How and Why ENERGY EXCHANGERS are AWESOME! | Dyson Sphere Program Tutorial

[@nitzanmedina2453]

I can not watch anyone play this game after I watch you! It's funny to see someone enthusiastically say he's going to make one rocket every second ... well really ?! You do things in such an aesthetic, calculated and logical way and it's just fun to see how you take this game and make it into something much more serious and interesting and not just another game! I enjoy the content you upload to KZbin and hope you continue with this game for a long time to come!

[@stanleymelvin1519]

sorry to be off topic but does anybody know of a method to get back into an Instagram account?? I somehow forgot my login password. I appreciate any help you can offer me!

[@adendominic542]

@Stanley Melvin Instablaster :)

[@stanleymelvin1519]

@Aden Dominic Thanks for your reply. I got to the site thru google and I'm trying it out now. Seems to take quite some time so I will reply here later when my account password hopefully is recovered.

[@stanleymelvin1519]

@Aden Dominic It did the trick and I finally got access to my account again. I'm so happy:D Thank you so much you really help me out !

[@adendominic542]

@Stanley Melvin You are welcome :)

[@RealCyclops]

23:00 The best way to explain this is that while the the discharging takes care of all consumption, adding the charging takes in the wasted solar power. Once you add enough charging to where solar/wind/etc. reaches 100% consumption, only then will the discharged accumulators go into additional charging as well. The great thing about this is that when more power is required, it only reduces the frequency in which charging is needed. if everything is consumed 100%, nothing will be charged. I don't know why, but when I thought about that on the Twitch stream, that just clicked and made total sense.

[@soniclocks3473]

I was lucky enough to find a tidally locked planet early in my game and plastered it with solar panels way before I setup any Dyson Spheres. This allowed me to setup new planets with power without worrying if I had enough deuterium or other fuels to keep them going.

[@letsuseCommonsense]

I wasnt lucky to find one early but when I did that's where I set up my first Dyson sphere and with these exchangers I am no longer having power issues

[@ArgonianSkaleel]

@@letsuseCommonsense tidally locked planets are also excellent built sites for solar sail launchers and ray receivers, there's many things to do when something just keeps pointing at the sun in this game

[@lordrazear]

fine you win I will subscribe and hit the bell.

[@RealCyclops]

He puts us into cryo-sleep when he warps so I wasn't awake to hit the bell.

[@jeffreyblack666]

It take warpers and energy to transport them. And you don't only need to consider that warpers are needed, you also need to consider how many you use. For a full ship of accumulators, you can transport 90 GJ of energy. However, due to how the game currently works with no 2 way transport, you need 2 ships, bringing the average down to 45 GJ of energy per ship, or 22.5 GJ per warper. This is comparable to hydrogen fuel cells at 20 GJ, and is much smaller than deuteron fuel rods at 300 GJ and antimatter fuel at 3750 GJ. This means compared to deuteron fuel rods you need 13 times as many warpers, and compared to antimatter you need 170 times. While 1 warper might be cheap, I would say 170 are not, even 13 is not. It is cheaper to send deuteron fuel rods than it is to make the warpers for the accumulators. Even an antimatter fuel rod, while more complex to make, is cheaper than those 14 warpers, and massively cheaper than the 170 warpers. So no, using accumulators takes far more resources than other fuels, as soon as you start going interstellar and using warpers. It only takes no resources when you don't use warpers. So if you aren't going to consider the warpers as taking resources, you shouldn't consider the deuteron fuel rods or antimatter fuel rods as taking resources. The other big issue is space, where energy exchangers take up a lot of space and only provide 45 MW, and to work without wasting power, need 2 energy exchangers. The equivalent power output for fusion reactors is quite comparable, but the equivalent for artificial stars is much smaller. The main advantage is that it is belt fed, as you said. But due to how complex it is with the possibility of deadlock and the like, I think the better option is deuteron fuel rods as soon as you can make them in bulk. That also typically matches when you have lots of hydrogen to deal with.

[@ProzacStylings]

You are attempting to claim that the cost of 83 accumulator transports (which is 166.7 warpers) cost more than an equivalent 1,000 antimatter rods in one shipment (which also costs 2 warpers). No. 1,000 antimatter rods do not cost less materials than 166 space warpers. One space warper is ~13 base ingredients. One antimatter rod is 71 base ingredients. 83.3 trips of full accumulators and 83.3 trips of empty accumulators(which actually requires 333 warpers) costs ~4,332 base materials. 1 shipment of antimatter fuel rods costs 71,026 base materials, 16x as much material. You're incorrect. About all the other ingredient costs, too. At ~26 base materials per 45GJ transport, accumulators charged off renewable power are the cheapest form of energy transport by a landslide. Cheers. 👍

[@Ramschat]

On top of that, creating antimatter rather than direct power requires far less ray receivers, less energy buildings and infrastructure, and the consumption of fuel rods is automatically scaled to the actual energy consumption. It is far more efficient in terms of time spent to set it up per GW

[@ProzacStylings]

@@Ramschat 1) Not sure if saying "on top of that" when the mistakes in his post were just corrected is a good look. 2) Consumption of accumulators also scale to the actual energy consumption. Power mechanics are *worse* for artificial suns, because half-using a solar panel and wasting a 71-ore antimatter rod is worse than half-using a solar panel and wasting an accumulator that was charged with renewable power. Artificial suns take up less space and require fewer buildings. That's their advantage. Accumulators use less resources and require less complex ingredients. That's their advantage.

