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Base Building Basics — Layout and Power

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A base exists the moment you place a Base Computer. That part is easy. Power is where people get stuck — a generator that’s built but produces nothing, or a base that runs fine all day and goes dark every night. Usually it comes down to two or three rules nobody told you, so let’s start there.

Base computer and build range

The Base Computer blueprint unlocks alongside the Terrain Manipulator when you investigate the damaged machinery during the opening mission. Craft it with 30 Chromatic Metal, place it, then interact to claim the area.

  • You can build freely within a 300u radius of the claim point.
  • To go further, place a structure or technology part — a wall, floor, room, and so on — near the current boundary. That opens roughly 50u of new buildable space around it, and you can chain these outward to a maximum of 1000u.
  • Furniture, decorations, and decals do not extend the boundary. Use structures or tech parts if that’s your goal.
  • The 1000u limit is measured in three dimensions. Your visor shows horizontal distance only, so a big elevation change will cut you off sooner than the number suggests.

Deleting the Base Computer removes the entire base and refunds half the materials. The refund goes into a Base Salvage Capsule, which you don’t need to build beforehand. Note that the spot stays claimed on the server for a few days, so you can’t immediately re-claim it.

Unlocking part blueprints

Two paths.

SourceWhat you get
Construction Research Unit (portable, blueprint comes with your first base)Base Teleport Module, Biofuel Reactor, Electrical Wiring, Solar Panel, Battery, Hazard Protection Unit — the core tree
Construction Research Station (Space Anomaly)Everything else: farming, underwater, lighting, decoration, large prefabs

Both spend Salvaged Data, which you get by scanning for buried technology modules with the Analysis Visor and digging them up with the Terrain Manipulator. Unlocking the full Anomaly tree costs over 700, so early on it’s better to grab the four power parts first: Biofuel Reactor (1), Battery (3), Solar Panel (8), Electromagnetic Generator (10).

The Overseer NPC line is separate. Build a Construction Terminal, hire an Overseer, and mission rewards give you blueprints you can’t buy at the research stations.

Power — three ways to generate it

Solar PanelBiofuel ReactorElectromagnetic Generator
Output50 day / 25 dawn & dusk / 0 night50 (while fuelled)~150–300 depending on hotspot class
FuelNoneRequiredNone
PlacementAnywhereAnywhereOnly on an electromagnetic hotspot
Blueprint cost8 Salvaged Data1 Salvaged Data10 Salvaged Data

All figures are power per second (kP/s).

The Biofuel Reactor is the cheapest and fastest to get going. It costs 25 Oxygen and 1 Metal Plating, and the blueprint is a single Salvaged Data — this is your first base’s generator. A full tank of 100 Carbon, 34 Condensed Carbon, or 50 Oxygen runs for about 50 hours. It used to last only an hour, which made refuelling miserable, but the Endurance update changed that. Older guides still claim it burns 1,200 Condensed Carbon per hour; that figure is long out of date.

Solar Panels cost nothing to run but drop to zero at night. Pair them with batteries or don’t bother.

The Electromagnetic Generator is far and away the best, but it only works on an electromagnetic hotspot. Find hotspots with the multi-tool’s Survey Device, purchasable from Iteration: Eos on the Anomaly for 320 Nanites. Open the visor, switch the survey type to power, and signals appear within 400u.

Hotspots are graded: roughly 150 for C, 220 for B, 250 for A, and 300 for S. Output falls off as you move from the centre. Sources disagree on the exact ceilings, so treat those as approximate. One thing is certain, though — several generators on the same hotspot each produce nearly full output. Unlike mineral hotspots there are no diminishing returns, so four generators on a modest C-class hotspot will push close to 600.

Batteries and wiring

A Battery stores 45,000 kP and discharges up to 50 kP/s. At that rate it lasts exactly 15 minutes — which happens to be the length of night on every planet. That makes the formula simple.

For every 50 kP/s you need: 2 Solar Panels + 1 Battery

During the day one panel runs the base while the other charges the battery. The battery covers the 15-minute night.

Closer to a planet’s poles, the dawn and dusk bands stretch out and solar output approaches a steady 25 kP/s around the clock. If you plan to lean on solar, build near a pole rather than the equator.

Electrical Wiring is free to craft and each run reaches 200u. There’s one rule worth internalising here.

Parts snapped together share power without any wiring. If you’ve joined prefab rooms into a building, a single wire to the building powers all of it. You are not meant to wire each room individually.

Conversely, wiring does not work between separate bases. There’s no error message — it simply doesn’t carry. This catches people who put a generator on a hotspot that belongs to a neighbouring base’s range and then wonder where the power went.

When the power cuts out

If total draw exceeds total generation, the whole grid shuts down and turns red. If your wiring is split into separate grids, only the starved one goes dark.

To diagnose, interact with any generator or battery. It shows total production, total consumption, battery charge, and time remaining until nightfall on one screen. Everything you need is there.

The three usual causes:

  1. The generator isn’t wired in. Placing it isn’t enough — an unconnected generator contributes nothing.
  2. Solar with no battery. Fine all day, dark every night.
  3. The hotspot sits outside your base range. The generator looks like it’s running, but the power never arrives.

For per-part consumption, the in-game tooltip is the accurate source. As a rough sense of scale: lights and doors draw 1, walls and storage containers 5, rooms and the Hazard Protection Unit 10, the Base Teleport Module 20, and extractors 50.

Where to put your first base

  • A planet without hazardous weather or aggressive sentinels is far easier to live on. Hazard management stops being a chore.
  • Hotspots usually appear in groups of three, 400–500u apart. Put the Base Computer in the middle of that triangle and you can cover power, gas, and mineral hotspots without extending the boundary at all — though there’s no guarantee the classes will be good.
  • Build slightly away from the Base Computer. Starships have a habit of clipping into buildings when you teleport back.
  • Don’t build high above the clouds. There’s a known problem where parts vanish on reload and leave undeletable markers behind.
  • You can’t build within 300u of another player’s uploaded base.

If power is still more hassle than fun, custom difficulty lets you set Base Power to free. Worth using when you’d rather focus on the building itself.