How to generate and connect power in StarRupture

For a game all about building ever-expanding production lines, StarRupture stumbles at the first step: creating a power grid to sustain it. It's explained briefly in the tutorial, but generating electricity and working out how to connect power to said machinery isn't all that intuitive, despite how simple it is on paper.

If you've been placing Ore Excavators and other key machines willy-nilly, and they're not turning on despite having an army of solar panels, then you know something's wrong. Below, I'll go over how you actually connect power to the various tech around your base, which I've learned the hard way.

How to generate and connect power in StarRupture

To connect power to your base in StarRupture, you need to build a generator of some kind, like a solar panel, and connect it to machines using either rails, platform foundations, or bridges. There are no wires in StarRupture, but all rails and floor pieces conduct electricity. Ideally, then, your base won't have any dirt visible by the end as you'll cover it all with walkways and machines to daisy-chain power.

You need to place power generators around either your Base Core or production machines—Ore Excavators don't count, and can't be powered by placing a generator next to them.

You'll most likely run into power problems when you're setting up a new production line further away that's not directly interacting with anything near your Base Core. In that case, I recommend you:

1. Build your Ore Excavator
2. Place any additional machinery, like a Smelter or Orbital Cargo Launcher
3. Build power generators next to either your Base Core or production machines, like the Smelter, ensuring their foundations are touching
4. Connect all the machines using rails (or platforms, but you'll need rails to move items anyhow)

Everything should then power on and run continuously. If not, then you likely just need more electricity in the new system, so place some more generators. As you progress, you'll unlock better, more efficient generators than ol' Solar Panels, so you hopefully won't have a field of the things taking up space for long.