Proliferator Mk.III

Proliferator Mk.III is the highest-tier Proliferator and a consumable applied by the Spray Coater. When sprayed onto items on conveyor belts, it can grant either extra products or a production speedup when those items are used as raw materials in the next production step, at the cost of increased power consumption.

A full stack provides 60 sprays. Its basic effects are +25.0% extra products, +100.0% production speedup, and +150.0% energy consumption. Compared with the lower-tier versions, it offers more spray applications per stack, making it denser and easier to transport, but its recipe is also more demanding and requires Carbon Nanotube. It is the most expensive version to power in the final machine.

Because the power penalty is so large, careless use can strain even advanced power systems. In practical production, it is best reserved for downstream processes and for items that are frequently bottlenecked or especially valuable. Early and midgame factories often cannot spare the raw materials needed to mass-produce it, since Carbon nanotube supply can remain tight until Fire Ice-based production is established.

• If all raw materials in a recipe have Proliferator points, the recipe can receive either the extra-products effect or the production-speedup effect.
• Mk.III is more resource-dense than lower tiers, so it is easier to move and store in bulk.
• When power is plentiful, especially in late-game Dyson Sphere builds, Mk.III becomes attractive for compact high-output production lines because factory footprint becomes more valuable than material efficiency.
• Its main drawback is the high energy demand from spraying, so it should be applied selectively rather than to every production chain by default.