Energy Tech

Energy Tech is the science of power. In SFC2 it does two jobs: it is the gate on a large slice of the tech tree, and it is the only research that changes how much energy a Nuclear Power Plant makes.

Every new player starts with Energy Tech already at level 3, so the first three levels are free. You research it from the Research page like any other tech, and the level is account wide: research it once and every planet you own has it, including colonies you found later.

What it does

Two things, and nothing else.

It unlocks things. Eleven techs, ships and defenses list an Energy Tech level as a requirement, from Jet Drive at 1 up to the Zeus at 11. Full list below.
It feeds the Nuclear Power Plant. Your Energy Tech level sits inside the reactor's output formula, so every level makes the same reactor produce more energy for the same hydrogen.

It does nothing in combat, nothing for the Solar Array or for solar satellites, and nothing for ship speed, cargo or fuel.

The reactor payoff

Nuclear Power Plant energy per hour = 30 × Level × (1.05 + 0.01 × Energy Tech)^Level, rounded up.

The tech level sits in the base of an exponent, so the bigger the reactor the more each level is worth. One more level of Energy Tech buys roughly a tenth more energy on a level 10 reactor, roughly a fifth on a level 20 reactor and roughly a third on a level 30 reactor. The exact figure eases off a little as the tech level climbs.

Reactor level	Energy Tech 3 (starting level)	5	8	10	13	16	20
5	221	242	277	302	344	390	458
10	648	779	1,019	1,214	1,571	2,019	2,794
15	1,428	1,880	2,815	3,662	5,389	7,853	12,790
20	2,797	4,037	6,914	9,820	16,436	27,156	52,042
25	5,137	8,127	15,923	24,690	47,002	88,044	198,524
30	9,057	15,705	35,205	59,591	129,034	274,034	727,015

Energy per hour, at 100% capacity.

The hydrogen bill does not move. That is 10 × Level × 1.1^Level per hour, rounded up and then doubled, and it depends only on the reactor's level: 520 an hour at level 10, 2,692 at level 20, 10,470 at level 30. The in-game description says the plant "consumes more hydrogen and produces more energy for each level of energy tech", which is a leftover from the old game. In SFC2 only the energy side moves, so every level of Energy Tech is free extra power on a reactor you are already feeding.

That is a level 20 reactor at Energy Tech 13: 16,436 energy an hour off 2,692 hydrogen. The same reactor at Energy Tech 3 would make 2,797 for exactly the same hydrogen.

One landmark worth knowing. At Energy Tech 5 the reactor's base hits 1.1, which is the same growth curve the Solar Array uses, but with a multiplier of 30 instead of 20. From Energy Tech 5 up a reactor beats a same-level Solar Array by half again and keeps pulling away. Below 5 it grows slower than solar, and at the starting level of 3 a same-level Solar Array overtakes it at level 23. See Energy for how the whole power economy fits together.

Requirements

Research Lab level 1, on the planet you start the research from. That is the only requirement, at every level.

What it unlocks

Energy Tech	Unlocks
1	Jet Drive, Pulse Drive
2	Laser Tech
3	Shield Tech, Pulse Cannon, Zagreus Class Recycler, Nuclear Power Plant
4	Particle Tech
5	FTL Tech
6	Gauss Cannon
8	Plasma Tech
11	Zeus Class

Levels 1, 2 and 3 are already done the moment you sign up, so the first gate you have to research toward is Particle Tech at 4. The Nuclear Power Plant's Energy Tech 3 requirement is real but never bites for the same reason, which is why the game's own Enables list leaves it out. Each of those unlocks has other requirements of its own on top of the Energy Tech level.

The More Info button on the Research page opens that list for any tech, with a green dot next to everything you already qualify for.

Cost

Level 1 costs 800 crystal and 400 hydrogen. Every level after doubles both. Energy Tech never costs ore, and there is no level cap.

Level	Crystal	Hydrogen	Crystal spent so far	Hydrogen spent so far
1	800	400	800	400
2	1,600	800	2,400	1,200
3	3,200	1,600	5,600	2,800
4	6,400	3,200	12,000	6,000
5	12,800	6,400	24,800	12,400
6	25,600	12,800	50,400	25,200
7	51,200	25,600	101,600	50,800
8	102,400	51,200	204,000	102,000
9	204,800	102,400	408,800	204,400
10	409,600	204,800	818,400	409,200
11	819,200	409,600	1,637,600	818,800
12	1,638,400	819,200	3,276,000	1,638,000
13	3,276,800	1,638,400	6,552,800	3,276,400
14	6,553,600	3,276,800	13,106,400	6,553,200
15	13,107,200	6,553,600	26,213,600	13,106,800

Doubling adds up in the obvious way: levels 1 through 8 put together still cost less than level 9 on its own.

Research time

Research time counts ore and crystal only. Energy Tech costs no ore, so the clock runs entirely off the crystal half of the bill and the hydrogen is free time-wise.

Hours = Crystal ÷ (2000 × (Research Lab level + 1))

Level	Lab 3	Lab 6	Lab 10	Lab 15	Lab 20
1	6m	3m 26s	2m 11s	1m 30s	1m 09s
2	12m	6m 52s	4m 22s	3m	2m 17s
3	24m	13m 43s	8m 44s	6m	4m 35s
4	48m	27m 26s	17m 28s	12m	9m 09s
5	1h 36m	54m 52s	34m 55s	24m	18m 17s
6	3h 12m	1h 49m	1h 09m	48m	36m 35s
7	6h 24m	3h 39m	2h 19m	1h 36m	1h 13m
8	12h 48m	7h 18m	4h 39m	3h 12m	2h 26m
9	1d 1h	14h 37m	9h 18m	6h 24m	4h 52m
10	2d 3h	1d 5h	18h 37m	12h 48m	9h 45m
11	4d 6h	2d 10h	1d 13h	1d 1h	19h 30m
12	8d 12h	4d 21h	3d 2h	2d 3h	1d 15h
13	17d 1h	9d 18h	6d 4h	4d 6h	3d 6h
14	34d 3h	19d 12h	12d 9h	8d 12h	6d 12h
15	68d 6h	39d	24d 19h	17d 1h	13d

Four things change that number:

The lab that counts is the one on the planet you start from. Once you have the Advanced Research Communication Network, your labs are added together instead, one to start with plus one more for every ARCNet level, and it stops mattering where you press the button.
The Research Relay alliance perk divides the time, up to half at the top level.
Only one research runs at a time across your whole account, and you cannot start one while a Research Lab is upgrading on any of your planets.
Cancelling a research in progress refunds the full cost to the planet that paid. You can also finish it instantly with credits, which costs 1.12 credits per second remaining and is free once there are under five minutes left.

Worth knowing

The usual pattern is to push Energy Tech to 5 or 6 early, because that is where FTL Tech and the Gauss Cannon sit, then leave it alone until you either want the Zeus at 11 or your planets run out of fields and you need reactor levels instead of Solar Array levels.
A reactor buys you fields, not cheap energy. Level for level it costs far more than a Solar Array and it burns hydrogen forever, so it earns its keep on a planet that has run out of room and needs a lot of power off a few fields. The higher your Energy Tech, the better that trade gets.
Energy Tech is pure crystal and hydrogen. It is one of the few big sinks that never asks for ore, which makes it a handy thing to queue up when crystal is piling up and ore is not.
Like everything else you spend, the resources sunk into Energy Tech count toward your rank.