[OUTDATED] Extensive Guide to Battery, Laser Arrays and INFINITE POWER! (Dark Energy)

UPDATE COMING SOON, SOME OF THIS INFORMATION IS INCORRECT!
UPDATE COMING SOON, SOME OF THIS INFORMATION IS INCORRECT!
UPDATE COMING SOON, SOME OF THIS INFORMATION IS INCORRECT!

Guide on Beta - Version 0.10.0 (Dark Energy)
A guide on how to efficiently use batteries and lasers with arrays, "null loaders", and how to harness the energy of the infinite without a power socket.
Guide Version 0.1

Introduction

This guide contains SPOILERS if you do not wish to spoil the game to yourself do not read this guide.
I can recommend a non-spoiler guide by MechWarden (I also recommend reading this first before mine) -
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3255972657

This guide represents the early access version of the game, all things in this guide are subject to change, I will try to update this guide if there are any updates to the power system.

I love the concept of power systems in Video Games, it itches something in my mind that just feels right. And as soon as I got my hands on Abiotic Factor, I never let go.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/427410/Abiotic_Factor/

In this guide I will go into detail on the different energy storage systems within the community and some of my own experimental ones; outlining their uses, differences and material cost.

Before we get going lets outline some fundamental basics of energy in Abiotic Factor:

The Socket

The socket is a Power Source which is the origin of all energy systems* (with the exception of feedback machines).
The socket is a crucial component, however, at 21:00 (9:00PM) the socket will turn off until 06:00 (6:00AM). A way around this is constructing an energy array or using a laser Power Source.

Note: Depending on the sandbox setting - Day Night Cycle - you will either have permanent access or no access at all to the power the socket provides

Laser

The laser is another Power Source which is the origin of all energy systems*
The laser is a crucial component and does not turn off at night unlike it's other counterpart, the socket. The only issue with lasers are their need for mid-game components and scarcity

Note: By lasers I mean environmental lasers - such as the one in the laser lab in laboratories.

Batteries

Batteries are a contingent Power Source only delivering power if it has power on hold

The huge benefit to batteries are their massive hold, small size and ability to create an array.
Probably the second most used object in the game behind the Crafting Bench and a complete game changer. The main topic of this guide is centered around the use of batteries.

Makeshift Battery

The Makeshift Battery has a hold of 50 energy and an early-game battery.
Do not sleep on the makeshift battery - I still use it on my main end-game save; this is because the makeshift battery can fully power any and all power-able object in the game for about 4 minutes or about 40 in-game minutes (with 1 load) and is incredibly easy to make.

This makes the makeshift battery a must for connecting an object through an array as a buffer.

Note: This might be hearsay. having a buffer between the array and object might be useless and adding a buffer is just a glorified Branching Array. Buffers only apply to lasers. I need to test this more.

Industrial Battery

The Industrial Battery has a hold of 100 energy and is a earlymid-game battery.
This battery is okay. It is overshadowed by the Carbon Battery which is found only a sector later not giving much time before it's use and only has double the hold of a makeshift battery - whilst it isn't power efficient... it is more cost efficient to daisy chain 2 makeshift batteries and get just about the same amount of output as an Industrial Battery. However, the industrial battery is still better than the makeshift - and I'm not your dad so do what you want.

Carbon Battery

The Carbon Battery has a staggering hold of 350 energy and the last battery to be discovered (as of Dark Energy)
Whilst extremely expensive the carbon battery is the must have for any array made past mid-game due to it's massive energy hold.

Battery Load

Battery Load is important to note when constructing a battery array, the more batteries that are linked up to more batteries or objects, the more power it consumes. The blue bar on a battery indicates the current load - 1 connection fills in a space in the blue bar and so on. Here is an example image with a load of 3.

This is important to note to make an array more efficient.
More Batteries = More Consumption

Lasers

Not a lot of foundational knowledge is present on lasers, I wont say much but they are absolutely necessary for arrays and the handling of energy.
Remember that example image of battery load I showed you a couple lines up?