[@jeffreyblack666]

@@ProzacStylings My bad, I did screw up and forgot to scale for the number of antimatter rods required. Transporting 1000 antimatter fuel rods requires 2 warpers and provides 7500 GJ. Transporting the same amount of accumulators both ways requires 333.3recuring warpers This means using antimatter fuel rods save 331.3recurring warpers per trip, with that being 1000 antimatter fuel rods. Switching up which alternative recipes are used can change the costs, but for the basic one where the only alternative is graphene from fire ice and warpers from gravity matrices, it takes roughly 25 times the resources for antimatter fuel rods. If instead you have warpers from graviton lenses directly it is closer to 2 to 3 times the resources. Compared to deuteron fuel rods, then you have 26.6 warpers required, or 24.6 more, which makes it far worse. So yes, assuming you are only generating energy using ray receivers (in normal mode), wind, solar and thermal energy, it is cheaper to use accumulators. But at that point, why not just send the solar panels and wind turbines and set them up on the planet? But as soon as you start using other fuel sources in significant amounts, it is cheaper to ship the fuel.

[@Dan-gs3kg]

I can only think of it as the densest fuel of last resort for when the fuel lines for your logistics towers cut out. It'd be topped up by burning off excess production of lesser fuels, or excess energy production from superior fuels. And the way you'd do this is with belt priorities to prefer manufacturing with the lesser fuels, and power gen with superior fuels on the logistics bootstrap generators. For added engineering, consider using belt priorities to shunt fuel and automatically turn off idle or depleted systems to minimise fuel/warp logistics overhead.

[@mrjonlor]

Wow. It’s like you read my mind. I was just thinking last night, “Man! I wish Nilaus would do a tutorial on energy exchangers!” I remembered you had a clever way of balancing the charge/discharge and was hoping to replicate it.

[@salemprompthous3820]

@@toddkes5890 and this is what I hope the devs are planning to rework. Shouldn't be necessary to build all that, when it should work like other "fueled" power generators: not producing when there's no demand

[@MaybeSomeoneful]

Just yesterday I got to figure out energy exchangers because of my insane energy consumption on some planets and today Nilaus releases a tutorial. So great!

[@egdod3750]

Mr. Nilaus, It’s a very elegant design, and an ingenious work-around for the lack of smart power usage in the base game (though I DID get a preview of it a few weeks back in your let’s play 😉). That being said, I’m still not convinced. Early game - solar power. Mid game - Deuterium. Late game Anti-matter. It’s clear you can make dischargers work, but I prefer using my sphere to make critical photons. I might also point out that you do too, at least as evidenced by your let’s play series. I know you said on your next one you might use only dischargers. I look forward to that one.

[@mayistrs7096]

Jokes on you Nilaus, I'm already subscribed!

[@der.Schtefan]

I think the power generation priority will be a whole subsystem that needs to be implemented, potentially with automation like in Factorio: Some locations might have exchangers, and they only want generators to run on local fuel if the exchangers are not enough (Lava Planets without much fuel), others want to conserve the exchangers' resources and want to use the local resources first. (Oil planets where you burn off the oil because you don't need it, and because it does not run out)

[@valiakosilla2413]

I agree. Automation like combinators in Factorio would be very nice in DSP. It is quite tricky to handle energy or excess hydrogen or balance productions of different systems. It is possible, but need awful hacks which are no fun to build (I know that many players disagree and feel strange contraptions interesting challenges, but by my professional thinking effects, I hate hacks as an electronic engineer). I would also like to have explicit controls for logistic vessels. So that I could name exact places where tower sends vessels.

[@fuglbird]

Balancing the production is the interesting part of this game. No hacks needed. The funny thing is that I thought electronic engineers did hacks all the time.

[@der.Schtefan]

@@fuglbird I think there is a difference between a smart hack and an annoying workaround.

[@Holtijaar]

There should also be geothermal generators available in DSP, which would mean loads of free energy on lava planets. That could be balanced out by reducing solar energy potential on such planets, as their atmospheres should be filled with ash.

[@revenevan11]

There are now!

[@Dervraka]

Yes I agree, my first playthrough I pretty much ignored them. Read the description when they become available, didn't really understand what they did, built a couple and still didn't see they did much and never built another. (I had the vague idea they were basically a high capacity accumulator that recharged from the Dyson network instead of the power grid, though the input and output ports should have given me a clue they were for far more.) After building huge accumulator farms by hand (a long and tedious process) and then harvesting them to build my army of orbital collectors and figuring there must be an easier way. I actually did some research, slapped myself in the forehead and said "Duh! That's what Energy Exchangers are for! Charging and discharging accumulators." Now I use them all the time for my power needs, couldn't live without them.

[@jonathan_60503]

Amused myself with these today. Found a new ocean world with plenty of Spiniform stalagmite crystal, and decided to mine it up with extremely minimal terraforming. At one deposit I built an island just big enough for an interstellar logistics station, some miners, and an energy exchanger. Then at all the other deposits stuck a planetary logistics station energy exchanger, and miners onto a small artificial island. Each of the dozen or so islands got its own microscopic power grid with the one interstellar station taking care of both planetary and interstellar redistribution of the full and empty accumulators, as well as shipping the crystals off planet (and bringing in warpers to support that)

[@TheObsidianWarlock]

This was right on time! I'm setting this up and I was ready to go searching through the videos for this! I'm so glad you made this!

[@TheMhalpern]

One consideration is handling multiple charging planets, but that shouldn't be too hard, so basically its a trade between using more warpers but no additional resources outside of that, or using additional resources for various fuel types.

[@MinerEiner85]

Idea for the next tutorial: Interstellar Logistics Station setup and througput. How many belts can it feed based on traveling time.

