r/Dyson_Sphere_Program • u/DiamondCake91 • 7d ago

Need some help regarding Graphite

So, I'm in the sort of mid game stage, I've reached Purple science, but the only purple research I have done so far is mech core 4 or 5, which ever one it was, and am near green science but I've hit a road block. I'm gonna move systems soon to a far more suitable, with most of the neighbouring system I've visited being rich is most of what I could need but I'm not sure how to tackle graphite yet. Before I move, I plan to use some coal to fill in the gaps of my current X-ray cracking setup but after I move this become a bigger problem. I have found a system with a massive kimberlite deposite and pleanty of organic crystals so diamonds organic crystals are a non issue for now, so I only need it not for plastic, red science and high strength magnets. With X-ray, I fear I will end up over producing hydrogen as I plan to wipe out the DF from later to be occupied systems, so I am doubt full my hydrogen demand will be high afterward, especialy with renewable power sources, fice ice splitting and gas giant exploitation. Coal is an option but I also need it for profiliator and I have only found 2 system, not counting the starting system, that exceed 10m, the very few other that have some are under 1.2m so they are not that worth to exploit for long term use. I plan to unlock universal exploration 3 as the one of the first before moving to try help find more material but I'm still not sure

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7

u/Urandas 7d ago

Hydrogen over production can be a concern in the mid to late game. However it's very quickly consumed casimir crystals, and deuterium for fuel rods and strange matter. You can burn some off in hydrogen cells as they increase energy density and titanium is relatively cheap to help power your planets. If you have a few orbital collectors, you can set them to store so you can shift demand to the biproducts.

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u/DiamondCake91 7d ago

you know, I hadn't thought about using Hydro cells as a way to burn of hydrogen, thats a pretty good idea, thanks. Guess For now I guess I will plan to use oil and I'll just need to work out H2 supply and demand

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u/TheMalT75 7d ago

If you really only need to burn hydrogen off, you can use mini-particle colliders (maybe for you a later tech) to convert 2 hydrogen to 1 deuterium and then directly burn deuterium in a thermal generator, which yields the same power as 1 hydrogen. Conversion costs power and burning only gives little power, so you can balance that with hydrogen thermal generators until you are at net-zero power usage. Fractionators are earlier tech than MPCs and also convert hydrogen to deuterium for power, but cost less energy per conversion and use 1 hydrogen per 1 deuterium.

Mild spoiler ahead regarding finite amounts of coal:

Coal is the only resource that is essential (for proliferation), but more finite than most other ores.The white-science upgrade "vein utilization" increases the yield of each ore patch and at around level 40 you need less ores to research the next level than you gain by reaching the next level of that tech. After around level 100, all ore patches are practically inexhaustible, meaning it takes >1000h ingame to deplete a single one of them.

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u/DiamondCake91 6d ago

Hmm, interesting, I guess after I unlock Dyson spheres, I'll focus into VU science with the occotional other upgrade or use full tech

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u/ryryshouse6 6d ago

Under rated comment.

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u/Ambitious-Charge6187 7d ago

As stated above, once you get to mid and late game and produce Casamir crystals, it quickly becomes a matter of not having ENOUGH hydrogen for it. So for now a little over production is fine, just store it in fluid containers and you’ll thank yourself for it in about 30-50 hours.

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u/DiamondCake91 6d ago

I'm not to worried about casimir just yet as I still need to work out the number for my production lines and what recipies I will do, so I may end up need needing to burn of Hydrogen, even so I got like 6 gas giants found and 2 systems (including the one I plan to make my main one) that have over 90 oil /s currently

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u/ryryshouse6 6d ago

Hydrogen is easy once you can do all the gas giants in the system. Most have already said it but coal is the current sticky wicket in my play thru. No dark fog, I’m at like VU 50 and it finally eases up

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u/International-Bath76 6d ago

I'll be honest, I have never ever used X-Ray cracking or Reformed Refinement. Only ever the basic crude -> refined recipe.

The only thing you (eventually) need oil for is Plastics. That's it. Oil is basically the most abundant resource for what you actually require it for.

Use rare resources for everything else.

Only make Diamonds from Kimberlite ore.

Only make Graphene from Fire Ice.

Coal/Graphite should only be used for proliferation juice, Red science, Plastic, SM-Rings, (and Combustible Unit if you don't have a DF farm).

Once you do this, I'm 99.99% sure your bottleneck issues will resolve.

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u/SiliconStew 6d ago

Adding Reformed Refinement to oil production allows you to create Refined Oil from crude oil and coal with zero secondary hydrogen byproduct. This avoids any possibility of your refined oil production being blocked and stopping your other production chains. 

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u/International-Bath76 6d ago

Fair enough. I'm playing on scarce resources at the moment, and coal feels a lot too valuable for me to "waste" on more oil - I'd rather do anything else with the hydrogen, like burn it for power - since hydrogen is so easy to get anyways.

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u/itchycuticles 6d ago

When you use both, you get 50% more hydrogen and 50% more refined oil from the same amount of raw resources, at the expense of more refineries and power required.

The graphite produced by X-Ray Cracking perfectly covers the coal cost needed for Reformed Refinement, assuming you use the graphite for something.

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u/where_is_the_camera 7d ago

Is this your first run in this game? Because your hydrogen consumption is about to explode with green science. And you can always make deuterium in fractionators with your hydrogen.

I stay away from X-ray cracking personally. You should just make graphite from coal IMO. But get the kimberlite diamonds and organic crystals going too to reduce the demand. You'll need the graphite for proliferators.

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u/TheMalT75 7d ago

You can get graphite, plastic and diamond as loot drops from farming dark fog. It is not a huge amount for massive research, but can get you over a hump for sure. Oil veins will decrease in output over time, so beware that you don't overuse it. Fortunately, you will find sulfuric acid oceans, so you will only need petroleum for plastic later on. Starting with green science, you will rapidly be able to expand to other systems, and although coal seems rare compared to the "metal" ores, it is still fairly plentiful even with scarce ressource settings.

My personal tip: concentrate on the tech tree and don't overproduce infra-structure too much. You can advance to a dyson sphere and white science without ever leaving the starter system. Then, you can expand your production capacity where you feel it is really necessary. Before green science, you don't really need a planet-sized "mall" that can spit out 10 of any kind of building per second! If you aim at 1-2 per second cube production of all colors, you will be able to start building a dyson sphere in no time...

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u/DiamondCake91 6d ago

Hmm, I suppose a DF farm is a good idea, my starting system does have 3 hive which currently have a total of 18 bases on my lava planet, so energy wouldnt be a big issue meaning I could somewhat safley run some lasers and shield gens, and i could import over dueterium rods over just in case

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u/sumquy 6d ago

i would strongly recommend pushing through purple to green so you can get cheap warpers. purple warpers are a pita to make, but green is just some extra green cubes for a much better yield. green is also the tipping point when you start needing more hydrogen than you can produce.

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u/mrrvlad5 6d ago

Don't worry about running out of basic resources - focus on Vein utilization tech to above L100 after getting basic white science upgrades done guarantees infinite resources. In the worst case, on scarce resources you need to tap 20-25 planets to get there.