Designing a Dyson Sphere

[pemmons1]

I'm an utter newbie at this and don't know where to begin, even how to choose the diameters and tilt of the various circles. Is there useful documentation somewhere, or blueprints for a simple design to get started? I'll probably find that my industrial base is way to small to complete it without vast expansion. Millions of pieces are required. Everyone says "go big!" and I'll suddenly find out why.

I originally imagined that a Dyson sphere would literally be that: a stationary sphere surround ing a star. Then I realized that the concept was unrealistic and unscientific. Such a structure *might* conceivably work once it's complete, but until then the force of gravity would cause it to collapse immediately. Everything must consist of orbiting rings, and these orbits must all be around the center of the star. Hence they would be at many different angles, therefore different diameters to avoid collisions. That seems to be what we need to design in detail, right? But we still have many options, and I'm pretty clueless.

[cswiger]

Experiment. The choices of orbital parameters can be changed freely, and the only major difference is that larger spheres require more points to build and produce more power in return.

The solar sails and the dyson sphere itself cannot collide, nor do they mind the changes in angular velocity versus latitude, so you can build a ring around the sun or complete sphere if you want.

[josmith7]

Orbital tilt of the sphere is purely cosmetic - it has no gameplay impact.
Radius affects the number of elements required to complete the sphere:
* Smaller radius means you can finish the sphere sooner.
* Larger radius means the finished sphere produces more power. (The game ignores the inverse square law -- instead each structure or cell point's power production is affected only by the star's luminosity; not by their distance to the star.

But mostly have fun.
I've seem screenshots of some beautiful designs,

Me, I go boring. The soccer ball grid and then the densest pattern or triangular structure I can cram onto it (structure produces more power than cells; and has less gameplay impact). And then I turn off in-game rendering anyway to further reduce performance impact. (So; lots of power, but zero visual appeal)

[Marakith]

I haven't found a lot of difference in any design power output wise as long as it covers the entire surface. My "starter" sphere almost always outputs 11GW no matter how I design it when using the default single layer + size provided. The only thing that messes with it is when I go crazy and make a sphere that's not a sphere and is something silly like a phrase or pattern only covering part of the surface.

Originally posted by pemmons1:

Everyone says "go big!" and I'll suddenly find out why.

The bigger it is, the more power output you'll get, it'll turn a simple 11GW single layer sphere into a 50GW+ sphere (usually about 50-60GW) if you build it at max size.

Then you get the insane power output ones like the one on my 2.4 luminosity blue giant, a max size single layer pumping out 1TW and it's still not complete yet.

Realistically though, I rarely use much more than 3GW power on a single planet so the basic sphere is enough to satisfy all the needs of a planet, and a few neighbouring planets in the same system as well. (and more if you use the energy exchanger+battery production factory to supply planets outside the system). It's nice having a 1TW sphere but I can't see me ever exploiting all the power it creates until maybe the dark fog comes.

[pemmons1]

I downloaded the "Cost-efficiency optimized sphere design" https://www.dysonsphereblueprints.com/blueprints/dyson-sphere-cost-efficiency-optimized-sphere-design

It's in Notepad right now. How do I activate it in the program? I tried copy past etc. in various parts of the sphere editor but nothing is happening that I can see. Shouldn't it be visible in the designer?

I just want to build a sphere, or start building one, before even trying to design my own. The leaning curve is just too steep here. I really feel stupid.

[josmith7]

The blueprint mechanism within the Dyson Sphere editor is deeply unintuitive.
There are two different types:
* Shell blueprint - includes all layers of the Sphere, including their size, design, etc. Placing this will destroy any existing Sphere or design; and may have issues if the target star doesn't support the designed sizes of the layers.

* Layer blueprint - includes just the dimensionless design of a single layer. Because it lacks predefined size you must create a target layer before you can apply to design to it.

Neither blueprint option supports saving to, or loading from, a file. (At least not as of now)


I suspect that's just the blueprint for a single layer - but I'd need to try it in game to be sure.

Next, that design clearly requires that you have all 6 levels of 'Dyson Sphere Stress System' technology researched. But assuming you do, and that it is a single layer blueprint, then you'd need to.

1) In the star system you want the Sphere in, open the editor (Y button)
2) Create a new layer of the Dyson Shell (click 'Add New Layer' then click on the layer number you want to create. In the pop-up you can adjust the orbital radius, inclination, and whatever the 3rd parameter is; or just accept the randomized initial values).
3) Select on the newly created (blank) layer. (Click on it's number) - a 2nd line under "Shell Blueprint" should appear; something like 'Layer blueprint'
4) Alt-TAB to notepad, selected the entire text, and copy it into the Windows clipboard.
5) Alt-TAB back into DSP and press the 'paste' button on the 'layer blueprint' row.

That should apply the design to your newly created layer. If you instead get an error about it being a shell blueprint then, well, use the paste button on the shell blueprint line.


Hope that helps.