[@ninjadude501]

That would be theoretically infinite, since each supply and demand station can have its own vessels, so if you're running out of vessel throughput you just add more demand stations (assuming we're capping ourselves to 1 supply station). I imagine there would be some sort of cap if you're only allowing 1 supply station, but since each vessel arriving would take away supplies, which makes room for more supplies and then immediately facilitates the launch of another vessel, it would be high enough that for instances where you would for some reason only want 1 supply station I don't think it would even matter. If you were to cap to 1 supply and 1 demand I imagine you could come up with a number, but it would be of limited use since the only two scenarios I can imagine where that would be a hard limit are early game when you've only just gotten ILS, in which case I'd be surprised if you were actually making enough to max out the throughput without having the resources to make more ILS, or so late game that you've filled up every realistic factory planet and only have room for 1 supply and 1 demand, which could take hundreds or thousands of hours on just one game and likely would bring your computer to a screeching halt.

[@MinerEiner85]

@@ninjadude501 I think there can only be 10k Units in transit. Doesn't matter how many ships you can send, a Logistics Station will only accept to the maxiumum Storage capacity.

[@bbrcher]

These tutorials on excellent use of game mechanics bending to your will are why your channel is so great. Keep it up!

[@alsoteam5544]

Im so happy exchanges are getting some attention! I've been using them since early game and I'm continuing to use them in late-game too. Most of the things in this video are tricks that I've been doing too. The only two things I do differently are I don't automatically add accumulators to the system I kind of just check up on that every now and then and where I can I also try to make each star system energy independent. So I might have a power ring on one planet and then use exchangers to distribute power through that system. I basically do this because it means that energy Transportation has literally zero material cost, because I don't even need to use warpers

[@TheAlstrang]

i've been following your play through and i think this is a great tutorial that will be helpful in the late game after you build a dyson sphere. i'm not producing things at 280 per second like you so i can get away with exploiting my gas giants for deuterium to power substations for now. in the future i see a need for this setup to transfer power from my dyson sphere to other systems, otherwise there is no way to transport excess power. the tip on recharging your accumulators is brilliant and i would never have thought about that myself.

[@TheRodrigoNask]

I have a working strategy for a single-planet use. I'm using only one side of planet to harness light with solar panels (and both sides to cap my Ray Receiver at ~1,2GW). So, I have 2 chargers for every 1 discharger. Before seeing this video (and understanding those), I was using accumulators to go trough the night, since I generate 3x more energy during the "day" phase. But, If I'm using only one side of the planet, I can easily store that with Energy Exchangers with a simple 'differential technique'. All I need to do is to have 2 Chargers for every 1 Discharger. And... supposing that they USE/CHARGE at the same rate, for every 3 Exchangers, I got a FREE 45MW of power. I don't know if this will work for late game (I'm at 70h+ and haven't finished my Dyson sphere), but its pretty useful and easier to manage. I just need to get to my 'energy neibour' and adjust if I get net negative.

[@PoggerFoxy]

only issue with energy exchangers is priority really, if they were lowered in priority for energy consumption they would be the best thing ever, but this showed me how useful they can really be anyway also your content is so good that everytime I watch a video I can see myself doing similar things and just conquering the entire star cluster

[@sLytesTylez]

Nilaus! Love your vids. This might be a long shot, but I'm wondering if there are others that think like me. I get tired of a cluttered inventory. So today I created a recycle center that 'reuploads' all buildings and fuel into the logistics, and a storage box at the end for all the other materials not sorted out. I would love to see your extremely tidy version of this! Perhaps far less interesting to you than to me, but it feels great to just dump my inventory and start fresh with what I want.

[@shadowhenge7118]

Really hope they add power priority someday.

[@sloaneglover1026]

I'm guessing this still isn't in the game?

[@saltcheese]

thanks for the video. I couldnt finish it, so i will come back to it tonight. Knowing you, i have a feeling you already did the math, but i will ask anyways. 1. accus can store 90 MJ while deuterium stores 300 MJ 2. the fact that you have to ferry the used accus back means they have a bigger energy overhead in terms of logistics 3. the energy exchangers are more expensive than fusion power plants; but i think they maybe cheaper if taking the cost per MW of power 4. (not really a big deal), you will have fuel in your outposts if u use deuterium

[@davidplashify]

My only issue, if you can even call it that, is that early game while you're still confined to your home system, accumulators are pretty resource intensive. I wouldn't mind a balance pass on the materials required but I can see how it's motivation to start to move off the homeworld and start interplanetary logistics.

[@brohvakiindova4452]

I second this, I'd suggest making the accumulator cheaper and introducing an improved version for later on I think accumulators should be a bit more intuitive to use, having to come up with all sorts of balancing workarounds because the game mechanics are still pretty limited kills the fun for me they should add some power management options (like setting priority, discharging accumulators according to consumption demand etc.) balance it with being late game science or accumulators wasting energy like the ray receiver

[@Sephs-x8b]

Could you make a blueprint of such marvellous energy exchanger facility?PLEASE! I watch all your videos!

[@salemprompthous3820]

Really do hope the devs revize how the Exchangers work, not being forced to set up both discharging and charging and the same planet. For now, it works, but I feel it takes up a bit too much space, specifically in terms of when they're researched (when warpers are still light years away). Thanks for this, though, @Nilaus, as I've somehow managed to muck up the priority through splitters, now that won't happen (as often, atleast) again ❤

[@gerakimolarnoe3005]

Hello Nilaus, I have been watchting your DSP playthrough and your (obligatory) tutorials. Though I have never commented, sorry for that, I did like most of the vids. BUT I'm in awe. I have played factorio over the last 6 years, before 1.0, and I did it all.. mega base.. warp base.. even an insane mode that let me drive trains throuh warp base (very short bug).. In Factorio I feel that I reached a "frontier". but DSP is SO MUCH MORE.. like 'factorio vs spore vs gazillionaire'. This game is new BUT you are BY FAR the best and most efficient builder in DSP I have ever seen on yt.. Youranispiration!!!!!!!!!

