Clock speed

Production and power buildings, such as the Constructor or Biomass Burner, can have their clock speed changed to anything between 1% and 250%. For production buildings, this allows them to operate slower or faster at the cost of greatly reduced or increased power usage. For power buildings, more or less power can be produced at the cost of increased or decreased fuel burn time.

Usage
Changing clock speed requires completing any of these three milestones: "Overclock Production", "Yellow Shards", or "Purple Shards". These in turn require researching any of the three colors of power slug in the M.A.M. Underclocking can be done freely, however overclocking requires Power Shards, which are crafted from slugs. Up to three power shards can be placed into a building, each allowing the clock speed to be increased by 50%. Clock speed can be changed in increments of 1% using the slider or by directly typing in a number.

Clock speed for production buildings
For production buildings, the craft time is directly proportional to the clock speed, but the power required changes exponentially. The table below shows four different clock speeds on a Constructor making something that takes 4 seconds, such as Iron Plates.



The formula for power usage is:

(power usage) = (initial power usage) × (clock speed / 100)1.6

It should be noted that production buildings use the full calculated value, and as such the rounded value listed in-game is not always accurate.

Clock speed for power buildings
For power buildings, both power capacity and burn time of the fuel are changed exponentially by clock speed, but are inversely proportional to each other. The effect of this is that the power produced per fuel item stays the same at all clock speeds. The table below shows three different clock speeds on a Coal Generator.

The formula for fuel burn time is:

(fuel burn time) = (initial fuel burn time) / (clock speed / 100)1/1.3

The formula for the multiplier to power capacity is:

(power capacity) = (initial power capacity) × (clock speed / 100)1/1.3