The most basic and universal source of power is going to be the commander. It doesn't generate much power, but its enough to get started.


But the commander can't be everywhere, and to make a useful amount of power you need something which produces it, like a windmill/zephyr (requires 10 gears as a start up cost, then nothing else).


Or maybe a JetFlux/carbon generator (requires 50 steel, then something like 2 carbon per second for full operation although this is probably off).


There are other options for producing power, but these are two simple ones to start off with.

As you will inevitably notice, this power is localized to a single region, meaning you can only use that power producer to power structures within that region. The range can be viewed by holding down the SHIFT key. Any structure which is inside this circle will be powered, and any structure which has a power circle that even touches this circle will be powered as well.


This leads to the next question of how to distribute power, which I explain in the next section.

As I explained in the previous section, a power producing building can only send its power so far. To power further away buildings, you will need a substation/sparkles. This will cost 5 steel.


The sparkles/power substation will take the power from any producers inside its circle and from any producers whose own circle touches the sparkles/power substation's own circle. It will then distribute it to any buildings that need power which are inside its circle. This also applies to any power consumers whose circle touches the sparkles/power substation's own circle while not necessarily being inside the sparkles/power substation's circle.


But again, this range only goes so far, and if you don't have a sparkles/power substation hooked up to a producer, you're not going to be getting any power (see the red icon under the buildings which are in a power out).



This can be rectified by adding something to join the circle of a powered up network to the circle of the substation(s) which need power. This could be accomplished by another sparkles/power substation:


Or in a pinch by the commander:

In the previous section I explained some ways to spread around power using the sparkles/power substation, but this probably isn't the most optimal way to spread power. To really get some range, you'll need the sky arc/power transmission, which requires 25 steel.


It has a much greater range than the sparkles/power substation, although it does cost five times as much (25 vs 5 steel after all).


But there's a catch: It can't power buildings. See the 0% efficiency on the forge/metal fabbers despite the fact that they are very clearly inside the sky arc/power transmission's power circle, and despite the fact that the sky arc is connected to a power producer (zephyr/wind dynamo, as well as the commander and the jetflux/carbon power plant). UPDATE: It looks like they made it so that there are no blue circles, meaning the sky arc/power transmission can now be used without sparkles/power substations.


This is easy to fix: Just add a sparkles/power substation in range of the structures needing power, and which have a blue circle touching the sky arc/power transmission's blue circle:


And now those forge/metal fabbers are at 100% efficiency.
The sparkles/power substation and sky arc/power transmission seem to be designed to work in tandem; the sky arc transmits power over a very long range while the sparkles/power substation takes that power and distributes it to local buildings which need it. Taken together, these two form the basis for long range power infrastructure.