[@Aldrasio]

I really like how this game distinguishes itself from Factorio by making you deal with waste products a lot more. It's an interesting challenge on its own and it's affected the way I've thought about builds since I first set up red cubes. The accumulator management is also interesting, although I wish there was some way to prioritize power generation methods (though without any equivalent of Factorio's circuits I suppose you could use filter splitters with priority inputs/outputs to make logic gates based on belt backups, then use that to feed fuel to backup generators if the empty accumulators back up and power production starts to stall).

[@Tennouseijin]

I'm wondering if sorters could be used to solve the problem. On the line that supplies full accumulators to the energy exchangers, you could place a sorter that 'steals' the full accumulators, and (with priority, so it never backs up) returns them to the start of the line. If the grid runs out of power, this sorter will stop working, so accumulators will be able to reach the exchangers, resuming their work. In case of a brownout, the sorter simply slows down, so some accumulators would reach their destination, while some would not. Maybe there's some way to balance it such that it reaches a reasonable equilibrium... though I suppose that equilibrium would be a 'constant brownout'...

[@MsFlyingCake]

I always go charge vs discharge 2:1, it works great for load balancing.

[@kiwidude68]

Thanks for the video. The issue I have is that you say these work best when using the power of a dyson sphere. However if you have progressed as far as building a sphere then you have either (a) already solved your power issues with other means, or (b) have had to stumble through the game with a mish-mash of small "temporary" factory builds of various kinds, low on power the vast majority of the time. The latter being the vast majority of YT'er playthroughs out there - understandable as a first time experience of the game we all have, but... Was interested to hear you mention you will (at some point) have another playthrough - given all you have learned I am intrigued to see how you juggle the balance of building towards your desired scale with the limited power resource options you have in your home system in the earlier game. Perhaps there really is no option but to rebuild everything twice - once in a minimalistic fashion in your home system to unlock the tech tree enough to let you get out of the system and start a sphere somewhere, and only then can you actually start building your "real" production systems.

[@Nilaus]

Dyson Swarm is rather early and provides lots of power to feed this

[@kiwidude68]

@@Nilaus Thanks for the reply - is that true earlier in the game though? The predominant feedback I saw from other people playing was rather negative around building a swarm prior to being ready to build a sphere, and that the amount of power gained vs expended on production was very minimal, particularly with the short sail life in early game and finnickiness of ray receiver placement. Perhaps that feedback was wrong? The reason I ask all of this is I find myself in a "power hole" of my own creating - I haven't yet built a swarm, have (some) green science being made, am at the point of wanting to go exploring other systems but don't really have a plan for where the bump in power I need is going to come from...

[@fare-5174]

@@kiwidude68 A solar sail consumes iron, copper, stone, coal and oil to build, whereas a solar panel needs iron, copper and stone( or silicon if you're rich). A solar panel is earlier in the tech tree, lasts forever, has more output than a pre-white upgrades solar sail, and does not require ray receivers. To be honest I struggle to find any reason to use sails at all unless it's to fill in the sphere panes. So build about a thousand solar panels, fly around the equator a few times clicking the panels as fast and as close as you can, and that's 300mw of power for you in, like, ten-twenty minutes. If you are still struggling, do that again. I doubt you'll need more than that because 1 gw of power is enough to get enough tech to switch to deuterium/antimatter as appropriate.

[@kiwidude68]

@@fare-5174 Thanks for the comment - yeah I have some solar, between that and thermal I have about 400MW on my home planet and 1GW on my nearby planet that I have been using as a bigger production build area (no water/lava to deal with). However that isn't enough for the scale of what I have built so far (it needs at least 2GW and a lot more to finish what I am building there). So that's where I kind of hit the wall, I don't have any scale of deuterium/rod production so trying to figure out what I shall be looking out for from nearby systems and what to build to scale up the power as the priority...

[@NdxtremePro]

This is great! The only thing you didn't address was when and how to scale up your power production planets when you have more energy demands galactically than you are producing. You can just use a mixed model with every planet getting suns in the late game, and supplementing with Accumulators, but if you are doing an all Exchanger build, that becomes a different issue. Dedicate one planet to be filled with Suns and Exchangers? Or Create local hubs in different parts of the star cluster? Or both? Can't wait to see what you do next!

[@Voltlighter]

you'd probably have one planet be the recharger/battery maker and then only add more if the interstellar hubs for full batteries can't keep up on their deliveries The design Nilaus showed could always have more exchangers and another line of empty battery assemblers

[@NdxtremePro]

@@Voltlighter That's true, but you still have to add more power in those places. And using suns, on one planet that does nothing but power distribution, would simplify power upkeep, distribution of Antimatter cells and you could designate one system for just that.

[@kiks1964]

In the last build used to account for local production, the empty accumulators should be prioritized with a filter to feed the chargers instead and redirect excess to the hub. Without this they could be 'stolen' by the network leaving nothing for the chargers and hereby potentially wasting some locally produced energy.

[@Khono]

I'm here from two years in the future! Power balancing is still not implemented :( Also, we still don't have flying cars or honest politicians. :(

[@revenevan11]

Keep coming back to this one whenever I forget how to set up the filters and such lol.

