Power Extenders

Power Extenders are portable electrical routing items used to extend and control the direction of power transfer in a base or field setup. They can be carried in a Backpack widget slot or placed on the ground, and they are especially useful when a player needs to guide power through a specific path instead of letting it spread freely through connected cables.

To use a Power Extender from the Backpack, it must be in the widget slot. Interacting with it will drop it beside the player. If the player is holding a cable, interacting while aiming at the cable’s end will place the extender directly at the end of that cable and connect it automatically, without needing to attach it manually. A Power Extender can also be taken from a pack on the ground by interacting with the pack, which pops out one extender that can then be moved into position.

Placed extenders can be repositioned after placement, but if the distance to the connected object becomes too long, the connection will break. By default, power moves through extenders in only one direction. Power enters the extender from the side where a cable is connected and exits from the side where another cable is pulled from. When set up correctly, yellow arrows travel along the cable line to show the current direction of power flow.

This one-way behavior makes Power Extenders valuable for power management. They can be used to direct a base’s power priority, forcing electricity toward the part of the network that should receive it first. They are also useful when building automatic backup generators, since the extender can prevent the backup generator from feeding power back into a power sensor.

If the direction of the line needs to change, unplugging an extender anywhere in the chain and plugging it back in facing the opposite way will reverse the direction for the entire line. The one-way function can also be toggled by interacting with the extender. The same directional behavior is built into the Power Switch as well, making both items useful for controlling how power moves through a grid.