*Checked on 21 October 2026 against Update 6.0 (build 0.10.0.653173), for The Last Caretaker. Forum dates are UTC.

Short answer. Three players (Enorats, Rickenbacker and BeamMeUpScotty) say the sockets on the Lazarus walls only pass power through the wall and do not supply it [S5][S6]. Casey_HZD wrote, about a later save, "I had no issue just plugging in via wall sockets" [S5]. Bring your own power down from the roof or the balcony, or build a petrol generator next to the tanks [S5]. A pump only gives salt water, so it has to feed a powered, switched-on purifier, and the fresh water needs somewhere to go [S7][S8]. Channel37's support page adds one more cause: a rack also says "No Power" when it has no fresh water supply [S1].

Why the racks have no power: the wall sockets

Levnekaethian (9 November 2025) reacted first: "The WHOLE facility has power but the outlets don't work?" [S5] Three players explained it, two of them in a second thread:

  • Enorats (11 November 2025): "They're not outlets, they're simply meant to allow you to pass power through a wall." On a wall with two plugs side by side, they wrote, "Plugging power into one does not make both on the other side of the wall work. You have to plug power into both of them to do that." [S5]
  • Rickenbacker (21 December 2025): "The power sockets by the doors are just passthroughs. You have to physically run power lines where you want them, and should always throw in a few batteries to even out the load" [S6]
  • BeamMeUpScotty (21 December 2025): "sockets on the wall don't have power, they're just passthrough from one side of the wall to the other side, alternative of putting a cable through the door." [S6]

This looks consistent with what Channel37 says about the buildable version added in Update 5.0: "Wall Transfer Sockets allow resources to move through walls, making base layouts and system planning more flexible." [S3] One player disagrees: Casey_HZD (13 December 2025) wrote that on a later save "I had no issue just plugging in via wall sockets" once everything on the roof was connected [S5]. Nomadic (9 September 2026) wrote only "wall sockets are your friend", without detail [S5]. No other post in the two threads reports that plugging into the sockets worked.

Getting power down to the racks

The balcony is closer than the roof. Mayhem on KICK (9 November 2025): from the main hall control room, "Go up those stairs, through the room out on to a balcony. There are solar panels and wind turbines out there that need repaired." [S5]

Run cable from the roof with extenders. Garath (9 November 2025): "You can put the extenders on the wall and just run it down the wall beside the elevator, rather than going down the stairwell." [S5] Geoff (13 November 2025): "I just dropped cable down from the roof via the ladders, adding a joiner to the wall every 20m, took about 4 joiners and 6 cables." [S5] languna2000 (22 December 2025) described the method: "grab cord climb down till it says 20m then place one on wall and repeat" [S6].

Stop the elevator part-way. Target (9 September 2026): "run the elevator down a bit and hit the stop button. this will allow you to make extensions all the way from the roof to the bottom." [S5]

Build a petrol generator instead. huw (9 November 2025): "I just built a petrol powered generator next to the Lazarus tanks." [S5] M6Hurricane (9 November 2025) adds that "there's an island that's pretty close that has tanks of fuel" [S5]. Fuel production is on the fuel and gas page.

Keep the racks on their own line. Tim says of the first turbines that their power did not reach the building: "I needed a separate line." [12:14] [S11] Tim sets one battery in the chain to input-only [8:43], so that when the other batteries are drained they cannot draw from the two equalized batteries that run the Lazarus racks [8:47]-[9:17] [S11]. Tim avoids the elevator so as not to "risk draining ... batteries to the Lazarus rack" [11:48] [S11]. That is one player's setup.

Elevators that stop or will not move

Turn the building on. sinrise (12 November 2025): "You have to plug in the main power on the roof to the little pedestal in the room with the recycler and fabricator and flip the switch next to it." [S5] Ferigad (12 November 2025) gives a general rule: "always find the room with the main breaker switch to switch on power - It useally powers the light and it powers all elevators." [S5]

Official reset. Channel37's support page lists a "Known bug: both vertical elevators and horizontal platforms can become unresponsive" [S1]. The fix: "At the circuit breaker for the location, unplug the power and switch off, reconnect the power and switch on" [S1]. If that fails, close and relaunch, or recover an earlier auto-save [S1].

It moves and then stops. The support page: "Your power setup is not providing enough power for the lift to operate. Generate more power or use the medium battery as storage/buffer" [S1]. Delle(DK) (21 December 2025): "avoid using the big elevator it uses allot of power. I recommend to build at least 1 medium battery" [S6]. Irish88 (21 December 2025): "When your power runs out all the lifts and stuff stop" [S6].

Channel37's support rows for power

From the official support page:

ProblemOfficial fix
A building shows as unpowered although the setup works"Disconnect power, save the game, close and relaunch, then reconnect power" [S1]
Two cables on one port of a connector"Check if two cables are connected to the same port on a connector. If so, remove one end by pressing E, remove the other by left-clicking, then use Q to reel in the cable." [S1]
Not enough power generated"verify connections are correct, ensure you're generating enough power and check that power flow direction is correct on all connections" [S1]
A Lazarus rack says No PowerThe page says the "No Power" message can also appear when the Lazarus rack has no fresh water supply [S1]
A cable glitches"For cables: Remove/reel in and replace the cables" [S1]

The page header still reads "Last updated: 8 September 2026" [S1]. A copy of the same page captured before 21 October 2026 shows that date too, but lacks the rows for two cables on one port, for an elevator that moves briefly, and for the No Power rack message [S2].

