I think it'd be very helpful when mining the obelisk, if there were additionally an option to do so manually when there was power. If you could avoid using the air recycler, then you'll always have enough power to fuel the water recycler and keep going.
This actually calls up a bit of an inconsistency, that:
- Laurion uses power to make air
- Your rover makes air without consuming power, but only while it has power
- The lost rover is implied to have run out of power due to using it all to make air
You're talking about min/maxing your air production by always using it from the source that makes the air for free whenever possible.
This inconsistency has been know for a while, but continues to exist because everyone agrees that it would be extremely un-fun if your rover was constantly draining power for air and water because it'd be unnecessarily complex. Since the game also doesn't currently have the features it'd need in order to do that, it seems silly to spend dev time making a feature that the majority of players would dislike.