[@klydon1291]

Thanks for doing this one Nilaus. I have seen your positive comments on exchangers in your earlier videos. This helps draw it all together as a useful option when players are likely struggling for power as they bring fractioners on line to do the warp cores. I have personally went solar with some deterium power, but it isn't enough after doing the fractioners. I will probably have to come up with a way to import power or move my fractioner complex to another planet in my starting system. Thank you again and I really enjoy your videos.

[@steveo3459]

Bravo! I've been mulling this problem myself for awhile, but couldn't quite get it. You'd probably agree that there are a number of "moving parts" to make power balancing work. I'm going to have to study this some more, but from this tutorial I get the basic idea, and I think I can build it.

[@hyperforce]

The main problem I have with energy dischargers is that they discharge all the time, not on demand. And if you set the to idle they simply output charged accumulators again, which is annoying as it means you need a filter to ensure it doesn't block up the intake to the orbital logistics tower again. They also only charge accumulators when there is excess power in the network, so if you are not at 100% power, then any off world system that relies solely on accumulators will potentially have issues.

[@Unbelishitable]

Annoying thing about exchangers is that in discarge mode they will not discharge for the amount of difference between your power demand and production, but all of the energy will be taken from exchangers first and if they cant provide enough then the rest will be supplied from local production. I wish we could change that behavior.

[@valiakosilla2413]

It is interesting to see that accumulators are relevant option and I agree most of your arguments. However, I personally do not like them still. From my point of view building of deuterium rod production is not more complicated or laborious than building and balancing charging system and I also like sorter feed more, because it is much faster to build than splitters with that mod. I do not also understand that frugality about resources in this kind of games where there are an order of magnitude more resources easily available than I ever consume during my game before I get bored. You have very high production if your series but still use only very small part of stars in you cluster. I an quite sure that you could increase production to 100 white cubes per second and run the game hundreds of hours before you would encounter a lack of resources. But it is very nice that there are different options which work as well, depending on player's personal priorities.

[@Comicsluvr]

I thought that these were used when you don't have your solar belt up and running yet...charging during the day and discharging at night. However, by the time you can make these you don't really NEED to store power because you have more ways to make it. Then I saw this video and I finally figured out what they were for. Thanks very much for this!

[@CaseyRamo]

Thanks again for this tutorial. I just revisited this to recall the layout with the side load. Just in time for those orbital collectors. Oh yea and also the polar hub to make anything was super useful to get all the annoying things up and running and into the network ASAP. Great job!

[@Seraph815]

Now the energy exchangers make sense to me and I can realy use them. Thank you very much for this incredible Guide!

[@sebastians.4136]

I always found splitters relatively useless in DSP. Anything they can do you can do with sorters that connect 2 roads just as easily. You can set priorities on sorters just like in splitters. Sorters dont take 4 grid spaces like splitters do though. Maybe you should do a video about the different ways to seperate content on roads? I was actually planning on building a recycling road for myself where i can put any items i have in my inventory into a store, that feeds a road, which uses sorters to split all materials in the game into towers or stores that feed back into the main network of production/consumption. The concept isn't finished yet, if you think the idea is good maybe you could come up with a final concept for a recycler and make a video? That would be great!.

[@jonathan_60503]

Splitters do have a few specific advantages over using sorters (inserters) belt to belt. 1) Splitters don't require power to operate 2) Splitters have higher throughput than sorters - you need several maxed out Mk.III sorters to fill a Mk.III belt 3) Splitters can act as an overflow valve - allowing output to belts only when the prioritize output is full/jammed. (Though this doesn't appear to work correctly if you have more than 1 input into the splitter) 4) Splitters with a filter output set guarantee that the filtered item can never pollute the other outputs (at the possible expense of jamming your input belts) 5) The dual level sorters can raise or lower belts in less room than ramps. 6) And of course, as Nilaus likes to do you can use splitters to have two belts cross each other without ramps (or ramp editing tricks) But you're right that sorters have advantages of their own. They don't take extra space, they can reach across other belts (can be useful for a quick bodge job within a spaghetti of existing belts), and they're easier to set up between elevated belts

[@sebastians.4136]

@@jonathan_60503 You make some good points. I think you convinced me that splitters aren't as useless as i thought. The splitters that split onto a higher level I sometimes used but whenever i wanted to cross a road i always thought the half-step bridge looked better (and took less room). Thanks for your answer :)

[@edhikurniawan]

You could also stack a splitter to adjust to your required height. Also Splitter is crucial for my Hydrogen splicer. Being first it handles liquids pretty well. Second, i will set the the belt to loop into the splicer to maximize that 1% chance to get Deuterium. I need the splitter prioritize to loop the hydrogen than to excess.

[@ruukinen]

@@sebastians.4136 The other benefit splitters have is, you can put a storage box on top of them and they will fill it up at belt speeds. For either buffering or to just store stuff. And since you can put a drone station on a storage box it's the best way to feed them.

[@zncon]

I'm very interested to watch if you do a play through using only these to send energy. I have a gut feeling that the system cannot be truly balanced because of the time delay in returning the empties. Eventually some planets trying to return them wont have anywhere to send them.

[@ninjadude501]

Simple solution: More ILS. Either end.

[@granolapancake]

Why build an energy charging station on a single planet, and then distribute those accumulators to energy discharging stations elsewhere, when you could simply use the ray receiver to gather charged particles, and transport antimatter fuel cells to only a handful of artificial stars for a similar affect? I've tried both methods for interplanetary, and interstellar energy exchange, and the later seems to require significantly less space and effort.

