Power overlay: the base goes grey, only the wiring stays yellow

About this game

Developer: Klei Entertainment · Publisher: Klei Entertainment · Platform: PC (Steam) · Art style: Comic & cartoon · Screen type: City & Base Management

More Oxygen Not Included screens in the Gallery

What to study

Oxygen Not Included's overlays solve the colony sim's hardest problem, most of what matters is invisible, by subtraction: switch to the Power overlay and the entire base is flattened to grey, a faint tile grid fades in, and the only saturated colour left in the frame is the wiring itself, drawn as chunky yellow twisted cable with plug glyphs where runs terminate. The circuit's shape becomes the picture: a trunk line along the ceiling, right-angle drops to the apothecary and research machines, a detour around the ladder shaft. Nothing is labelled and nothing needs to be, load, routing and reach are read straight off the geometry, and the duplicants waiting underneath are grey ghosts because, for the question this view answers, people are scenery. Frame at about 0:21 in the Launch Trailer (Steam), manually extracted at 20.5s: the scene-change pass emitted no frame for this overlay (it fades in over a static room view).

Patterns

How the screen is arranged.

data-overlay map-overlay

Components

Parts on screen.

Grid

Screen inventory

• whole base desaturated to flat greys with a faint blue tile grid laid over it, so only the selected system carries colour
• electrical wiring drawn as bright yellow twisted-cable runs: a horizontal trunk at ceiling level with right-angle drops to each consumer
• plug/socket glyphs where a wire run terminates at a building (top centre, bottom left)
• the wire route detouring around the ladder shaft and threading the apothecary shelf and research-station room
• buildings and duplicants reduced to grey silhouettes (a critter/skill machine housing a sleeping duplicant up top, apothecary bottles, paper stacks, two idle duplicants at the foot)
• one small electrical spark crawling the right-hand wire run, the only animated tell in an otherwise frozen diagnostic view

Top 3 colors

#3a3a37 25%#2c2c29 20%#42413f 17%

Top three palette colors by share. The remaining colors make up the rest.

Source and credit

© Klei Entertainment, Oxygen Not Included screenshot: Launch Trailer (Steam), shown for design study and commentary. PlayCraft is an unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Klei Entertainment.

Source tier 2 (publisher-released) · screenshot: Steam store page · Steam page

Source details

Fetched 2026-10-20. verified 2026-10-20: frame manually extracted at 20.5s from the pipeline-downloaded Launch Trailer (Steam) and inspected visually at full resolution; genuine Power overlay confirmed (greyscaled base, tile grid, yellow wiring with plug glyphs); the same settled view is visible across the 4fps segment scan at ~19.75-21.25s; no trailer text overlays the frame

no published policy found (checked 2026-10-20); fair-use study use, takedown honored within 48h

Rights holders: see Copyright & takedown.