may make it impossible to actually get all the items in and out of the facility as fast as they are produced, particularly when using Assembling Machines Mk.III.
- For instance, an Assembling Machine Mk.III producing Proliferator Mk.I with the Production Speedup bonus will consume 6 Coal per second and produce 3 Proliferator Mk.I per second. This situation is easily handled for a single facility (since Sorters Mk.III transport up to 6 items per second and Conveyor Belts Mk.III transport 30 items per second), but when the number of facilities increases, bringing them their input and removing the output fast enough becomes surprisingly difficult.
- Extra Products requires much more energy per unit (2.50 energy / 1.25 products = 2.00 energy per product), but consumes only 80% as much raw material per product (1.00 material / 1.25 products = 0.8 material per product).
- The Extra Products bonus is also useful if the production in question has multiple stages or many inputs that make it difficult to apply Proliferator to every single item involved. In such a situation, applying the Extra Products bonus to only the final stage of production is a simple way to guarantee a bit more value from the facility, without having to set up complicated Proliferator logistics.
When using the Production Speedup bonus, pay close attention to if the facility experiences any downtime. If the facility spends too much time idling, using the Extra Products bonus would produce the same number of products in the same amount of time (albeit while consuming more energy). Assuming that Proliferator Mk.III is used, any facility set to Production Speedup that has an uptime of less than 62.5% should instead be set to Extra Products, unless the extra energy consumption is an issue. This can be found by solving for [uptime] in this equation: (1.25 products * 100% uptime) / (2.00 products * [uptime]) > 1.
In summary: Production Speedup might seem more useful in general, but becomes less beneficial if the facility has too much downtime, if the materials are difficult to acquire and/or transport, or if setting up infrastructure to deliver the Proliferator is complicated. Extra Products produces less product and requires more energy, but is more efficient with the materials and is simpler to use overall. The general consense is to use Extra Products, specially for rarer materials.