[@ecmorgan69]

I just tried them in my last playthrough. OMG, they are awesome! They are great for jumpstarting a new planet.

[@luxmo112]

You did it again! Nilaus, I try to resist watching your videos because I like to play and discover my tweaks and tricks, but sometimes I falter and when I do, I always find something new OR interesting OR a different perspective. Well, thank you! (bitter accent). :) And beware! Sometime on the future, I will give back!

[@valdasjakovlevas8317]

well i do have to agree on 1 thing Accumulators are very usefull thing . specialy if u wanna use energy efficiently . but for end game . antimatter fuel is the way . cause with 1 trip (2 trips in reality cause u need to get them back) of full accumulators we get. 270 GJ of energy . and 1 trip of antimatter 7200 GJ. but i do hope they will expand on them and maybe give us better tier accumulators... anyway great video.

[@rewindoflow]

Could you use sorters to pull charged accumulators off a belt, so that when the power drops, fewer charged accumulators get removed, and hence more reach the exchangers?

[@ivanantol4350]

Dude... How... Just how.. this vid is insane. I cant find the right words to describe my feelings lol

[@Tank420uk]

Francis John just uploaded a time lapse of his sphere finishing off. Gave me an idea I'm not sure I can manage, but, find a system with multiple planets, 6 I think is max, set up everything needed for your dyson sphere, with one final piece of the system to set it all running, like, actually bringing it back to this vid, have them all setup on energy exchangers with filled accumulators waiting to go. When ready, set it off and watch from dyson planning view of multiple sources firing massive amounts at a star? Maybe make a save before starting it up and do it from different views, I don't know probably getting a bit ambitious now.

[@jensenofc2011]

This video was so gold!! BIG THANKS!!!!!!😁 I just set these ups and connected them right to my grid. But nothing really happened and I was like ''wtf is this useless crap?!''. But as always, I was inpatient. But after this video, I now understand how to use them.😁😍

[@ragnork61]

Nilaus, you are so goddamn smart! I would have never thought of these builds!

[@walkerthegr8]

Very informative video, but wow this is a lot of work compared to antimatter. I know it takes resources, but its practically free its so cheap for the power you get. Also very space efficient and you don't have to worry about logistics

[@TheBubblegumgirl14]

I was expecting intergalactic power to be like building another type of ray receiver and toggling where it collects from. This is much more confusing but I think I'm getting it

[@-umph]

I love the idea of a galactic exchanger method but by the time I had an ability to honestly set up the logistics I could just pop down a sun, the exploration in the game is way too late game and has so little incentive- if they made midgame more beefier and more exploration related echanges make sense, and they are a neat idea, I just can't be bothered. Maybe have it so if a shuttle is ferrying batteries they automatically get a free warp, or make a new structure that shoots exchangers out at high speed and one to catch them. Maybe 1/3 warp speed but in early/mid game and only for 1 object type. And that's a ton of real estate for power generation of any method. Anyway yeah, they are a good idea but never make sense with the games' current pacing. You did a great job building that system though- it's a terrific proof of concept and it would be fun to challenge yourself to only using these, but it will probably/unfortunately remain an enthusiast kink unless they buff them, if you are min/maxxing hard core you wouldn't use this system either, so it's a neat but overly complicated system that can jam if you screw up a single splitter or line. Maybe make the charging/discharging stations also have the cannon/catcher I was describing, something like that,or they can house a single logistics vessel that gets the 1/3 warp propulsion. I'm just trying to think of easy ways the devs could tweak it without having to make new models or systems.

[@kulibzz8254]

Nilaus, have you found any tidally locked planets?

[@OhmIsFutile]

Cool tricks to prevent overloading the system with too many accumulators and also balancing charge/discharge. Though, I'd prefer if they added 3 options for local grids: renewable first, fuel first, and balanced (current). Main reason is that sometimes I do want fuel to be consumed at the maximum rate especially if byproducts may end up jamming a production line.

[@brohvakiindova4452]

not sure if you already knew but you can use two isolated power grids with thermal power stations and another isolated grid with energy exchangers each to constantly burn excess fuel through priority splitting it's not very elegant and the power is wasted but I don't mind because the jams are 10 times more annoying, plus you basically only need to do it with hydrogen later on

[@OhmIsFutile]

@@brohvakiindova4452 Well, I don't really like energy exchangers that much although they are better than they used to be. But I've also figured out a foolproof way to never have any excess hydrogen which is really the only thing that has a real risk of clogging production lines since then so it's all moot now.

[@brohvakiindova4452]

@@OhmIsFutile so what's your solution? only thing that can clog up at my state now is plastic, my "foolproof" solution is to try and prioritize its hydrogen output for everything, so far no issue but I've not yet hooked up deuterium giants and kept production running mostly

[@OhmIsFutile]

@@brohvakiindova4452 I use two logistic stations whenever I need to import hydrogen. Only one is set to allow orbital collection. That way I can tap all of the gas giants I want and never flood my system. I made a video on it. Also, idk how you'd clog up on plastic... you can always turn excess oil into more hydrogen and graphite with x-ray cracking if you want. Then if you don't want the graphite then turn it into diamonds and overflow the diamonds in thermal plants. They have practically no energy so they burn really well.

