Hydrogen is the third and rarest of the three resources in SFC2. It is the fuel every fleet burns to fly, and it gates the expensive end of the game: the big warships, the heavy defenses and the late techs and buildings all want hydrogen on top of ore and crystal. It comes out of the ground slower than ore or crystal, it costs more energy per unit than either of them, and unlike the other two it never turns up in debris.
The Hydrogen Synthesizer is the building that makes it. Every planet has one and you raise its level on the Buildings page. New planets start it at level 0, and unlike the other two mines there is no free trickle: at level 0 a planet makes no hydrogen at all. Moons have no mines, and a deployed Hephaestus platform does not mine either.
What it produces
Hydrogen per hour = 12 × Level × 1.1Level × (1.28 - 0.002 × max temperature) × 2.
The × 2 on the end is the game speed. The temperature term is what makes this mine different from the other two, and it gets its own section below.
Above level 30 the exponent stops climbing at the normal rate. Instead of 1.1Level the game uses 1.130 + ln(Level - 29), so production almost flattens out. Energy use does not get that treatment, it keeps climbing the same curve it always did. Somewhere in the mid to late 30s the synthesizer starts drawing more energy per hour than it makes hydrogen, at level 35 on the hottest slots and level 38 on the coldest. Very few players go that far on purpose.
Temperature
Colder planets make more hydrogen. The slot a planet sits in sets its temperature, and the temperature sets a flat multiplier on everything the synthesizer produces. Slot 1 is the hottest, slot 15 is the coldest.
The Planet panel on the Overview page shows a range, for example "-86°C to -46°C". The higher of the two numbers is the max temperature, and that is the one the formula uses.
| Slot | Typical max temp | Multiplier | Hydrogen per hour at level 20 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 - 3 | 90°C | 1.10 | 3,552 |
| 4 - 6 | 65°C | 1.15 | 3,714 |
| 7 - 9 | 40°C | 1.20 | 3,875 |
| 10 - 12 | 0°C | 1.28 | 4,133 |
| 13 - 15 | -45°C | 1.37 | 4,424 |
Every planet rolls a few degrees either side of its slot's figure, so two colonies in the same band will not match exactly. End to end the coldest slots produce about 25% more hydrogen than the hottest ones for the same mine level, or put the other way round, the hottest slots produce about 20% less than the coldest.
That is the whole effect. Temperature does nothing to the cost of a level, nothing to the energy the mine draws, and nothing to ore or crystal. It only moves hydrogen.
Here are four planets with the same level 20 synthesizer on each. Halcyon at 1:1:13 makes 4,430 an hour and Cinder at 1:1:1 makes 3,552, purely because of where they sit. Homeworld looks low for its level because the number in this table is net of what its Nuclear Power Plant burns.
It is worth thinking about when you pick a colony slot, but do not build your whole plan around it. Outer slots also tend to have fewer fields, and a 25% edge on your third resource is smaller than it sounds next to a planet with room to grow.
Energy
The Hydrogen Synthesizer is the hungriest building on the planet. Energy use = (20 × Level × 1.1Level, rounded down), plus 1 above level 1. That is double what the Ore Mine or Crystal Mine draws at the same level.
Mines only run flat out if the planet makes at least as much energy as its mines want. If you are short, every mine on the planet runs at produced divided by needed, so an underpowered planet loses hydrogen, ore and crystal together. The Buildings page shows this as "Production: x of y/hr" with an "Insufficient Energy" warning, and the Energy panel in the sidebar shows used against produced.
One number worth remembering: a Solar Array at level N produces exactly as much energy as a Hydrogen Synthesizer at level N draws. So if you keep the two at the same level, the synthesizer pays for itself in power and everything the Solar Array makes above that is free for your other mines.
Your reactor eats it
The Nuclear Power Plant makes energy by burning hydrogen, and it burns it off the same planet that produced it. Burn per hour = (10 × Level × 1.1Level, rounded up) × 2. That works out to almost exactly what a Hydrogen Synthesizer at the same level draws in energy.
The Production panel on the Buildings page breaks it out for you. The Hydrogen line is the net figure, and under it you get the synthesizer's gross output and the reactor's burn as separate lines.
