Why does tutorial ship generator burn through fuel so fast?

[Foraven]

One thing I noticed right at the start of my play with this game is how inefficient the Laborer generator is; it burn at full capacity regardless of actual need for energy. Had to lower the output and eventually turn the thing off whenever I was idling as to not chew through rods at an alarming rate. However, I bought a Laborer II from the shop and that ship is extremely efficient with it's power and fuel (and much faster as well). The Laborer II don't seem to use any yolol to do that. Are the easy built ships generators bugged or there is some tweaking to do to my easy built ships so they don't waste their rods?

Edit: Oh well, seem I was mistaken, we do need yolol to get fuel economy. I just did not understand how to check what's on the chip.

 

[Chisco]

you can also manually set the generator rate by using U on the generator button. Go to Data and set it to a lower rate. 25 is a nice spot to have it if the laborer is fairly unmodified

 

[Salbris]

To add on to what Chisco is saying...

The rate the generator converts fuel into power is configurable and the value is a percentage. So when you start to add more thrusters (or other power consuming parts) you'll need to increase this more and more to ensure you can keep your battery charged. Your batteries are just a buffer. Ultimately you need generators to produce enough power to power everything on your ship.

 

[Foraven]

Thanks for the answers. I did watch a vid on how to adjust the generator rate, I just feel it should be included in the tutorial. Now i just buy the yolol chip/socket on the market for any ships I try to build, far less hassle.