[@brohvakiindova4452]

@@OhmIsFutile I'm really slow so I was more comfortable avoiding oil processing because each step down the line has the potential to clog the system up if you don't have perfect ratios and continuous production as plastic is the only thing using oil it doesn't matter if the light oil clogs up so I'm only managing the tiny excess of hydrogen same goes for fire ice into graphene but that is optional (but too good to skip) these two are easily sucked up from my deuterium/casimir crystal productions and the rest is substituted by a gas giant I have set up the orbital collecting station with side merging belts into the production which works fine so far TLDR I'm trying to make the game run "idle proof" because I'm overthinking stuff all the time x)

[@Rogerfoulger]

I find wind power the best in a lot of situations and can double up as power poles. Only go to more extreme power when need to power the planet to planet towers or a production planet. When I do a second playthrough may make more effort to make a proper infrastructure for the batteries as a source of power on other worlds. Have a small automation for making the gas extractors or when I need a supply to supplement wind turbines on a planet

[@Nilaus]

I don't use Wind Power outside of the very early game. They take way too much space and using them as power poles ruin compactness of designs

[@Rogerfoulger]

@@Nilaus You have such wonderful designs, I'm not that creative so works well but equally understand it would ruin your aesthetic

[@Nogardtist]

this explains everything i taught they were interstellar wireless charger and discharger to near power grid where one planet can generate power and energy exchanger just long range energy capacitor

[@mirokorenik2508]

Thank you Nilaus for this video. I love the accumulators in this game. They allow me to ship the energy between the planets.

[@Unbelishitable]

2:27 Correction: Its not 45 MW/s. It is just 45MW. MW is MJ/s.

[@patwalsh52]

It would be nice if you had a schematic of this setup

[@Unbelishitable]

5:00 Why 135GJ? It says that the capacity of 1 accumulator is 90MJ so isnt 1000 accumulators supposed to be 90GJ and not 135GJ?

[@edhikurniawan]

I wish we have better battery capacity. They're so puny. I usually used Fire ice on thermal generator for energy. They're free right? Way better capacity than batteries per unit, and you don't need to send back the empty canisters. Although they do have limit on how many you can churn out from gas giants.

[@Corbald]

*_Thank you so much for the power balance tip!_* I've been wracking my mind trying to figure out how to do this!

[@stropheum]

How do you have so much free space on planets? Do you mine them dry before turning them into factories?

[@Nilaus]

I just pave over ore patches if I don't need them. It is impossible for me to mine things out with lvl 30+ veins utilisation

[@stropheum]

@@Nilaus i have 300 hours in this game and i literally had no idea you can pave over resources. that's so useful!

[@BrendonGreenNZL]

@@Nilaus how does the paving over resources thing actually work? Can the veins still be seen in the map view and recovered if necessary? Or, do you just have so much resource available that it ceases to be a concern?

[@disgustipated86]

@@BrendonGreenNZL You'll see the logo of the node on the map

[@NicholasOrr]

that's annoying.... nice spot on the power priority... so pretty much need to figure out your power and plan accordingly. makes little sense to setup renewables if going to require fuel based sources... lots of great info in this video - nice one

[@MrMe917]

18:05 According to the tooltip, the accumulator can contain 90MJ and the exchangers work at up to 45MW; wouldn't that mean the charge time to be 2s (not 3s), thus up to 60 (not 90) accumulators being able to get chained to a single belt? I never measured that, but I assumed (and based my build) on that. Also, one more thing: Have you tried emptying the exchangers by running a belt straight through them? You could make the build a bit more compact, if necessary. And as usual, great vid! I started following you about 3 weeks ago due to this game and didn't miss an episode since. If I may give you a suggestion for a future tutorial, how about how to maximise the utilization of the energy produced by your sphere? (I currently have a 7GW sphere but can't really put down enough dishes to use it all; did I just overdo it? Is there a solution, or an optimal build?) Or maybe how to properly set up rail ejectors/swarm orbit to maximise the amount of sails launched. (I thought that the poles would be the best choice, but maybe due to the wonky orbit of my planet, I found the equator to be more consistent; also, parallel orbit, perpendicular orbit, or some skewed angle?)

[@Voltlighter]

you can only tap on the order of GW from your sphere by using photon generation + graviton lenses, if you're using the ray receivers for power it can only suck 25 MW

[@jgischer]

The combination of "ignores other sources while discharging" and "only uses excess power when charging" makes a lot of very interesting things possible. It looks like an error, but I don't think it is. Of course, play the game the way you think is fun.

[@EssaBee]

Is the logic for the exchangers not drawing before all solar and receivers are tapped out implemented yet?

[@Aermydach]

I'd never figure all of this out on my own! Then again, DSP is my first and I'm only 100 hours in to factory/production line games.

[@sintaxera]

damn I wish I knew that map mode trick when I got stuck moving a thousand artificial suns that one time and had to dump them

[@MrNukealizer]

Nice tutorial! I just wish it had been 2 days earlier so I could've watched it before setting up my system. Fortunately it seems I got everything right, but it did take quite a bit of testing and design that could've been skipped after watching this.

[@gearsfan1549]

"that sounds like a alot, but just build it" me to myself my entire 3rd playthrough

[@drac124]

I don't understand what is the advantage of transporting batteries over transporting the actual energy source like fusion cylinders or hydrogen cylinders. This is only good for renewable energy.

[@cosmicharlie1970]

I just want the very very very very basic "what buttons do i press." When I try to do what you did at 2:20, it won't let me.

[@MinerEiner85]

Not so obvious feature: You can Daisy Chain the output. Feed charged Accumulators into a charger and it will just spit it out

[@MinerEiner85]

​@@toddkes5890 There is no need for T-junction at every Charger/ Discharger. Just let them feed into the next one. And only the last one gets fed into a splitter.

[@Arcane_123]

@@toddkes5890 No they do not. They only output Charged ones. So this setup will get stuck on the first exchanger.

