Power Progression

This guide is designed to give players a view at how their power production will start in a new game, develop through various level of exploration and reasearch, and point out some basic strategies. This guide assumes you already have the required Electronics Center as well as either the Mechanic's Wrench or the wiring unlocked on your Matter Manipulator to start.

The Alternator Generator
Your first step into producing power is the Alternator Generator. This is the simplest of power producers. It requires iron bars, copper bars, and copper wire, all of which can be made from your Primitive Furnace and Machining Table from materials on your starting planet. You learn how to make it at the same time you learn how to make your Electronics Center.

The Alternator can produce 4W of energy. This is enough to run a Sifter or an Iron Centrifuge. These devices require 2W and 4W, respectively. Even when using these, some of your power may go to waste as it's not used when the machines are inactive or if it doesn't need to full amount. You can save this energy by building a battery.

Burn Fuel
The alternator's function is simple. Insert fuel and output power. The most common fuels you'll have available at this point are Wooden Logs and Coal. One piece of either will fire the generator for 7 seconds. Coal can be mined from the ground and Logs can be harvested by felling trees. You can replant the trees' saplings to keep a steady supply of wood nearby. Fuel that is burned is consumed immediately. If you put a wooden log in, it will be consumed, but the alternator will run for 7 seconds.

This behavior can be seen in later generators and reactors.

Warm Up and Cool Down
The alternator produces 4W of power, but it doesn't do this right away. It takes about 18 seconds for the alternator to reach full power. It will still produce power before then, gradually working up to the full 4W. Likewise, it takes time for the alternator to cool down, 20 seconds to be exact. During this time, with no more fuel, it will still produce power, but that amount will diminish until it has cooled down enough.

This behavior can be seen in later generators and reactors.

Wiring nodes
The Alternator has 3 wiring nodes. The first is for a power switch and will be identified by examining the generator. This will allow you to hook up items like an Iron Lever to turn on and off the Alternator (and other generators and reactors) without having to always open up the generator to remove fuel. While this and other generators or reactors are turned off, the fuel inside them will not be consumed. Then, whenever you need to run it, you can turn the generator back on easily.

The other nodes on this are for use with the Item Network. This is a much more complex topic and is better left for other guides that make use of them.

The Simple Battery
The first battery you'll have available is the Simple Battery. This has the potential of holding up to 350J of energy. The Lead and Sulphur you'll need can be found on your starting planet, though they may not be as common as copper and iron. The sulphur is used to create the needed Sulphuric Acid by placing it in a Hand Mill. You learn how to make it at the same time you learn how to make your Electronics Center.

At this point we should clarify the difference between Watts (W) and Joules (J). When something is producing or consuming Watts, it's doing it at a rate of Joules per second. The Alternator Generator produces 4W, or 4 J/s. The Sifter consumes 2 W, or 2 J/s.

The way the Simple Battery (and all other batteries) work is when a Watt exists that isn't consumed, it stores that excess as Joules. Then, when other devices need to consume that energy, the batteries will release those joules each second the device needs it.

Assuming we have just the alternator and a simple battery, the alternator can fully charge the battery after 88 seconds. If we turn off the generator and run the sifter, it will drain the battery dry after 175 seconds.

From this, we can devise a simple system that will allow you to generate power, store it, then consume it from the batteries., the simplest of which looks like: Generator -> Battery -> Device

Wiring Nodes
Each battery has 4 nodes. The Upper Left Blue node is for a power switch. When turned off, the battery will not transmit any power.

The Upper Right Blue node is for incoming power. This is the node you should connect your generator to. While either node will charge the battery, if you connect the generator to the power switch node, the battery will disconnect if the generator is not running.

The Lower Red nodes are for power output. They are described as Partial Power (left) and Full Power (right). The Full Power output sends a wire signal depending on whether the battery is 100% full or not. Any less and the output is turned off. The Partial Power is turned off only when the battery gets under 10J of stored power. Connecting to either of these nodes will supply Watts to devices regardless of whether they output signals. The signals can be used to activate other wiring devices, such as turning on a generator if a battery gets too low or sounding an alarm.

