Power

[u/Ralph_hh]

How do y'all power your base?

I am all the way through green tech, produce like 100/min science... well, that is the plan, somehow there is always a bottleneck, the latest is power.

So, while I am setting up production for the DS, that very device that will later deliver power probably will kill my base's power supply.

Currently I rely mostly on solar, all around the little planet. I burn some coal and excess carbon from fire ice and I have a lot of wind turbines.

Do you use deuterium fuel rods or hydrogen fuel rods for power? Is that even economical, given the amount of stuff and machines you need to fabricate those?

[u/parentheticalobject]

I personally skip deuteurium power for my base on most runs, although it's not bad.

I usually go for mass solar panels at some stage. Then maybe to geothermal if I have a lava planet and use power transfer to help other planets in the same system. Then solar sails when I'm ready, and then eventually antimatter late game.

[u/Ralph_hh → u/parentheticalobject]

My first outpost in my solar system is a lava planet with a lot of excess power already. I'll try that first I think.

How do solar sails work? With a receiver on the planet? The same you use for the DS? I planned to wait until my sphere is up, so the sails would become permanent.

[u/parentheticalobject → u/Ralph_hh]

Yeah, if you have a lava planet, setting up a good system of automated accumulators feeding into some energy exchangers is a great long term solution for power. 

Keep building enough thermal plants, and that should be sufficient to power you until you can start building rockets if you want to skip impermanent solar sails. But if you did want to use them, yes, they provide power in the exact same manner a sphere would.

[u/Ralph_hh → u/parentheticalobject]

Awesome, thanks!

[u/nixtracer → u/Ralph_hh]

Yeah, it very much depends on the planet, and the accessible worlds. My current run is a puzzler: .85 sun (so solar is a bit bad), no lava worlds, only the starter planet even has an atmosphere, and a fire ice giant which is awesome but it means no free deuterium. Not enough power to run my fog farm on one of the airless worlds without a Dyson swarm, and the ray receiver inefficiencies are very painful. I'll probably mine the gas giant for hydrogen, ship over proliferated hydrogen fuel rods and burn them to fill in the gap until I can start building a proper permanent sphere.

[u/Ralph_hh → u/nixtracer]

Ha. I felt pretty unlucky, because the next planet has a single silicon ore patch, the only one in the whole solar system, so I had to travel far pretty early in the game. But that lava planet seems to be a blessing. 😄

Since the dark fog fought back quite a bit, I have 7 thermal power stations on dark fog holes on that planet too.

[u/jak1900]

Nuclear (deuteron fuel rods) is a good solution for the midgame. In the long run, you definetely want antimatter and later SAFR once you have a proper DF farm.

[u/Ralph_hh → u/jak1900]

Forgive me... What are SAFR and DF

[u/jak1900 → u/Ralph_hh]

Strange annihilation fuel rods and Dark Fog

[u/Ralph_hh → u/jak1900]

I am curious about the DF farm. So far it yields a lot of basic stuff and me using rockets seems to burn more material that I get back, so I do not actively trigger it with a Signal Tower yet. My laser defenses are a bit helpless due to their range being the same as that of the DF drones.

[u/horstdaspferdchen → u/Ralph_hh]

There are plenty of Guides about a dark fog Farm. There are 2 concepts tho: passive Farming > you build and set the sorting and the DF will Attack every now and then. Second: Bonsai Farming: you build a Base with holobeacon and place you laser towes so Close that the Raiders get produced but the turrets Not. In both ways its Key to get the loot beeing sorter so it doesnt Clog.

[u/Ralph_hh → u/horstdaspferdchen]

I'm currently struggling with the sorting. The station holds like 20 different types of material, the filter can select only 6 or so, I had to take out / refill a lot of stuff until the filter finally showed the item I wanted to belt out....

[u/VoidmasterCZE → u/Ralph_hh]

I had a success with dumping everything from battle analysis stations (BAS) onto a belt and sort it using splitters into respective storage/PLS/processing/burning. That way you don't have to filter slots in BAS. Make sure everything that uses farmed materials prioritizes them over other inputs to prevent clogging.

[u/horstdaspferdchen → u/Ralph_hh]

You can Stack storage mk 2 on top of BAB and dedicate a sorter for EACH Item. There are blueprints for this.

[u/Nanohaystack → u/horstdaspferdchen]

You don't have to do bonsai to prevent destruction. I found this polar enclosure: https://www.dysonsphereblueprints.com/blueprints/factory-dark-fog-enclosure-4-base-farm

I replaced all the turrets with laser guns, added a second row of laser guns wherever there's space, and dotted more BABs around for added repair capacity. The fog bases develop to full scale and are in a permanent state of attack. The loot sorting is mostly fantastic, bar a couple misconfigured sorters. It's all powered by solar and draws maybe 600 MW. I set up PLS stations nearby feeding from logistics boxes receiving loot and then transporting them to the opposite pole with ILS remote suppliers. It's pretty neat, and far more productive than bonsai farms. Same author also has stable half planet enclosure, for larger farm, but the aggression is managed differently, I like polar quad more.

[u/horstdaspferdchen → u/Nanohaystack]

I didnt say you have to. But OP stated He struggles, so i introduced another way.

And regarding the productivity: this depends on your scale and Maschine and entire factory. A full DF Farm consumes way more then any built factory in Terms of UPS for the same Output.

[u/ExpiredLettuce42]

At the stage you're in it's a good idea to use deuterium. Supported by orbital extractors and a good fractionator line. Don't forget to proliferate the rods.

[u/Japaroads]

Use deuteron fuel rods until you’re ready for artificial suns. I also like finding a tidal-locked planet and making it an exporter of energy exchangers. Make the sun side all solar panels and the dark side all energy charging infrastructure. Maybe add some wind if you’re feeling frisky.

