Power & Automation Guide

Power in Solarpunk flows through a network of cables. You drag a cable out of one connector and plug it into another, chaining generators, batteries and machines together. Everything on the same network shares one pool of electricity.

The single most common mistake is building several disconnected networks by accident — a couple of solar panels powering one shed, another powering the next. Keep everything on one network where you can so you only have one power balance to watch. A Network Display isn't required, but it's the easiest way to see whether you're in surplus or deficit at a glance.

A network has to generate at least as much power as its machines consume. When demand outruns supply, batteries cover the gap — and once they're empty, machines stop. If your batteries keep draining overnight, you're either generating too little (solar stops at night) or running too many machines at once.

Fixes that work: add more generation, add battery capacity to ride out the night, or put non-urgent machines on a switch so they only run when there's spare power. Drills and drones are among the hungriest devices, so size your network around them.

Solar is your baseline generator, so don't sabotage it. Keep the area above and around your panels open — tall buildings, walls or trees that cast shade across them will cut their output. Give the panels clear sky and keep your power zone separate from your tall builds.

Switches and logic blocks let a network react to time and weather instead of running flat-out. Wire the power source to one side of a switch and the device to the other, then drive the switch from a timer or a weather/rain sensor — so lights come on at night and sprinklers only run when it isn't already raining.

Hand-mining with a pickaxe works early on, but pickaxes wear out fast. Automatic drills don't break and keep working unattended, so switch to them as soon as you can. Drills drop the ore beside themselves; drones are what carry it home.

To set up hauling: place and name a drone and its base, then walk to each drill and assign that drone to collect from it. The drone shuttles the ore back to its base for you. Note that drones are power-hungry and early ones are slow, so plan their routes (and your network) accordingly.

Crops only grow while they're watered, and rain waters fields for free — so in wet weather you may not need to do anything. For dry spells, sprinklers keep fields watered automatically; put them on a switch driven by a rain sensor so they don't waste power (or water) when it's already raining. Trees are the exception: they never need watering.