SOLAR HALO

Fly closer to the sun than any platform should. Build supercomputers. Try not to melt them.

Solar Halo fleshes out the fireball on the starmap. Approach near solar orbit with enormous solar potential and dive even further to build a permanent solar station. The power is limitless if you can take the heat.

Getting there

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Near Solar Orbit is as close as a platform can get to the sun without melting. There are no resource asteroids to collect, just plasma flares, which shrug off conventional weaponry.

• The pull of the sun is enormous, so plan your fuel to make sure you can make it back. The route uses a flight condition, so a platform can turn around midway.
• A Navigation computer uses star charts to plan around asteroid encounters.

The solar station

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To dive further, you'll need something more reinforced than a space platform. Build a solar station which can be reached by cargo pod. Each piece of station foundation you lay generates more solar power for the station wide electric network.

• Station foundation is heat resistant and built as close to the sun as it can survive.
• Solar panels on the station don't produce power. The foundation does.
• The Gauss dragon can deliver cargo back up to your platforms using electromagnetic coils.

The supercomputer

The supercomputer devours power and creates compute to power whole branch of research. Half of the consumed power is released as heat and the supercomputer stops working above 200 degrees, so heat management is critical.

• Computation science pack: a new science pack made from compute.
• Science simulation: use compute to simulate many sciences. Expensive but simple.
• Module specialization: temporarily double a module's effect, requiring module logistics.
• Algorithmic efficiency: an endless upgrade for compute output.

Managing heat

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• Heatsink: vents heat, or transfers it to a coolant. Low temperature recipes need 160 degrees, high temperature recipes need 800.
• Heatpump: concentrate heat for uses like a heat exchanger.
• Superheated heat pipe: a form of energy storage and Aquilo convenience. Energy can be extracted in a heating tower.

Storing the sun

The Electrolyte Terminal charges and discharges electrolyte with massive amounts of energy. Charged electrolyte is less corrosive than the plain kind and can be barrelled and shipped.

• Charging only uses surplus power, up to 500MW.
• Electrolyte stores 1 GJ per unit, allowing extremely dense energy storage.

And a few odd ones

• Genetically modified plants: a sterile yumako and jellynut hybrid that grows bioflux.
• Solar productivity: concentrate the sun's rays to raise the output of all your solar panels.

• Found a bug? Please share your mod list and issue in the Discussion tab.