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Dyson Sphere Program has a lot of possible fuel items, so I put together a table and analyzed the results.
I have not found any attempts to figure out the best Mech fuel yet so instead I set up my own. The only time I’m really concerned about mech fuel is when flying from planet to planet, or warping to other systems. It’s no fun to run out of power and be faced with reloading a save. So just what should I be burning ?
The two important factors to balance are the energy you can extract from the fuel (Total Power), and the Efficiency (How fast each item turns from inventory to power). Ease of collection is also a factor.
Fuel Efficiency Chart | Power | Efficiency | Stack | Total Power | Energy Efficiency |
Carbon Nanotube | .084 MJ | -80% | 100 | 8.4 | .0168 |
Graphene | .096 MJ | -70% | 100 | 9.6 | .0288 |
Crude Oil | 4 MJ | +20% | 20 | 80 | 4.8 |
Fuel Oil | 4.4 MJ | +30% | 20 | 88 | 5.72 |
Diamond | .9 MJ | -50% | 100 | 90 | .45 |
Wood | 1.50 MJ | -10% | 100 | 150 | 1.35 |
Hydrogen | 8 MJ | +100% | 20 | 160 | 16 |
Deuterium | 8 MJ | +100% | 20 | 160 | 16 |
Organic Crystal | 1.8 MJ | -20% | 100 | 180 | 1.44 |
Fire Ice | 4.80 MJ | +40% | 50 | 240 | 6.72 |
Plants | .5 MJ | -30% | 500 | 250 | .35 |
Coal | 2.70 MJ | 0% | 100 | 270 | 2.7 |
Energized Graphite | 6.30 MJ | +60% | 100 | 630 | 10.08 |
Hydrogen Rod | 40 MJ | +200% | 20 | 800 | 120 |
Deuterium Rod | 600 MJ | +300% | 20 | 12000 | 2400 |
Antimatter Rod | 7.50 GJ | +500 | 20 | 150000 | 45000 |
As expected the critical recipe components are horrid for power (Graphene, Carbon Nanotube).
For super early game energy plants, wood, and coal are pretty good. Gather easily and burn in the mech. You might want to save your wood and plants to make organic crystals, however. Early game they are hard to come by. Later game, the crystals will probably do in a pinch for short journeys if you have a planet to mine them directly from.
The various normal fuels (Oil and gases) are pretty bad, mostly owing to tiny stack sizes, so don’t burn these. I am hoping for a stacking rebalance – it’s nuts that one stack of hydrogen is 20, but your liquid storage tank holds 10,000.
The clear early-mid game fuel winner is Energized Graphite. Set up some smelters next to a coal field and store it, now you have mech fuel to get you anywhere within 5 light years. You can get a teeny bit extra power out of your Hydrogen Fuel Rods, but you have to set up a small production line to make them, so why bother. The extra efficiency isn’t worth it. Want to travel 20 light years ? Get several warpers and stack some extra graphite in your inventory.
Late game, while you’re building a Sphere, the Deuterium Rods start to look attractive. They are a component of the rockets so you’re going to be building them as you launch pieces of your Dyson Sphere. They’re expensive – you need to use the Super Blue Electromagnets to create them, but just wait until you’re building a lot of this stuff and start using these.
The Antimatter Rods are similar, power needs get really high at the End Game, and you’ll be making a lot of antimatter to deal with the white cubes.