How to Unlock Water Wheels
You can scan water wheels in the river located to the north of Terminal Victor. Once scanned, you can unlock water wheels in the tech tree for 180 purple research points. It requires level 2 of Terminal Victor to be unlocked.
How They Work
You can place water wheels in any body of water. Once placed, one water wheel will turn up to 2 Mark 1 Cranks or two water wheels will turn a singular Mark 2 crank.
If you add more cranks without adding additional water wheels, you will not generate additional power. If you keep adding cranks to one water wheel, it will actually start generating a slightly lower amount of power than cycle back up as you add more. You must add more water wheels before connecting more cranks.
Detailed Breakdown of Numbers
Water wheels take 5 iron frames, 20 mechanical components, and 20 electrical components to build, with a hand craft time of 45 seconds. For the raw material cost, it will take 26 copper ingots and 57 iron ingots with a hand craft time of 149.5 seconds. If you have craft speed IV unlocked, it will take 9 seconds and 29.9 seconds respectively.
Water wheels will generate 300kW per wheel when using mark 1 cranks and 400kw per wheel when using mark 2 cranks. Mark 2 cranks may be worth it for some since they take up less space and you generate more power per water wheel.
As for power consumption of Mark 2 modules, the assembler consumes 300kW, the mining drill consumes 900kW, and the thresher consumes 1200kW. They require 1 water wheel and 2 mark 1 cranks, 3 water wheels and 6 mark 1 cranks, and 4 water wheels and 8 mark 1 cranks respectively. In terms of mark 2 cranks, it would be 1 water wheel and 1 mark 2 crank, 4 water wheels and 2 mark 2 cranks, and 4 water wheels and 2 mark 2 cranks respectively. These are all base numbers and does not take into account Power Amp IV as well as the upgrades that reduce module power usage. This should give you a rough estimate of how many water wheels and cranks you would need for your base.
As a side note, water wheel production can be automated in the assembler, as well as threshed for 3 iron frames and 9 electrical components. Hope this helps! If you have any more questions, please feel free to leave a comment or refer to the YouTube video guide embedded at the top of this article.
Ducky Obrien 