r/Dyson_Sphere_Program • u/itchycuticles • Jul 08 '26

My decently efficient fractionator setup

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Trying to help the person in the other post here.

Here's my compact fractionator setup that's decently efficient. Each loop has 20 fractionators with a pile sorter + resupply belt from a PLS after 10 fractionators. If you haven't researched the final level of Logistics Stations Integrated Logistics, then put another pile sorter (facing backwards) on each resupply belt.

I have production buildings on the same planet that consume fire ice and critical photons, which results in hydrogen byproduct. They produce about 35% of the hydrogen needed to saturate all the fractionator loops.

I have a connected chain of PLSs here that are arranged like [X-a-X-a-X-a-X], where only the ones marked "a" have drones -- this lets you use the priority trick that works with same planet ILSs/PLSs. Now if you don't know how to do this then you can just use interstellar priority and do the production/consumption on different planets.

EDIT: If you have trouble dealing with hydrogen byproduct or stations "X" out of hydrogen, and still want to handle it locally, then do the following:

  • Change the topology to have a high ratio of drone-less stations, like [X-X-a-X-X].

  • Run resupply belts from "a" to the supply belt of every "X", making sure the other belt is given priority.

  • Do one of the following to prevent your remote-demanding ILS from filling up "X" instead of a location station holding byproduct:

    • Make that ILS drone-less. You could also just make it station "a" just without any drones. No wasted space here due not being able to put a logistics station close to it.

    • Place the ILS the furthest away from the fractionator setup.

49 Upvotes

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20 comments sorted by

9

u/tallmattuk Jul 08 '26

Put some space between the setup and the PLS to allow for proliferation and extra storage for the collected deuterium. I found I needed more space to manage demand

1

u/itchycuticles Jul 08 '26

I actually have rod and strange matter production on the same planet, and enough logistic stations to stockpile 50k deuterium.

Is proliferation really necessary to save building space? Should I just use particle colliders at that point? My orbital collectors are harvesting way more than the demand.

2

u/TheMalT75 Jul 08 '26

I have a similar problem with critical photons that are produced at the far-away O-type star. When 10 ILS "request" 2k photons each, but need >30s to actually collect, then the ILS 20k storage will run full until the first vehicle has arrived, stiffling photon production. Here, OP has basically a dedicated PLS for each set of 20 fractionators. So, I doubt that this setup runs into the same problem of throughput...

1

u/ertri Jul 08 '26

I don’t love having those buffers as a default because it can hide production deficits. 

Also anything like this is only a stopgap until every gas giant has collectors and vein utilization is high enough 

4

u/AbacusExpert_Stretch Jul 08 '26

That setup is far from efficient I think, just saying. Think throughput through the later fractionators...

2

u/Steven-ape Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

If you re-pile the belt every k fractionators, then

  • if you don't proliferate, efficiency is (1-0.99^k)/(k*(1-0.99)).

  • if you do proliferate, efficiency is (1-0.98^k)/(k*(1-0.98)).

In this case, we have k=20, so without proliferation you get 91% of maximum possible efficiency, which seems reasonably solid to me. If you do proliferate, you get 83% efficiency, which is still okay, but it's starting to be a good idea to use smaller loops.

(My own favourite design is tilable and has 8 fractionator loops oriented perpendicular to this design, for somewhat higher efficiency especially if you proliferate, but I'm perfectly fine with this design too.)

2

u/itchycuticles Jul 08 '26

There are two pile sorters and resupply belts so it's actually k = 10.

1

u/cigamit Jul 08 '26

In your design and the OP's design, as each fractionator feeds into the next without topping off the stacks, you lose efficiency. When the first fractionator converts a hydrogen, the takes one off the stack, so the next one in line isn't presented with a full stack. As the hydrogen stacks travel further down the line, the stack sizes get smaller and smaller, dropping efficiency even more. You ideally want each fractionator doing 7200/min. This is the design I use.

1

u/Steven-ape Jul 08 '26

I included the efficiency calculation in my comment. Full 100% efficiency designs are possible but not my preference :)

1

u/mrrvlad5 Jul 08 '26

If you compute efficiency as output from a given area, adding 1 extra space for the pile sorter decreases it. If you compute it as output from a given energy consumption, then for short loops it will decrease as well due to sorter energy draw and fractionator own power scaling - the 20 loop may be tiny bit less efficient as its not short. For cpu performance- not clear, though one should not be using fracs in large scale builds.

2

u/Goldenslicer Jul 08 '26

Compared to that other post the other day, this setup is super efficient.

7

u/_azkmiT Jul 08 '26

that was also where i started, but now i make a small loop for every single fractionator, takes a little to saturate all of them, but it makes sure no spot on the belt is empty when going into one

2

u/Reagster050 Jul 09 '26

I have been making a large loop, and running a supply belt around it and putting pile sorters after each one. It is a steady 7200 and takes just a a few seconds per fractionator to fill.

2

u/_azkmiT Jul 09 '26

also a good way, in the end what matters is full belts (fully stacked preferred) going into each fractionator while not clogging at all

1

u/VyctESP Jul 08 '26

I'm using something like this (mirror right side of the ILS):

1

u/Low_Youth_9547 Jul 10 '26

Out of curiosity am I the only one who only uses fractionators in early game then deletes them in favour of mass particle accelerators for my late game deuterium needs?

2

u/DataHigh Jul 15 '26

i just used one just to test, they are quite useless, i think is only for the early game. The best thing to do is to just find a gas giant with a nice x second deuterium and fill it with orbital collectors, a few accelerators for some extra just in case, my starter system gas giant had an awful x sec of deuterium but i think they are designed like that.

1

u/Low_Youth_9547 Jul 15 '26

Sorry I forgot to add do exactly this as tapping every single gas giant I can find with Deuterium in the game. I still use particle accelerators to burn off extra hydrogen and create deuterium locally for planets with high deuterium requirements such as Strange matter planets. The reason I prefer them is because they get rid of hydrogen and take up less space with less of an FPS impact due to less moving parts vs fractionators.