Water: the chain, step by step

  1. Repair the pumps. Enkyo (30 June 2026): "I realised i needed to repair the units" [S8]. Tim says the same in a video [1:24] [S11].
  2. The pump gives salt water. [UA]Ramiel (18 November 2025): "that pump provides salt water. You need water purifier to turn it into a clean water that can be stored in water tank." [S7] Kuzako (17 July 2026): "Salt water cannot be stored directly from pumps, it must go through a purifier then storage." [S7]
  3. Power the purifier. CampfireJay (1 April 2026): "I came here to find out what I needed to do and then realized I didn't plug electricity to my water purifier." [S7] Bill Zidis (20 September 2026) lost about an hour the same way: "I didn't realised the purifier needs Electricity !" [S7]
  4. Switch everything on. NorionV (19 November 2025): "If you plugged your water into a rack, you have to flip the switch on the rack, the purifier, and the pump." [S7]
  5. Check which port is which. grabsomebud (2 February 2026): "The desalination plant has two water inlets—saltwater and freshwater—with the saltwater inlet lower than the freshwater outlet." [S7] Doctor Whom (18 November 2025): "Make sure you've got the right output, I had the intake and output reversed." [S7] Since Update 6.0, sockets show "which resource they use and which way it flows" while you place a module [S4].
  6. Give the water somewhere to go. Sad Cat Is In San Francisco! (7 December 2025): "are you sure you have a sink in the system? If the pod isn't drawing water, then nothing will flow." [S8] Squid (22 July 2026): "the systems in this game only turn on when they have a demand. Water won't pump unless it has something that needs it." [S7]
  7. Still dry? Re-lay the lines and reload. Sad Cat (7 December 2025): "sometimes you get "ghost" or "duplicate" lines that interrupt the flow, so you have to reel in what you've deployed and redeploy." [S8] Chrius (7 December 2025): "Try saving and reloading, I've had similar issues when using a ton of cables and reloading usually fixed it for me." [S8]

Two harder cases:

  • Chained tanks on Equalize. Dirk Swizzler shows four pumps and 16 purifiers running with no fresh water: "Using 155 kW right now to do nothing." [2:06] [S12] Dirk Swizzler says the cause is not fully worked out [2:15] [S12]. Setting the chained tanks to one direction cleared it [2:35] [S12]. The advice is "just don't equalize all your tanks in serial" and to put a junction box on each tank [4:05] [S12].
  • Lazarus pumps that still gave nothing for one player. Timber (17 March 2026) repaired the Lazarus pumps, added medium batteries and purifiers, and still got nothing to the pod: "I ended up running a line in from the ship's pump and that worked fine." [S8]

The same chain feeds the Update 6.0 boiler; see the heating page.

How many pumps and purifiers?

Players disagree:

ClaimWho
Pump draws 10 kW, purifier 8 kWgrabsomebud, 2 February 2026 [S7]
Pump draws "5.6 kW (scales)", outputs "Salt Water: 20,000 L" (no time unit)wiki copy captured before today [S13]
A pump "produces 30,000 lers of water per hour" (auto-caption wording), purifier 10,000 L per hourDD365 video, [14:31] [S14]
"one pump can supply three desalination plants"grabsomebud, 2 February 2026 [S7]
"four seawater pumps in Lazarus complex hooked up to 16 purifiers"; each pump "can supply about four"Dirk Swizzler video, [0:08] [S12]
"A single pump can easily supply 40,000 L/h, and each water purifier uses 10,000 L/h. This means that a pump can supply 4 purifiers."Crescens, 8 April 2026, before Update 3.5 [S19]
"Water pump has 36k capacity, water purifier has 10k input and output, so you can have 7 water purifiers for 2 water pumps"Wasntme, 15 October 2026, Update 6.0 public beta, about steam boilers in North Bastion, not Lazarus. Monty replied the same day that two purifiers gave only 10k combined and the game may have had issues [S15]
"I have one pump, one purifier and one tank, that was enough for all my humans to grow."Gecko-[GER], 22 July 2026 [S7]
"four main pumps, but only space for ... three purifiers" at LazarusTHEGAMINGTECH video, [11:58] [S16]

One player, Gecko-[GER] (22 July 2026), reports that one pump, one purifier and one tank were enough to grow all their humans [S7].

Cable limits and dropped connections

  • Long chains. Robert (14 October 2026, Update 6.0 public beta) wrote: "After a while, some number more than 20 extensions, they stop passing electric/steam/water." [S18] The workaround posted is a tank for water, a medium battery for power, or a new extractor for steam [S18]. Belle (14 October 2026, Update 6.0 public beta) wrote earlier that day, replying to an earlier post by Robert about laying pipe: "I don't think the game calculates pressure as a factor on how far you can pump liquids." [S18] The two posts point different ways.
  • Disconnects after loading. Channel37 has worked on this before. February 2026: "Wait for the location to load before polling cable connections fully (should resolve most cable disconnection issues)." [S9] Channel37's patch notes of 21 March 2026: "Fixed cables becoming disconnected when areas were unloaded." [S10] Update 6.0 lists "Fixed cables stretching and the cable transfer visuals." and, from RC8, "Fixed cables sometimes failing to connect to modules." [S4]
  • Grid scanner. Update 6.0: "the grid scanner shows hidden connections and groups more clearly" [S4].

Other Update 6.0 changes that touch your grid

  • "Fixed the fabricator draining power when it does not have the required parts." [S4]
  • After a long stay inside North Bastion's main building, Thiesen (21 October 2026) found "the power doesn't flow correctly... only if I go outside a bit then the solapanels and Batteries kick into action again..." [S17] One report so far.
  • Percentage balancing between batteries and tanks, faster catch-up while you are away, half solar output during catch-up and wind turbines no longer working in water are listed with the player reactions on the update history page.

Powering Exodus Station for a launch is a separate problem; see the rocket launch page.

Sources and version

Checked on 2026-10-21 against Update 6.0 (build 0.10.0.653173)