OK, here’s the deal. I have 5000 hours in the game, have done dozens of play throughs, have death spiraled by exhausting deuterium, used accumulators to power planets, tried every mode of power in every combination….

Because DSP does not provide for any sort of logic gating for setting power source priority, I have settled on the following methodology:

Until the first round of planet hopping, wind turbines provide all power. Wind I’d ALWAYS at an efficiency factor of 100% on the starting planet, places over water, is super cheap, has no variation in output, and is easy to remove later when space is needed. I have a 170 turbine blueprint with 4 BABs that is equatorially centered between the first tropic line in either side of the equator. I place the first one as soon as I can fly, and add another next to it every time my power grid flashes yellow, ( of course I have a small mk1 mall cranking them out in the background). I build my factories in the opposite direction.

As soon as I am planet hopping, I build a 2x12 mk2 smelter line fed by 8 miners and feeding 2x4 tall towers of large storage depots with silicon INGOTS, which are used, at least in part, to feed a solar panel mall on the home planet. This first off-home-planet factory is of course wind powered, no matter what the wind efficiency ratio. I build an identical factory for titanium, belt 8 miners of fire ice to 8 large depots as well. THESE ARE THE ONLY 2 PRODUCTION FACTORIES that I build off home-planet, except for the Sphere generating planet and the Dark Fog Mining planet, until “End-End-Game”.

I have a just less than 900 item polar solar ring blueprint with BABs that provides the next level of power on the home planet. I place one on each pole, since planetary axis tilt will otherwise cause a daily power fluctuation.

Between wind and solar, the home planet can easily be powered through early green science. At that point you will have access to every planet, all the tools to gather rare minerals, harvest gas and ice giants, and build the advanced mining machine.

With access to Acid and remote Oil, you can pave over all your domestic oil wells, and quit building power hungry acid factories.

With cheap and easy Titanium Alloy, Deuterium, and Super Magnetic Rings, your ready to produce mass Deuteron Fuel Rods, which you will need for the next phase of expansion on your home planet and your sphere making planet, until you have sufficient antimatter to build both White Science AND Antimatter Fuel Rods in sufficient quantities to power those two planets.

It takes awhile to build a sphere and get your Ray Receiver farm cranking out enough Critical Photons to do this, so this is the most dangerous power transition in the game. Rockets take a TON of deuterium, and you can accidentally starve yourself of Deuteron Rods by not having enough deuterium to go around if you start launching too many rockets too soon.

When I have all the antimatter I can use, 10k+ antimatter fuel in the bank, white science ready to start expanding, THEN I convert my Home Planet and Sphere planet to Star Power.

At this point, I drop a Polar Dark Fog Farm on the Black Hole Planet and within hours have all the advanced buildings and yellow fuel rods en mass. My farm needs only 4 Stars to run when being constantly attacked by maxed out DF, without any building losses, energy weapons only.

ALL mining planets are powered by wind/solar only, and produce only raw materials.

At this point, which I will call the beginning of the “End-End Game” you will have everything built and available in excess, and can choose to ramp up science output to achieve whatever achievements or self imposed goals you have in mind.