[@MinerEiner85]

@@toddkes5890 No. You send charged Accumulaters into a charger or discharged Accumulators into a discharger. If the input is the same as the output it will just send it through the building. 11:50 you can see a T-Junction at every Energy Exchanger. Instead you can simply belt the output into the next building.

[@MinerEiner85]

@@toddkes5890 Charger A-> Charger B-> Charger C -> Storager/Splitter/Whatever. Its just a feedthrough of the output. In this example Charger B and Charger C will have 2 Inputs. One for charged Accumulators and the normal input with discharged Accumulators. Its not a replacement of the complete power balancing setup, just a cleanup for a charger OR discharger chain.

[@MinerEiner85]

@@toddkes5890 Time for some ASCII Art Nilaus Version: T-Junction -> T-Jun -> T-Jun -> Output Chared Accumulators ^ ^ ^ Charger -> Charger -> Charger ^ ^ ^ Splitter Charger -> Output Chared Accumulators ^ ^ ^ Splitter

[@broEye1]

Can't help but wonder what sort of PC Nilaus is using.

[@harshadpawar582]

don't you think there should be option on discharge of the accumulators that they will discharge only the amount you lack by other means of power generation + some margin.... for example you're generating 244MW by ray receivers and 100MW by discharging but you're consuming only 25% of total 344MW. at this point is there really any need for accumulator discharging?

[@harshadpawar582]

so basically we have Perpetual Motion Machine! :p cool!

[@sharaal8312]

It's also possible to build new accumulators anywhere on the planet where you charge them (so it's not needed to build them directly besides the charging location): At the place you build them put them into a logistics stations which is set to local supply and remote storage, At the place you charge them place a logistic station with local demand and remote storage, put them out to sideloading the belt of empty accumulators from the remote demands like you done. :)

[@GoingtoHecq]

They are the best form of energy because they are free to use. Between them and my Dyson sphere receivers I have massive free energy. I have my largest star making my largest Dyson sphere for a lot of critical photons, and my first star is already making 10gw of power, with most of my mining planets being powered by sets of six of these. I do this because I don't want to waste resources on fuels. I don't like to literally burn titanium or iron. Ironically they work most efficiently if they are completely alone on a planet. Yeah I agree it's a flaw and I also find it very frustrating. Ruins solar panels mid to late game unless you devote a planet to them which was only worth it to me once on my first system's inner lava planet. Also, I find that my first planet is essentially overrun with drones and making my game run slowly when i am there. It is essentially awful but it is my fault 😅.

[@ufuker5754]

1st antimatter 2nd on site hydrogen local gas giant or oil byprodoct 3rd battery 4th deuterium fuel rods only in small very remote outpost like black hole 5th on site power neckless

[@rustyredbeard]

A power management mod would be a great idea

[@scottlunden3794]

for some reason a felt the need to subscribe!

[@TheKlecker1]

Thanks for the Information!

[@FanofScandal]

thanks for explaining this one

[@dichterdichter3593]

I still dont really understand for what purpose the accumulators are a building.

[@TheAlstrang]

you can use them alongside solar panels as a battery so when the panel is in darkness they will release the energy back into the system. at least that is what i think they do, i have never used them in this way.

[@Dan-gs3kg]

You can use it to buffer energy when you don't have enough exchanges to transfer it, you want to reduce lag by reducing the amount of exchanges (and all of the belts/items involved), reduce tower inventory/vessel allocations (lower latency, increase bandwidth), or reducing pathfinding. This might become relevant with optimising of logistics/energy hubs within star and planetary systems.

[@jonathan_60503]

I did find that helpful when building my first few station for harvesting the gas giant - and solve my initial mid-game deuterium shortage; as those require 20 charged accumulators for each station. Instead of coming up with the resources to also build an exchanger I could just grab a bunch of accumulators and plop them down to fill themselves up from the grid. Later of course I used exchangers to automate the construction line for those stations.

[@shawnp6653]

Is the second 2nd planet independent from your 1st planet? Or does it still ship out discharged and receive back charged accumulators? Thanks for helping me understand :)

[@Nilaus]

you should only have 1 place where you charge (at least 1 place per Dyson Sphere) and then all other systems get powered by the Exchangers (if you chose that method)

[@norbertblackrain2379]

Message worked, subscribed

[@paulbibbee1671]

Staying up till one pays off sometimes

[@EricHowell]

super useful. thank you

[@alucardnolifeking789]

Hey Nilaus, is it possible that you offer your save file for us? To see how it looks overall, see what i could improve on my file.

[@Nilaus]

Patreon supporters have access to save games

[@harrybeau1951]

This is awesome. Thank you

[@terakahn]

This is so confusing but I'm sure it'll be useful someday.

[@NatanStarke]

Cool system man :)

[@gregcsi]

Do you have this setup in a blueprint?

[@blacktigerace6687]

thx for this video, it really help but you explain the video to stutter, i need to rewatch the video almost 20 times to understand what you mean i think you should fix this video :)

[@gerakimolarnoe3005]

and btw I love your accent! me myself am a native dutch-speaker..

[@bluelynx4493]

The amount of super magnetic rings required were difficult for me.

[@rautinger]

it's not difficult but blue engines whatever they're called (super magnetic?) are super uncool. even if you have two setups with a blue belt full of magnetic coil each, it still sucks to make a blue engine setup just for accu.

[@fast1nakus]

I feel like one of the reasons why I hate to use them is that it's only one tier of them. It feels wrong. I think we need atleast 2 tears of accumulators, possibly 3

[@bryguy0052]

If you can't have solar all around your planet, it would help you survive the night time.

[@fast1nakus]

@@bryguy0052 dont see a reason not to have a solar ring