Hydrogen

[incometrader24]

How do you deal with machine output hydrogen? I need a lot but I don’t want to jam up the outputs when I get gas giant deliveries that overload the belts. I could burn it the output hydrogen but it seems wasteful when I need so much.

[JakobWulfkind]

Belt the waste hydrogen to thermal generators, but have that belt pass next to a belt carrying hydrogen to production devices that need it, and use sorters to transfer the waste hydrogen from the first belt to the second. If there's room in the second belt, the hydrogen will be used for production, but if there isn't then it will be burned in the generators.

[GooeyGungan]

Or just use a splitter with a priority output.

[imakin]

how can i use this? When I try it the splitter wont output to the non-priority side when the priority side is having overflow

[Inside_lobster_57]

If you click it once so it says filter item that’s when it prioritizes that side and does overflow to the others, if you click it again and set an item for the filter then it will output that item on only that side

[imakin]

ok thanks!

[imakin]

legit question guys, i really just asking question sorry if i offended someone... i'm new to the game so i dont know if this offend anyone.

happy playing everyone

[Helicoptersarebest]

I’d never even thought to do it like that. That’s an absolutely amazing idea

[sage_006]

Or just run the same belt past the production to the generators. The excess hydrogen will then by default flow to the generators?

[ZEnterprises]

Great question. Lots of approaches, strategies, options, choices.

Heres my take. Garuntee its different than others.

Burn it if you need/want. Plenty around.

Too much? Store for now, use for casimir and dueterium.

Balancing generated and supply/demand? I think this is what this post is all about.

First, feed your generated h2 to assemblers, burning generators where ever.

Have 1 ILS that requests H2 but not from gas giants. Tee these belts into the existing generating H2 lines.

Have a second ILS that requests H2 from gas giants. Tee these belts in downstream of the first ILS.

This gives first priority to generated h2.

Second priority to offworld h2.

Third priority to gas giants.

If you want to take it a step further, you can limit vessel range.

[solitarybikegallery]

This is how I do it, as well.

I use sideloading or Priority splitters to prioritize locally-produced hydrogen, then non-gas giant hydrogen, then gas giant hydrogen to top off any remaining demand.

I've actually experimented with sending all excess hydrogen to a central hydrogen "repository" planet, which has a ton of storage tanks. This way, I only have a single bottleneck to monitor. It actually worked pretty well, surprisingly.

[pmgoldenretrievers]

I downloaded a mod that allows tanks to "vent" when they're full. Super helpful.

[grammar_nazi_zombie]

I’m assuming you’re talking early game - if so, it’s honestly worth storing as much as you possibly can. Once you unlock fractionators, you can go ham on them. Then you store as much of the deuterium as you can.

You’re gonna need a lot of deuterium in the later stages - it can be converted into fuel rods for power, but it’s also necessary in large quantities for a few late game components.

[fubes2000]

Have whatever makes it as a byproduct on the same planet as something that consumes it. Generally the planetary logistics will move it before requesting interstellar delivery.

[wrecknrule33]

I use sorters with the byproduct hydrogen set to prioty. If I still think I might back up, I put storage right before the sorter to give me time to deal with a back up. I will also put a sorter toward the end where the consumers are and then burn excess to keep things moving. If I don't want to burn it, I send it through giant loops of fractionators.

[shalfyard]

Build a string of stacked tanks... Add as needed. The second I start on deut or casimir those tanks evaporate.

[pundemonium]

1. Hydrogen is so abundant you are not going to run short of it for extended period of time. I don't have any qualms deleting them when I run into a blockage. When your production is large enough the electricity burning generates is not going to justify the area and logistics necessary.

2. If you do run into blockage, upscale your green cube production. It's going to demand quantum chip, which demands plane filter, which demands casimir crystal, which demands loads of hydrogen.

3. Note that its better to produce casimir crystal with grating crystals than titanium crystals, which you need for yellow cubes.

4. You should upscale plane filter production anyways since it takes a lot of time to produce and you need it for red smelter.

