Dyson Sphere Program – How to Use Energy Exchangers to Power Factories

This guide is to assist with understanding the distribution and use of accumulators to power your factories in different locations. It was developed after the release of DSP v0.7.18 where full accumulators hold 270MJ of energy instead of the previous 90MJ.

There are two basic ways to make use of Energy Exchangers:

• As a backup system to handle surges in your current energy distribution network.
• As the primary source of energy to power your factories.

De basis

One of the ways to use Energy Exchangers is as a primary source of energy for your factories. This is only one option of the many ways to power your factories.

The latest game update has made this option more attractive because accumulators now hold a charge of 270MJ where previously they only held 90MJ.

Accumulators act like a capacitor/battery in that they can be charged up and will hold it’s charge until they are put into use. Full accumulators can be stored in PL/IL stations, In uw inventaris, or in chests. They are transportable locally on your planet via belts, or stations and can be sent to other planets via the ILS (Interstellar Logistic Station) that require vessels.

There are two functions of the Energy Exchanger, charging and discharging, that is selected in the exchanger itself.

It doesn’t matter what method you use to collect excess energy, whether it is from a solar farm, using Ray Receivers collecting power from a swarm or Dyson Sphere, using thermal generators, or any other way that you collect excess energy, the EE’s will charge accumulators using the excess energy.

Layout and Routing

The layout is simple. You will use your excess energy to connect to your Energy Exchangers using poles, or other devices the same way that you would power smelters and assemblers.

Using the PLS (planetary logistic station) or ILS (interstellar logistic station) is the ideal means for storing and distributing full and empty accumulators.

In this example I used an ILS to hold the charged accumulators that are created by the EEs and also to receive the empty accumulators from other locations as well as holding the newly created accumulators as demand increases.

This layout shows an ILS on the left feeding accumulators down the center between two rows of EEs set in charging mode using splitters to send accumulators into the top and bottom rows.

Full accumulators exit the EEs at the top of the top row and bottom of the bottom row, onto belts heading back to the ILS to wait for distribution by vessels.

Above the rows of EEs are assemblers that will make accumulators based on demand. For example if the ILS no longer holds any empty accumulators to send to the EEs, a side belt coming from the assemblers will feed the center belt to be charged by the EEs.

The idea is to fill up the ILS to the level of full accumulators for your needs (I used the full storage and charged 10k of accumulators) to be distributed to your factories.

Full accumulators are then sent to your factories where an ILS is demanding full accumulators. The full accumulators are disbursed via belts (or drones) to EEs that are set to discharge the full accumulators which are connected to a network that powers your factories. The EEs will discard the empty accumulators which are then collected into your ILS (marked supply) to be sent back to the charging station ILS (marked as demand) for charging again. *Opmerking: Do not fill your charging station ILS with empty accumulators because this will clog the system and there will be no room for the empties to come back to the charging station ILS for recharging. Let the empties from other locations send empties back to the charging station.

Fully charged accumulators and empty accumulators will cycle in a loop between the charging station and the various other locations without losing any from the inventory, so there is no need to make more empties except as you set up new locations that demand full accumulators. As you set up new locations, the assemblers will make the necessary accumulators to be charged, the EEs will charge them, and the ILS will deliver them. This is the purpose of the side belt from the assemblers.

The following image shows the basic routing of full accumulators going out to various factories and empty accumulators being sent back to the charging station for recharging:

This is an expandable setup and you can make your rows of EEs as long as you wish to keep your ILS full of charged/full accumulators. The empties will take care of them self and there is no need for your intervention of the operation except to add EEs or assemblers to keep up with the demand of factories you build that need full accumulators.

You can have as many charging stations as you like throughout your star cluster, and as long as they are all set up the same way, they will supply all your factories.