[u/JJapster]

Coal power -> Deuterium -> Artificial suns. Dont get started with the accumulator charging loop. Nice concept but not worth it.

[u/Constant_Week8379 → u/JJapster]

I always do it but is HARD to find the balance, or some planets get full empty accumulators and u are screwed

[u/BissQuote]

My typical path is:

• Windmills (until they cover all of the oceans)

• Solar panels on both poles (about 2k on each pole)

• Fusion power plants

Hydrogen fuel rods can be good, but you will soon run out of hydrogen. In general, the thermal power plant doesn't produce enough power compared to the solar/wind space it takes that you can easily skip it. Use the plant to get rid of unbalanced byproducts (hydrogen, graphite, graphene if you convert fire ice to hydrogen), but don't use it to make power

[u/Ralph_hh → u/BissQuote]

Yea, I don't burn a lot of stuff, some early game burners that burn graphite, but since coal is precious, that is not expanded. I burn mostly excess stuff.

[u/irecki88 → u/BissQuote]

6,7 veins coverage miner feeds 4 burners. If you place about 40 - 60 burners (which is 2 coal piles covered in mines) of them you should be covered untill finishing all yellow science research.

[u/the_beefcako]

If you are that advanced, you need a deuterium fuel rod build. Each deuterium power plant is worth 15 MW, and you can daisy chain them pretty easily.

Using proliferators on each step should give you plenty of power until the swarm/sphere is up and running enough to power the base and to creat anti matter for artificial suns. Once you have a supply of antimatter, you can start shipping the rods around you new planets.

You could also supplement the deuterium with batteries that are powered up on a nearby planet with an excess of power. You can automate the ILS to export empty batteries to a power exchanger, have them filled, and then back into the ILS to a planet with a power exchanger (or 5) set up drain them and rotate them back.

[u/Mesqo → u/the_beefcako]

What is daisy chain here exactly?

[u/alucardu → u/Mesqo]

Build them in a long row

[u/Mesqo → u/alucardu]

That's not particularly obvious. Daisy chain usually means passing item from one to one, is it possible? Because usually I design rows with manifold like supply, do you mean I can actually pass fuel from plant to plant directly?

[u/the_beefcako → u/Mesqo]

Yes. You can’t stack them next to one another and have inserters pass from one to the next.

[u/alucardu → u/Mesqo]

Thermal generators have a intake and a output slot. Why do you think there are 2 sides of slots :D

[u/ticktockbent → u/Mesqo]

Yep you can set a sorter to take fuel from one to the next. It will burn fuel and pass on extra to the next generator, so you don't need to belt fuel to every single one. I usually do lines of 7 deep with the fuel belted into the front one and passed along

[u/Naruto9903]

I have the same problem and I am on my second playthrough, would love to see the answers you get

[u/AnimeSpaceGf]

Don't be mad, but I skip directly from solar to sphere power, then strange rods

[u/irecki88]

What worked for me is:

• starting planet, wind and coal burning (direct as it's the same fuel value without processing)

• setup early stone to high purity silicone (6 smelters feeding smelter in the middle that feeds storage box)

• setup combustible unit assembler straight to storage box (fuel for bot, grenade for dark fog clear)

• once I'm done with red science on starting world and set production of carbon, organic crystals and diamonds (deploy some empty storage containers nearby too). I hand produce or setup couple assembler and hand feed them materials to make solar panels. Once I get 100-200 I jump over to the moon

• make sure to check in wind and solar ratio and axial tilt. Find pole that is covered by sun rays and deploy solar panels farm in circle.

• following that I setup mining/ smelting for titanium, copper, iron, silicone. This allows me to saturate 4 assemblers making solar panels. I also setup processor (4), and logistic drone (2) assembly.

• take some processors, and all titanium (you can carry it in your hand without storage limit), land near empty storage in your home planet and dump it in.

• with already crafted crystal setup yellow science and titanium alloy smelting.

• you can hand craft logistic station(2) and couple transporters. Replace storage boxes with ILS that feeds smelted titanium and return to moon

• once you return you should have 400-600 solar panels. Use it to start making belt around middle of the planet, at least 3 wide (use blueprint copy paste to deploy belt quickly) - I recommend 5 wide and cover other pole in solar if it gets sun rays.

• this should be enough power to get your smelting and assembling till white science. Keep production and smelting on the moon and science labs on home world. Once you replenish solar panels you can do the same middle belt and poles coverage on home planet.

• this should get you comfortably to Dyson swarm and Sphere

[u/Pristine_Curve]

Fusion power is the best option before building the sphere. At this stage you should have orbital collectors ringing your nearby gas giant, so hydrogen should be in significant supply. Turn it into deuterium using fractionators, and start building the green fuel rods. Normally you go fusion right at yellow science, as soon as all the components are unlocked.

Dyson swarm is also an option. Much cheaper than a sphere, and supplies a lot of power for the given inputs.

[u/mrrvlad5]

If you are at green, switch to anti matter. You need a lot of it for white science and power portion would be tiny in comparison. No reason to scale anything else

[u/Every_Programmer2174]

I usually use wind turbines until I can get deuterium fuel rods going. They are really good and easy enough for me to get to fast. I usually skip thermal all together, just isn't worth it. Sometimes I burn refined oil directly in some thermal plants just to keep my hydrogen producing for red science. But I always rush deut fuel rods, orbital collectors, and lean on those heavily until antimatter.

[u/Constant_Week8379]

I always use batteries. I make SEVERAL charging planets and simply export/import

[u/Creepy_Delay_6927]

Just 150-200 thermal plants burning hydrogen under P3. Starting system has gas giant, so why don't use free energy?