Axum BioGenerator for power + culture

I’d like to see Axum bacterial culture used in more recipes down the line, and in order to do so there will need to be an additional source of Axum culture. (I’m finding 5 metal farms to be about the right number for me.) It occurred to me that a bacterial culture would go nicely hand-in-hand with a bioreactor.

What I’m proposing is an Axum-based modification of the bioreactor recipe I’m calling an Axum BioGenerator for now. The recipe would include Axum culture and could also include an Axum ingot and maybe enamel or something else interesting as well. It’s role would be a combination of replacement for the bioreactor and slowly producing additional culture as well. I would also like it to help make bioblocks more useful/desirable.

I’d propose that it only be fueled by bioblocks (or maybe even a new type of bioblock recipe). It would need to have higher power output than the bioreactor to be worth considering for power purposes - I was thinking an output of 20 or 30 depending on how much fuel is required to run it. Instead of having an overdrive mode and completing its cycle sooner, an “ultra efficiency” mode could more efficiently produce energy (higher output and longer duration) at the drawback of producing the culture more slowly. (The culture is metabolizing more of the feedstock toward producing electricity rather than boosting its own growth.)

If fueled by regular bioblocks, I would think that two blocks giving an output of 30 in the same hour duration that a single block burns in a bioreactor would be an appropriate level (or more blocks outputing +15 power each if it’s felt that stronger power generation would be beneficial to the game). That’s like having two bioreactors (or more) running midway between normal and overdrive without speeding up consumption. At the end of that hour, all the involved the bioblocks will have been converted into one new Axum culture. Like the bioreactor, it would have an off switch (so glad that was implemented), but that would of course delay when you get your culture.

For the databank entry, the principles could be that the culture organisms are able to function as both the catalysts for the organics similar to bioreactor nanomachines, as well as micro-fuel cells to produce electricity from the metabolic process.

I think that this type of device would provide new culture at a slow enough rate (1/3 that of the slowest metal farm seed) that it wouldn’t break the Axum bacterial culture dynamics. I think that this higher output generator would be a lot more viable than the earlier bioreactor which can barely power the lights in one of my rooms by itself. I can even see the ultra-efficiency mode being used as default by those with more interest in power production than more culture. And with the low utility of bioreactors in the face of heat and turbine power (large base footprint and lower output in normal mode), it would provide a notable improvement in the usefulness of bioblocks besides allowing a creative way to eat crab poo.