Power

Romancing the Toaster is not intended to be a survival game. As such, players do not generally need to worry about their character’s personal battery life or fuel supplies (unless they have taken or acquire the Low Battery Quirk). It can be assumed that they have ready access to the island’s power grid or fuel reserves, and have all they need to survive and function on a daily basis.

The future is an uncertain thing, however, and in order for robotkind as a whole to survive, existing power supplies must be maintained. This page details the current state of fuel and power supplies on the island.

Housed deep inside the mountain on the north side of the island and maintained by the Reactor Corps, the Ticker is the primary source of electrical power for the megastructure: the beating heart of the city. Beyond that, few outside of the Corps know anything of its operation – but as long as the power keeps flowing, many machines are content to leave the Corps to it.

What is known, by those who are curious, is that it was one of the earliest major engineering efforts conducted by robotkind. It was initiated around Cycle 897 and overseen by Midas, the head of the Reactor Corps. It is also true that if you hold your auditory sensors to the ground, you can hear the heartbeat of the mountain…

Some robots do not run on electricity entirely, and for them the next most common fuel is biodiesel made from fermented plant matter. It can also be used to supplement the grid via old generators, and some robots have accrued a personal stockpile in case the grid should ever fail.

The biofuel processor is currently locked in a dispute with the cereal factory about the use of land in island sector B10.

Aside from the Ticker and biofuel reactors, the power grid is supplemented by a variety of other sources. The following is not an exhaustive list, but demonstrates a few of the larger contributors:

• Wind Power: An array of wind turbines atop the skydock supplement grid power and supply the machines who work and dock there.
• Solar Power: Predominantly used by the Solar Sailors, solar power is also convenient for keeping a mobile robot’s batteries topped up while away from the grid – though of course, it doesn’t work at all underground or deep underwater. It is also the primary power source for satellites.
• Nuclear Power: Though no known functional facilities remain on land, a stuttering old nuclear reactor still supplies power to Laver and the undersea robot community.