Yeah. That's how good lasers are. And is a basic introduction to the Null Loader circuit.

The only important lasers to use is:

• Laser Emitter
  
• Laser Power Converter
  
• (Experimental) Laser Prism

I'm sure you can figure out what they do from their names so I will tell you why lasers are important.
Feedback Machines.
When you connect any laser to a power converter, no matter how weak or how strong, it gives a flat amount of energy.

Example: If I redirect a prismed laser to a power converter I would get as much power out of that as putting 20 laser emitters into one power converter because the output will always be a flat number.

You can create infinite energy with feedback machines but we'll talk about that later.

PEST POWA!!!

A formidable foe, turned friend, turned power slave?!
The pest wheel is terrible. Unless you have no power sockets in your render distance which is a quarter a sector anyways then it's not bad to resort to. However, we'll have better options later in this guide. The pest wheel generates a staggering 5.5 units of energy per pest spin cycle, the equivalent of a staggering 13.2 seconds of power on 1 load. Don't use it. In fact I kept the game open for 5 hours and the pest hadn't even filled up a makeshift.

Note: I have not tested the other pest variants (Electro-Pest, Volatile Pest) and the Skink but I assume it's no different.

Lasers, an in-depth guide.

Before we talk about the use of arrays, let's talk about the backbone of my experiments - a laser circuit henceforth called a circuit.
A circuit is a bunch of laser components consisting of a main circuit (the whole circuit but also its origin input and definitive output)
and a sub circuit (individual circuit within a main with their own respective input and output(s)).

An example of a circuit would be the one I just showed you. A "null loader" which when connected via a battery completely negates the load on the battery no matter how many objects it's connected to.

Here is an example of a 4 load system with and without a null loader, time-coded.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI3onl_l58c

Now I know what you're thinking "wait can I not just have 2 daisy chained carbon batteries connected to a null loader to power my entire base?"

...

yeah. It's game breaking.

In fact; here's a video of me powering 20 Tesla Coils with 2 makeshift batteries and a null loader system (3 minutes 3 seconds)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgGOG1UVCa4

What does this mean? Well as soon as you unlock laboratories you pretty much don't need an array at all! Just a carbon battery, laser emitter and laser power converter. This is majorly broken and I hope this get's fixed soon.
But until it does, let's break it some more.

Introducing the Feedback Looper. (with null loader)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EAbuRi5GxM
What does it do? It makes the most of what it's given and is peak efficiency (probably not)
Lasers are special because if it isnt damaging an object or inputting power anywhere it does not drain any battery whatsoever. This means through the use of the carbon barricades invincibility to lasers and special ability of producing a shield whenever activated with power - we can create a reservoir of laser power without the drawbacks of battery loading like an array. When the main circuit runs out of power it cycles through the system to another laser emitter pointing at the same null loader, it's brilliant. This squeezes as much performances out of your batteries as humanly possible.

Note: To sum it up we're breaking null loading even more than it should be by making it more efficient. I can also make this feedback loop better by giving the first battery in the system a null loader.

Lasers. What can I do with them?

As said - lasers can create feedback loops, here is an example of a feedback loop I made which can power an entire base + defenses with only 1 carbon battery and 2 makeshift batteries as buffers.

Note: This is NOT an array this just makes 1 battery as efficient as possible. Those 2 makeshift batteries are only there to kick-start the system when you join the game and everything loads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7YGe2qM2pw

"What the hell is that?!" you might say. Don't worry I'll explain it step by step.

Materials:

1. 5x Laser Emitter
   
2. 5x Laser Power Converter
   
3. 1x Laser Prism
   
4. 1x Carbon Battery
   
5. 2x Makeshift Battery
   
6. 1x Plug Strip
   
7. 1x Carbon Barricade

Step 1. We're going to start the feedback loop by feeding a laser into a laser converter, the reason we do this is because of the fail-safe system we have setup that can feed the makeshift buffer battery into the empty carbon battery in the event it does empty. Make sure not to connect the main circuit to power until after we've finished the fail-safe system.