[pemmons1]

Thanks! I'll try it. No, I haven't completed all stress-test research, and I realize that only a small part of a Dyson sphere can be completed until I do. But I hope that it need not be
planned piecemeal. We should be able to design an entire sphere (or at least layer) or use one of the many dazzling plans at the blueprint site, ranging from simple and easily built designs (although low-power) through to the more powerful but much more expensive designs for maximum power capture. Some of them are simply gorgeous to look at and probably range somewhere in the middle of the above continuum.

I have completed all research that does not involve white cubes, thinking that a Dyson sphere, or at least a swarm, must be in progress before white research can begin. Perhaps this is not necessarily true.

I'm trying to avoid a swarm because of the short lifespan of the sails. It isn't necessary to precede a sphere with a swarm, is it (if you don't need the power)? Or is a swarm a necessary phase-- perhaps a prerequisite for sails being absorbed into the sphere?

[dhitch89]

Originally posted by pemmons1:

Thanks! I'll try it. No, I haven't completed all stress-test research, and I realize that only a small part of a Dyson sphere can be completed until I do. But I hope that it need not be
planned piecemeal. We should be able to design an entire sphere (or at least layer) or use one of the many dazzling plans at the blueprint site, ranging from simple and easily built designs (although low-power) through to the more powerful but much more expensive designs for maximum power capture. Some of them are simply gorgeous to look at and probably range somewhere in the middle of the above continuum.

I have completed all research that does not involve white cubes, thinking that a Dyson sphere, or at least a swarm, must be in progress before white research can begin. Perhaps this is not necessarily true.

I'm trying to avoid a swarm because of the short lifespan of the sails. It isn't necessary to precede a sphere with a swarm, is it (if you don't need the power)? Or is a swarm a necessary phase-- perhaps a prerequisite for sails being absorbed into the sphere?

AFAIK, the planning of a sphere is limited by the stress tech. However, even if you only plan a partial shell, I believe you can add to it at any time afterward if there's room for more sections. But there's no harm in waiting till you can plan all of it, by any means.

Also, technically speaking, one doesn't need to create a dyson sphere at all to research white cubes. It's entirely possible to create a swarm, use ray receivers set to Photon mode (requires "Dirac Inversion" tech), and turn the swarm's energy into critical photons instead, though a shell is equally viable for the record. This can be used by Particle Colliders to create antimatter, and this is - along with all the other cubes - then turned into white cubes.

As for whether you need a swarm before creating a shell, that's a no. They can't occupy the (exact) same space, and a shell with empty spaces will pull from a swarm if it exists, but otherwise they're independent things.

[pemmons1]

It's working! (S-l-o-w-l-y). I lately started building various components on other planets, and then took too long to put them to use. I also have a ray receiver set to receive photons, which will eventually enable white research to be done. I have indeed researched all the stress-test levels. They don't need white research.

Thanks very much for your help. One more question: At present the sphere is maybe 5-6% complete. When should I begin sending solar sails? I do want them all to attach to the Dyson sphere rather than forming a swarm, and I understand the rate of absorption is limited.

It has been a great learning experience and I feel more confident to do better in the next game, although I'm content to play slowly and patiently.

[josmith7]

Originally posted by pemmons1:

It's working! (S-l-o-w-l-y). I lately started building various components on other planets, and then took too long to put them to use. I also have a ray receiver set to receive photons, which will eventually enable white research to be done. I have indeed researched all the stress-test levels. They don't need white research.

Thanks very much for your help. One more question: At present the sphere is maybe 5-6% complete. When should I begin sending solar sails? I do want them all to attach to the Dyson sphere rather than forming a swarm, and I understand the rate of absorption is limited.

It's hard to say exactly, because before the sphere can absorb any sails it needs to have built a certain amount of structure around a node (intersection) so there's a spot for the sails to attach to.

But that doesn't happen at a fixed percentage of completion. If your (initial) design was just a single small triangle of structure then you'd probably need to build 15-20% of it before there's room for sails. OTOH it'd take very few rockets to build that - so it'd happen quickly.
OTOH if you pasted down some 10 layer highly complex giant sphere then you might need less than 1% built before it starts having room for sails.

(OTOH the game does not seem to optimize structure placement for creating space for cells - it seems to scattershot it around your entire design. So sometimes you'll end up with lots of nodes which have hardly anything built off of them - giving a fair bit of structure but still no place for sails to go)


Best I can offer you is to eyeball what's been built and see if there are structural frames sticking a fair ways off some of your nodes yet. If so then it's probably ready to start absorbing a few solar sails.

[josmith7]

Originally posted by dhitch89:

AFAIK, the planning of a sphere is limited by the stress tech. However, even if you only plan a partial shell, I believe you can add to it at any time afterward if there's room for more sections. But there's no harm in waiting till you can plan all of it, by any means.

That's been my experience. It won't let you design beyond the current stress limit.
More annoyingly (though I haven't tried this is quite a while) it wouldn't let you apply a blueprint that exceeded your current stress limit.

Nor can you split a blueprint up into phases; as a dyson sphere blueprint is all-or-nothing.

If you had a low stress tech partial design and then tried to apply the full stress tech final design blueprint atop it you'd have to let the game destroy what you'd already built (converting the structure into solar sails :confused:) before placing the expanded blueprint.