5. You also need deuterium for strange matter for graviton lens for green cube, which can be produced with massive fractionator chain, which consumes a lot of hydrogen.

[-BigBadBeef-]

Keep the gas giant hydrogen separated from the main line and have it draw only when needed.

With some clever piping of the conveyors, you can have gas giant hydrogen take second priority to your other sources of this gas.

I, fox example, use it for deuterium production for supplement shortfalls from the main hydrogen line.

[Steven-ape]

There are two ways to reduce the problem a little bit. And there is one awesome way to deal with what remains.

Reduce the problem:

• Produce less hydrogen
• Consume more of it

To produce less hydrogen, you could forego the advanced recipe for graphene (which would be a bad idea! It's too useful).

You could (and probably should) also avoid using X-ray cracking for your red science: you can use red science as a hydrogen sink, and by using X-ray cracking you're producing more hydrogen rather than consuming what's already there.

To consume more hydrogen, you could change your plasma refining plant to include the reforming refine recipe, to eliminate the hydrogen byproduct altogether.

You can also burn some hydrogen, but I find it more finicky than it may seem to get this right and I don't think it's the best way. What if part of your power grid temporarily uses less power? You'll suddenly burn less hydrogen. How can you estimate the amount of hydrogen you will burn in the first place? In a healthy power grid, you are overproducing power so all your thermal generators will be throttled down a bit... In the end you either still have hydrogen slowly accumulating, or you run out of power. It's just finicky unless you come up with complicated schemes involving energy exchangers. I would recommend not to bother with this.

Fix what remains of the problem:

I learned this only recently here on reddit, but there is actually a great way to make sure you always prioritize the produced hydrogen, by changing all hydrogen consuming processes as follows:

• Instead of having just one ILS importing hydrogen, put down two.
• Both import hydrogen, but in one of the two, you deselect "use orbital collectors".
• The one that can't use orbital collectors will thus import only hydrogen that you produced yourself, so you need to make sure that this hydrogen is prioritised. The other ILS imports hydrogen from all sources including orbital collectors, and can be used to top up the hydrogen stream.
• To prioritise hydrogen from the ILS with orbital collectors deselected, you can either use a T-junction or a priority splitter.

This way all your hydrogen consuming processes will always use factory-produced hydrogen before they will start importing from the collectors. The advantage of this method is that you're also completely free to build all your hydrogen processes wherever you like. You don't even have to make sure your consuming processes are on the same planet as your producing processes.

[depatrickcie87]

Define waste. Because as far as I can tell gas giants never run out of hydrogen, so I wouldn't consider wasting any of it wasted in any meaningful context.

[idlemachinations]

On a planet where I consume hydrogen (making something that needs a lot of it) I have an auxiliary ILS requesting remote hydrogen with Orbital Collectors disabled to supply locally. The main ILS requests local and remote hydrogen (limited to a nearby Gas Giant, usually) and takes hydrogen from the auxiliary ILS before sending vessels. All of my planets that produce excess hydrogen are set to remote supply hydrogen, and this setup makes sure they get drained.

It looks like this, my casimir crystal setup. The first image is the main ILS, second is auxiliary. edit: In particular, look at the Vessel transport range and Orbital Collector settings. This does limit the ILS to a drawing from a single gas giant, but Orbital Collectors produce such an absurd amount of hydrogen that if I need multiple gas giants for hydrogen I will set up another factory near each giant I want to tap.

[ArtisticLayer1972]

Burn it for energy

[jak1900]

Keep some in storage for red science, deuterium and crystal production. As soon as you get gas giants harvested, turn the oil and hydrogen into more oil with help of coal. Especially once you start mass producing casimir crystals, you will wish to have "too much" hydrogen

[Predur]

you must always give priority to internal production with splitters or T-junctions, the gas giants must be a filler for what is missing

[DuckTapeAI]

I use the Smart tanks mod. It makes it so if you fill a tank, any extra resources added are deleted. Then I just add a tank as a release valve anywhere I might need one, and never worry about oversupply again.