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's function is simple. Insert fuel and output power. The most common fuels you'll have available at this point is 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. The alternator does take a little time to warm up and reach full power, but it also takes time to cool down when it's not burning fuel.

The alternator produces 4W of power when fulling warmed up. 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. You can save this energy by building a battery.

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). It is not currently clear what Partial Power is supposed to be and there is no other discernible difference between the two. For simplicity's sake, it is recommended to use the Full Power output. You will use this to allow the battery to power whatever devices you have hooked up.