Circuits
Circuits are an essential assembled component in NTM that are used a vast array of machines, items, tools, and more. Each successive tier of circuit will require more complex and a greater amount of resources in order to craft, necessitating an increasing quantity of available resources to meet their new costs. As well as this, certain machines will require circuits in very large quantities, encouraging the automation of certain types.
Production
Note. Soldering Station recipes are position sensitive and will not work if components are placed in the improper place.
Circuit production is contained nearly entirely in the Soldering Station except for the most basic of circuits. This machine behaves very similarly to the arc welder and consumes a moderate to a large amount of power in order to craft the circuit. As well as this, the soldering station accepts fluid inputs as some circuits require acid to produce.
In general, circuit recipes are based upon being made of common components in varying ratios with the inclusion of certain small extra items to act as progression gating and encourage automation of external systems, such as plastic in the Versatile Chipset and Rubber in the Military Grade Circuit.
Common Components
PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards), capacitors, microchips, and lead wires are components that are shared between many circuit recipes and as such are usually worth automating separately. Some of these components are used in other machines or tools but their primary use is in circuit manufacturing.
Vacuum Tube (Tier 1 Circuit)
Though not technically a circuit, it fills a similar role to all other circuits as an early game electronic component that is not dependent on complex infrastructure to assemble. Used in crafting essential components like the assembly machine, oil refineries, centrifuges, and even the soldering station itself.
Vacuum tubes can additionally be harvested from recycling IBM PCs and satellite dishes found at abandoned buildings scattered around the world.
Analog Circuit (Tier 2 Circuit)
The first true circuit board, establishing the general form of all successive circuit recipes (lead wire, common components like capacitors and PCBs) minus the inclusion of the tier of circuit below it (vacuum tubes) as no other later circuits necessitate circuits from the previous tier to craft. Used in crafting certain essential machines and tools such as the oil deposit detector, chemical plant, and the arc furnace which is necessary to create components needed by later tiers of circuit board.
Integrated Circuit Board (Tier 3 Circuit)
The first circuit board to require silicon which requires an arc furnace in order to create. Used extensively in mid game machines, automation devices, missiles, and various small tools such as the geiger counter.
Military Grade Circuit Board (Tier 4 Circuit)
The first circuit board to include a liquid (sulfuric acid) in its recipe along with rubber, necessitating the automation of more complex oil and chemical setups in order to fully automate this circuit. Used the most out of all other circuits with recipes across particle accelerator components, nuclear warheads, advanced reactor components, and more.
1,000mB
Versatile Chipset (Tier 5 Circuit)
The final tier of circuit board, requiring bismuth as well as hard plastic which necessitates a post-bismuth oil refinery. As well as this, it is by far the most expensive circuit board, requiring nearly 55 insulators to craft a single chip. Used rarely but in small amounts in advanced machines like the fusion reactor and hydrotreater and in large amounts in components for the inertial confinement fusion reactor.
1,000mB
Other Circuits
Capacitor Board
A circuit board only used in four high tier items with the most important being the tectonic warhead and overdrive upgrade.
250mB
Notes
- Originally, each circuit required the previous circuit tier in order to assemble, resulting in a rapidly accumulating web of materials that would be necessary for full automation. As such, they were substantially reworked in release
1.0.27_X4977to make full scale automation simpler and to concentrate material requirements into smaller categories. - The correspondence of existing circuits to their previous tiers is as follows
- Basic Circuit -> Vacuum Tube
- Enhanced Circuit -> Analog Circuit
- Advanced Circuit -> Integrated Circuit Board
- Overclocked Circuit -> Military Grade Circuit Board
- High Performance Circuit -> Versatile Circuit Board
Trivia
- Acid is a commonly used component in real life circuit manufacturing to embed complex metallic patterns in a material from a template.
- The progression from vacuum tubes to microchips is also a realistic component of real life circuits with most early computers using vacuum tubes for performing digital logic.