Step 2. Place the first of the fail-safe system [Red], the carbon battery connected to a 3-way plug and the battery load reset system [Green]. This is a unique null loader system where instead of resetting the load through a power converter, we're instead resetting it through a prism, we do this to split the power to redirect to the main circuit and failsafe sub circuit system. Connect the converter to the battery, the battery to the plug and the plug to the null loader system.


Step 3. We're going to create the failsafe system now. Place a Carbon Barricade to the left of the main circuit, this will serve as a window to block the laser. Place a laser emitter on the left ledge of the barricade and a converter on the right ledge with it's outlet facing towards the end of the main circuit. connect the converter to the laser emitter we made on step 2 - connect one of the plugs to the barricade and you've finished the bulk of the fail-safe system.

Note: The fail-safe system will always stay shut until the carbon battery runs out of batter. When the barricade is opened the buffer battery pours energy into the system - feeding the carbon battery. This is for if the carbon battery somehow runs out of power or your lasers glitch out when you join the game.

Step 4. Now back onto the prism. Power the main circuit so you can see where you have to place power converters. We only need 2 of the lasers for the 2 converters so you can either feed 2 lasers into one converter or place a laser collector like I did in my video. Make sure both converters are powered.


Step 5. Place down 2 makeshift batteries to act as our buffer, one at the end of each converter from last step. The bottom battery should have a null loader system and the top battery should connect to the laser emitter from the fail-safe system.


Step 6. Congratulations!

Note: The feedback loop is something I'm still working on and something I still have to completely understand, There are better more resource and space efficient ways to make this.

"How does it work?"
Basically that carbon battery should never run out, it is technically only powering the laser and the laser is powering the system, this is because we reset the energy load due to the prism and since the power converter has a flat energy output it can power an infinite amount of objects without any loss than the 1 load it costs to run the laser emitter.

Finally he's talking about Arrays

Say you don't want to do all those fancy laser stuff or it's breaking your game. Well let's take a turn to the simple ages. The Battery Arrays. Throughout this guide you may have been thinking what I mean by "daisy chain" or "branching".
I will walk you through all battery and battery/laser arrays (that aren't game breaking)

Daisy Chain Array

The Daisy Chain is as basic and fundamental as it gets. You get load? Just add more batteries to compensate, one battery after the other.
Early game, this works.
Late game? Expensive. I see lot's of people on YouTube having a daisy chain array of 40 odd carbon batteries to power a whole tesla network when all you need is 6 carbon batteries and a handful of makeshift batteries as a branch. If you argue daisy chain is better than you're just coping, that's that. After laboratories you should consider connecting a daisy chain array to a sub-branch or just branch all your objects with makeshift batteries.

Branch Arrays

This is the most efficient method of achieving the least amount of load without null loaders.
A base with only all the necessities only need 2 makeshift batteries as a daisy chain by the socket and a makeshift battery for every object. By putting all the load on a battery of origin so that the batteries that power the workbenches only have 1 load is a good early game strategy to save some resources and you should invest in a branch array.

Convergent Laser Array

This is as power efficient as I could get without breaking the game using Null Loaders, obviously it's got some unintentional null loaders but all in the grand scheme. I'm not going to explain how it works because it barely want's to work but it is extremely energy efficient.

Daisy Chain Branch Hybrid

A glorified daisy chain with more access points and less load, it works and it works well but it's a waste of resources.

Convergent Prism Array

An efficient array, not much to say on this one. The one flaw is a wasted battery since the energy converted by both lasers count as 1.

Infinite Energy?

Hello if you've skipped most of the guide to get to this part, you don't get a cookie you fraud.
Good job everyone who stayed and listened to my crazed rambles about lasers.

A Feedback Looper and Feedback Machine are 2 different things, one loops a power source of origin and one is the power source of origin.
Basically, it's infinite energy.

"Shut up show me the video already"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFr8JUIo_7o

to those who want to stay and listen to how it works, I'll try my best to let you know.

