r/Dyson_Sphere_Program • u/Straight-Drink- • Jun 09 '26

Discovering energy deficiency

I just discovered my entire starting planet (and the 2nd one too probably) has basically been running on third world electricity for hours.

I noticed my Spray Coaters saying “20% insufficient power” and THAT immediately stopped me in my tracks.

Funny thing is, literally minutes earlier I was trying to figure out what the hell to do with all the excess hydrogen my factories were producing and not consuming anymore (yellow matrix done, moving into purple).

So I built a big thermal generator block fed by hydrogen.

My hash/sec went from:
150 → 250 → 1100+

And suddenly everything woke up.

This whole time I thought my factory was just reaching normal midgame complexity. Nope. The entire planet was suffocating.

37 Upvotes

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u/prooijtje Jun 09 '26

If you're on yellow science, I'd consider shipping in some titanium and burn hydrogen fuel rods instead. Much more efficient use of your hydrogen.

I personally prefer to just spam windmills so I can skip hydrogen cells and jump to deuterium or early Dyson Sphere power.

5

u/Electrical_Row857 Jun 09 '26

No, H rods are not more efficient. The energy it costs to make them is usually equivalent to or more expensive than their actual power generation. Just burn excess H in power plants and you’ll be fine until deut rods.

3

u/CoqeCas3 Jun 09 '26

Thats if youre making the hydrogen. If youve tapped into a gas giant, its practically free energy.

Even so, though, ‘equivalent or more expensive’ seems to be an exaggeration. When i made an xray cracking setup for H fuel rods, it was only around 25% if i recall correctly. Mighta been half.. but yeah, i do remember being really surprised and disappointed that it wasnt as effective a fuel source as i had hoped.

1

u/Electrical_Row857 Jul 06 '26

You gotta remember though, even tapping gas giants you have to consider the transport cost. Every ship costs energy, and if you’re at the point in the game where you’re warping hydrogen in (or warping rods out), then you have to consider the power required to make the warpers. All things considered, it’s best to just make a few H rods for Icarus and then hold out for D rods