The Hydraulic Dynamo
You may soon find your need for power are greater than what you're currently producing. For this, you can create the Hydraulic Dynamo. This can be made with materials all available on your starting planet, though it will require a lot of them, as well as researching the recipe in Electronics.

The Hydraulic Generator has 4 slots in it: 3 fuel slots on top and 1 coolant slot on the bottom. The fuel slots can take a variety of fuels, but we'll be looking at Core Fragments, Lava, and Volatile Powder as the others are not readily available.

Decay
To start, you can place any of the fuels in the top slots. While the Alternator would burn fuel at a steady rate, the Dynamo will consume fuel as it decays. What this mean is a unit of fuel will be consumed randomly. Each fuel has a different decay rate, meaning that on average they will last for a certain amount of seconds. Lava has a decay rate of 15, meaning it should last around 15 seconds. Core Fragments and Volatile Powder have a decay rate of 40.

This behavior can be seen in later generators and reactors.

Multiple Fuel Slots
In addition, each fuel you use supplies a different amount of power. Lava and Core Fragments produce 5W and Volatile Powder produces 7W. While this may not seem like much more than an alternator, the Dynamo's power comes from multiple fuel slots. By adding fuel to all three slots, you can produce energy from each slot. If you put Lava in all 3 slots, you can produce 15W with your Dynamo.

This behavior can be seen in later generators and reactors.

Coolant
Finally, the coolant slot needs Water or Salt Water to operate. You'll likely only have easy access to Water at this point, either from a Well or draining lakes that collect rainwater. Whenever the Dynamo consumes a unit of fuel, whichever that may be, it will also consume a unit of water. Without any water, the Dynamo will not operate.

A similar behavior can be seen in Fusion Reactors which will be discussed down the line.

Time to leave the planet
Without even leaving our beginning planet, we can create the Alternator Generator, the Simple Battery, and the Hydraulic Dynamo. Once we leave our plant (but not our system), a little more opens up to us. The next step comes once we have access to Titanium. If you're using BYOS, you'll need Tungsten next in order to leave your beginning star unless it happened to have planets that have Titanium. If you use the Vanilla build system, you'll need to meet someone before you can move to another planet, let alone another star.

Titanium and More Power
Once you can get access to Titanium, new power options become available to us, including renewable energy sources.

A Note On Batteries
Batteries with higher capacities will become available as you explore and research. However, as these batteries function the same, they will not be delved into. It should be noted that older batteries are never useless. Consider keeping them around for more total capacity, unless you really need the room.

Combustion Generator
The Combustion Generator operates like the Alternator Generator. It burns fuel and has a warm up/cool down. It produces more power at 12W, and has much greater list of fuels it can burn, including Biofuel Canisters made at your Alchemy Lab or even Hydrogen that you obtained from processing different materials.

Wind Turbine
The Wind Turbine is unique in generating power from wind. This isn't viable on all planets as some do not have wind at all. Also, the wind can vary throughout the day, generating different amounts of power. That said, this is good for keeping banks of batteries topped up for use and can generate power from even light breezes. Between this, solar energy, and a generator for larger productions or extractions, you should be able to meet most of your power needs.

Solar Power
There are 3 solar power generators: Solar Panels, Solar Arrays, and Solar Towers. As expected, these generate power based on sunlight and require no fuel. In keeping with the renewable line of power generation, each higher tier version requires recycling the old ones into new generators. 2 Solar Panels are needed to make a Solar Array and 2 Solar Arrays are need to make a Solar tower. These items work different based on whether they are used on a planet or on your ship.

On Planet
These will generate power during the day. The lights on them will start out red at sunrise, slowly turning to green when they'll be at full power. They'll start generate just like warming up an Alternator Generator. When nighttime approaches, they will likewise cool down. The amount of power they generate is usually in excess of the power rating listed when the solar generator is examined.

On Ship
When placed on a ship, they are limited to the amount listed when the solar generator is examined and cannot go any higher. Their lights will always be yellow. While less efficient, they are a constant source of power.