Plasma Beacon

A beacon running on fusion plasma. Plasma in, hot fluoroketone out. Long range, high effect transmission, heavy diminishing returns — built to stand in the second row behind ordinary beacons.

Entity

• Size 5×5, supply area 17×17 tiles
• No electricity, runs on fusion plasma only
• Every unit of plasma leaves as hot fluoroketone
• Plasma is consumed either by volume or by energy content — see Reactor layout below
• Both fluids pass through, one connection per side each — beacons chain directly
• Counts only other plasma beacons, so vanilla beacons stack on top
• Cannot be rotated or flipped. Pipe layout is fixed, mirrored across both axes
• Buffer ~10 s at normal quality, ~4 s at legendary, or the operation buffer if that is set higher
• Quality raises effect transmission and plasma draw, but not supply area or module slots

Reactor layout

The startup setting that decides what kind of mod this is. Both modes are complete and supported — the Factorio-like Mode is recommended.

Simple

Plasma is consumed by volume. The beacon is throughput-limited rather than energy-limited: it needs a quantity of plasma flowing through it and hands the same quantity back as hot fluoroketone. A fusion reactor puts out 4 plasma/s whatever its neighbour bonus, so one reactor runs four beacons at any temperature.

A reactor of matching quality produces more plasma by the same factor, so four beacons per reactor holds at every tier as long as both sides match.

A reactor that is not fully loaded works in short bursts here, which is visible and audible. The Operation buffer setting stretches those into longer runs and rests.

Factorio-like (recommended)

Plasma is consumed by energy content, the way the fusion generator values it. Plasma leaves a reactor at 1 million °C and gains another million for every adjacent operating reactor, so hotter plasma goes proportionally further:

Quality multiplies these figures as in simple mode, up to 2.5× at legendary. From a 2×2 block on a beacon costs the same as in simple mode; a 22 reactor cluster halves that again.

Keep the reactors loaded. The bonus scales with how hard the neighbours actually work, so a half idle cluster makes cooler and therefore more expensive plasma. Conversely, every beacon you add makes all the others cheaper. A reactor that stops entirely — no coolant, no fuel, no power — drops out of the bonus completely.

The beacon tells you where it stands. A running beacon shows the plasma temperature it is getting and what it draws, both in its status line and in the tooltip when you hover over it — enough to judge a layout without doing the maths.

Watch your pipeline reach. The limit counts the area a pipeline spans, not the number of pipes: a reactor eats 6 tiles of it, a beacon 5. With HD Plasma Duct at its default of 32, three reactors and two beacons already use up most of the budget. Raise that mod's duct range, or break the line with a pump from Plasma Handling.

Everything else is unchanged: same beacon, same range, same modules, same fluoroketone one for one. Reactors run smoothly in this mode, so the Operation buffer setting has nothing to do here.

Technology

• Prerequisites: Quantum processor, Cryogenic plant, Fusion reactor, Effect transmission
• 2000 units, 60 s, all ten science packs up to cryogenic

Recipe

• 30 s, assembler or cryogenic plant
• Craftable on Aquilo only
• Plus 2 beacons with the "Beacons required to craft" setting on

Settings (startup)

Speed and efficiency modules are always allowed.

Reactor layout

Which of the two consumption models the beacon runs on — see the section above. Beacons that are already built keep their pipe connections across the switch and carry on running, so it is safe to try both on an existing save.

Operation buffer

Only does anything in simple mode. A larger operation buffer damps the "stutter" of a reactor that is producing more plasma than is drawn from it. The bigger the buffer, the longer the reactor's working and resting phases — but the Plasma Beacon also takes longer to spin up. Consumption is unaffected: it still averages 1 plasma/s at normal quality.

This works cleanest with a single Plasma Beacon on a reactor. Several beacons keep whatever offset they happened to be built at, so their cycles overlap: the reactor works the same total time, but split into shorter runs with shorter gaps between them. At full load — four beacons per reactor at matching quality — it runs continuously anyway and the setting makes no difference.

Mirror pipe layout

Because the Plasma Beacon cannot be flipped, mirroring the pipe layout is the only way to move its connections. It applies to every plasma beacon at once and disconnects the pipes of beacons that are already built.

Effect transmission

Factor applied to the modules' own effect. Four Speed Module 3 are +200%; at factor 2.5 the machine receives +500%. Quality raises the factor — that is the "1 PB" column below.

Every value in the two tables below is the total that arrives at one machine, from all Plasma Beacons (PB) covering it together. Look up a single cell — the cells are never added to each other.

Values assume the default of 2.5 and all PB at the same quality:

Two PB give a machine 3.00, not 2.50 + 3.00 = 5.50. Every beacon added lowers
what each single one contributes, so the total barely moves.

The same totals as a concrete speed bonus, with four Speed Module 3 (normal
quality) in every PB:

Only the first plasma beacon pays off. Each further one adds +20%, +5.6%, +2.6%, +1.5%, capped at +40% over a single beacon — while costing full plasma and producing full fluoroketone.

Required

• Space Age

Nothing else. Without any plasma pipe mod, the plasma beacon docks straight onto a fusion reactor's plasma output.

Recommended Mods

• HD Plasma Duct — plasma ducts (plasma pipes), so beacons can stand away from the reactor.
  Recommended setting: "Unlock with fusion" On, so the ducts arrive with fusion research instead of promethium
• Plasma Handling — plasma pumps for larger duct layouts. Ducts reach 32 tiles and the beacon does not extend that; beyond it, use the pumps or raise the duct range in HD Plasma Duct's startup settings
• Assembling Plant — an endgame assembling machine
• Chemical Complex — an endgame chemical plant
• Nuclear Furnace — an endgame furnace that burns uranium fuel

Thanks

The Factorio-like mode exists because of sh4dow, who kept arguing for temperature scaled plasma consumption across several rounds of discussion here on the mod portal — patiently, with numbers, and against my repeated objections. He was right. Rebuilding the beacon around the fusion neighbour bonus turned a flat running cost into an actual reason to design a reactor cluster, which is what this mod should have done from the start.

Thank you.

AI

Mod concept & design by Morlot.
Implementation developed with the help of Claude (AI assistant by Anthropic).