If no quantity is specified in a recipe then assume a quantity of 1.

Extractor

Stamper

Compositor

Refinery

Fabricator
*The recipe listed in-game is incorrect.

The power generator consumes one item or unit of fuel per second (except for uranium rods which last for two). This means that a fuel's power output is both its power output per item as well as a generator's power output per second when burning that fuel. Each power generator upgrade increases the all power generated by 10% without increasing fuel consumption. This is an additive bonus, so you get +40% power when it's researched all four times.
*Uranium rods last for 2 seconds instead of the usual 1, meaning that each rod provides between 2000 and 2800 energy per item. Uranium rods also require coolant, with one unit of coolant being consumed for every uranium rod consumed (1/2 per second per power plant). The game menus tell you different numbers and those are completely wrong, check your own power generators if you don't believe me. The game's power numbers for carbon ingots are also off.

To better compare fuel sources, here's what's required to produce 2000 MW with each fuel source:

• Carbon Ingots: 10 Carbon Ore/sec (+ 10 Extractors + 10 Stampers + 10 Power Generators, consumes 20 to 320 energy/sec for processing)
  
• Fuel: 16 Oil/sec (+ 8 Refineries + 8 Power Generators, consumes 8 to 128 energy/sec for processing)
  
• Hydrogen: 2 2/3 Iron Ore/sec + 1 1/3 Nickel Ore/sec + 4 Water/sec (+ 4 Extractors (if you don't scale this up to a multiple of 3 then add 1 more after scaling) + 4 Compositors + 8 Refineries + 4 Power Generators, consumes 16 to 256 energy/sec for processing)
  
• Uranium: 7/8 Uranium Ore/sec + 2 Water/sec (+ 3.5 Extractors + 4 Stampers + 1 Refinery + 2 Power Generators, consumes 8.5 to 136 energy/sec for processing)

In the early game, you only need one uranium planet before water becomes your limiting factor for uranium power. And when you have a decent speed for the Matter Materializer water becomes a nonissue and it's uranium which is the limiting factor.


This has nothing to do with gameplay, but this game's hydrogen power must be fusion. It's not pure hydrogen, it's a fluid composed of disposable microscopic fusion reactors so small that they move as a fluid. And that's why they require a composite to make and why they require nanites as a prerequisite and why they mix together with nanomachines so well. Fusion power nanites are my headcanon and I'm sticking to it.

The Matter Materializer creates materials using nothing but energy. It takes the same amount of time to make an item no matter what you're making, the amount of energy required varies per item. An unupgraded materializer takes 8 seconds to make an item (or unit of liquid) and every upgrade halves that time (so a fully upgraded matter materializer makes two items per second).

Materializing fuels just to burn them is generally a bad idea, but you can get energy from nothing by materializing the ingredients for hydrogen fuel:
2x Iron (2x100) + 1x Nickel (1x200) + 3x Active Compositor (3x1) + 3x Water (3x50) + 6x Active Refinery (6x1) -> 3x Hydrogen (2100 with generator upgrades)


Maybe the materializer isn't making things from nothing. Maybe it's a ramscoop or starlifter which uses huge amounts of power to transmute the collected matter.

Higher tier materials resist damage better, but each material tier 1 and up has a weakness (which is parenthesized in the list). Weapons which a material is weak against treat that material as being one tier lower.
Tier 2 and tier 3 materials obsolete all materials of lower tiers.

• Tier 0
  
  • Iron
    
  • Copper
    
  • Nickel
    
  • Gold
• Special
  
  • Glass (Glass is Tier 0.3 against lasers but is tier 0 against all other damage.)
• Tier 0.5
  
  • Titanium
• Tier 1
  
  • Cupronickel (weak to Railgun)
    
  • Iron Copper (weak to Missile)
    
  • Iron Nickel (weak to Laser)
• Tier 2
  
  • Copper Gold (weak to Railgun)
    
  • Ferrotitan (weak to Missile)
    
  • Nickel Gold (weak to Laser)
• Tier 3
  
  • Titanium Gold (weak to Railgun)
    
  • Titanium Copper (weak to Missile)
    
  • Nitinol (weak to Laser)

A weapon's firing rate depends on how many times it has been upgraded. Everything else depends on the ammo used.

Railgun Ammo

Missile Launcher Ammo

Laser Cannon Ammo

The compositor and construction cannon always use blocks of metal while the fabricator always uses ingots.
When planning factories, keep in mind that a tube only supports 2 items per second.
Pipes also have infinite capacity but remember that every group of continuous pipes must be dedicated to a single liquid and requires an attached tank to use as a buffer.
Colonies require slightly more items per second than they say they do. Give each one an extra 0.25/sec of what it constantly need (so at least 1.75 for zero or one star, 2.5 for two stars and 3.25 for three stars).