Feedback Machine

Since the community update 0.8 which allowed all batteries to be charged up to full in a similar time it became increasingly easy to cheese this even after the Dark Energy laser nerf. This machine basically puts the output of a carbon battery through a Null Loader and charges the makeshift with the flat energy provided from the laser energy converter - that makeshift battery then powers the carbon battery on the other side to do the same thing to the other makeshift battery. It then builds up a feedbacker loop reservoir- yeah you get it, it's a bunch of tech that I was experimenting on all combined. I actually made this machine and then seeing if anybody else made it, this guy on YouTube called smile beat me to it with the same exact design I made, give him some attention if you're reading this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCKc8qrQKIY

Is it finally over? Thoughts and Conclusion

I'm sure you can see the guide get increasingly more erratic as it goes on... that's because I've been writing this for nearly 10 hours now and double checking all experiments.

Nevertheless I hope you enjoyed the read and here are some closing thoughts.

I do hope this get's patched out but I also want the laser system to get expanded upon, as of right now we have no "fun" things to play with just flat 2D mechanics which is a shame for a game that I hold so true to my heart.

An idea I had was a pipe system which can carry fluids and items. Something like that would be a game changer and honestly I just want some tech stuff to play with. But seeing as how we have distribution pads and moisture teleporters which I honestly think is the easy no-fun way to go about it; I'd love to see an automated network of items moving back and fourth, I feel as if it makes it more dynamic and interactive.
Obviously a game like Abiotic Factor isn't all hearts and flowers, and I don't expect Deep Field to produce 5 star results for every mechanic of the game. I'm simply putting my ideas forwards and I appreciate the game I got - I play it nearly every single day. That being said though the mechanics I do love about the game are very flat mechanical wise... lasers are a very poorly thought out system and it had plenty a' opportunity to get a revamp especially for Dark Energy (ITS IN THE NAME CMON MAN) but we never got one. Batteries are too good, making night survival a trivial challenge if you know what you're doing even before getting to manufacturing. I get the systems they have in place, easier for beginners to understand but it feels like a cop out that I can just spend 2 exor hearts for a glorified crafting terminal as a bench upgrade and another 2 to step on a blue pad that auto-sorts everything in my inventory for me. As soon as you get to laboratories you've basically finished the spec into tech.

I love this game, I really do and there's nothing that can make me hate it. The complaints I do have are just pointers and not a negative disparage.

Thank you all and have a good night.

Shameless plug

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfyvBbM_DSsC1v5iV2GWVHw

Guide Changelog (Ver 0.1)

v0.1

3 April 2025

• Added Changelog to guide
  
• Fixed some spelling mistakes

[Fried Chicken Shapes]

Yes im planning on updating it and making it even more detailed

[Jarvo]

It's labeled as Outdated but you seem to be THE best source for how lasers work online unless google is super failing me. Do you plan on doing an updated version or label what isnt out of date in this for those wanting to learn?

[ChickenJesus]

would love to find someone doing a video thats basically this guide on youtube, yet no one has yet.

[Fried Chicken Shapes]

@Kai the main purpose of this guide is how to effectively manage load. There is no point in having multiple connections to the grid or sub-grids since it's only going to power one object at a time (I.E. A workbench can be powered by a socket; if I added another socket that wouldn't change anything, and since the batteries are hard coded to receive a flat amount of power then adding 2 or more sockets wouldn't charge them faster. Even without "Null Loaders" you can minimize load input through certain lasers arrays and a branching network.

I do think a revamp to the power system is very much needed as the one we have is just stupid. You can see my opinion on that on the Thoughts and Conclusion section of the guide.
Thank you for reading my guide by the way, I appreciate it!

[Kai]

All of this would become invalidated if they add in a device that enables you to put more than 1 input into a network, thus a revamp to the power network somewhere down the line.

Or you just mod it so sockets don't get detached when you attach another cable into it, to break the game in a sense.

[namenotgiven]

very neat guide!!