Power, and what shuts down first

Energy is produced locally and spent locally. There is no empire-wide pool: a world with three reactors and a world with none are two separate problems, and the only way power crosses between them is a Power Relay in orbit paired with a Rectenna Field on the ground.

When supply falls short, consumers are switched off by class, in this order — first row goes dark first:

Order	Class
1	Academies
2	Research
3	Industry
4	Repair
5	Food production
6	Weapons
7	Engines
8	Shields
9	Core systems
10	Life support

Academies and laboratories go before factories; factories go before repairs; repairs go before the farms. Weapons, engines and shields are held past all of that, and life support and the core systems are the last things in the colony to lose power — which is the whole design. A shortage costs you progress before it costs you anybody's life.

A brownout is a signal, not a death

Running short of power is not a losing position. It means you have built ahead of your reactors, which is a thing every player does, and the game tells you so by taking the research offline rather than by killing anyone.

A built worker with no current does not die. It stands where it is, goes dark, and starts again when the power comes back.

The one failure to take seriously is fuel. A Combustion Reactor burns Minerals every turn, and when the silos are empty it does not stop dead — it drops to 25% of its output. That is deliberate: at zero, the failure would seal itself shut, because the mine that would have dug the fuel is powered by the reactor that has no fuel. A quarter output is enough to claw back out, slowly and unpleasantly.

Sealed worlds cost more, and not linearly

Life support on a hostile world is multiplied by that world's severity raised to the power of 1.15. In plain terms the ladder runs about 1.0, 2.2, 3.5, 4.9, 6.4 — so the worst ground in the galaxy costs over six times what the mildest does to keep people alive on, before you have produced a single thing there.

It also eats consumables: 0.28 Minerals per turn per point of capacity, per point of severity above benign. A hostile outpost is a supply line, not a free claim. See settling a world that is trying to kill you.

What to actually do

• Build the reactor before the thing that needs it, not after.
• Solar asks for no crew, no fuel and no upkeep, and gives less. It is the right answer near a bright star and the wrong one in the dark.
• If you are burning Minerals for power, a mineral shortage is a power shortage one turn later.
• Unrest never touches Energy. That is on purpose — brownouts would spiral.

Keep reading

All of the guide →