How bad the trade is depends entirely on Energy Tech. The reactor's energy output scales with your tech level, but the hydrogen burn does not, so every level of Energy Tech makes the same fuel go further. A level 15 reactor burns 1,254 hydrogen an hour whatever your tech is, and gives you 1,880 energy at Energy Tech 5, 3,662 at Energy Tech 10, and 6,934 at Energy Tech 15.
For most planets the answer is to run the mines off the Solar Array and treat the reactor as the top-up for what solar cannot cover. If you do run a big reactor, put research into Energy Tech before you put another level into the reactor.
One warning: nothing stops the reactor when the tank runs dry. If the burn is bigger than the synthesizer's output, your hydrogen counter walks down to zero and sits there. The reactor keeps making its full energy, so you will not notice from the energy side, you will just never have any hydrogen.
The capacity setting
Every mine and power plant has a Capacity dropdown that runs from 0% to 100% in steps of 5. Turning the synthesizer down cuts its output and its energy draw by the same percentage. Turning the reactor down cuts its energy and its hydrogen burn by the same percentage.
That second one is the useful one on this page. If you are stockpiling hydrogen for a big build and the reactor is eating it faster than you like, drop the reactor's capacity and take the energy hit for a while. Set the synthesizer itself to 0% and it stops completely, and unlike the other two mines there is no free trickle left over.
Storage
A planet holds 100,000 hydrogen to start with. Hydrogen Storage raises that:
Capacity = 100,000 + 50,000 × (1.6Storage level rounded up - 1)
| Storage level | Hydrogen capacity | Cost of that level |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 100,000 | - |
| 1 | 150,000 | 2,000 ore + 2,000 crystal |
| 2 | 200,000 | 4,000 + 4,000 |
| 3 | 300,000 | 8,000 + 8,000 |
| 4 | 400,000 | 16,000 + 16,000 |
| 5 | 600,000 | 32,000 + 32,000 |
| 6 | 900,000 | 64,000 + 64,000 |
| 7 | 1,400,000 | 128,000 + 128,000 |
| 8 | 2,200,000 | 256,000 + 256,000 |
| 9 | 3,500,000 | 512,000 + 512,000 |
| 10 | 5,550,000 | 1,024,000 + 1,024,000 |
When the store fills up the mine stops. Not slows down, stops. The hydrogen figure in the top right of the interface turns red when you are at or over the cap, and the Storage panel on the Buildings page puts a "Capacity Exceeded" warning on itself. To get going again, spend the hydrogen, move it off the planet with a transport or a resource save, or add a storage level.
Plunder, mission rewards and trades can all push you past the cap. Nothing is lost when that happens, the mine just sits idle until you are back under. The reactor keeps burning while you are over the cap, which is one of the few times that works in your favour.
Mines run all the time, not in hourly lumps. The counter in the top right refreshes about once a minute while you have the game open, and again on every page load.
Building it up
The cost of a level does not depend on the planet:
Ore = 225 × 1.5Level - 1, rounded down
Crystal = 75 × 1.5Level - 1, rounded down
Build time does depend on the planet:
Hours = (Ore + Crystal) ÷ (5,000 × (Capitol level + 1) × 2Foundry level)
Two other things to keep in mind. Each mine level uses one field, so a level 25 Hydrogen Synthesizer is 25 fields of a planet that might only have 150. And a planet can only build one thing at a time, so a long synthesizer upgrade blocks everything else on that planet until it finishes.
The More Info button on the mine gives you the next few levels, what they produce, what they cost and what they will do to your energy. Note how fast the Energy column catches the Production column.
Tearing a level back down
You can tear down a synthesizer level. It costs one third of what that level cost to build and takes one third of the build time, and you pay it, there is no refund. What you get back is the field and the energy draw. It is a repair for a planet you overbuilt, not a way to move resources around.
What hydrogen is spent on
Fuel. Every fleet you send burns hydrogen off the planet it leaves from, and the fleet has to be able to pay before it will launch. The Summary box on the Fleets page shows the bill before you commit.
Fuel scales with the speed you choose, and it scales harder than the flight time does. The run in the box above is 30 Hercules Cargo going four systems across, and it costs 528 hydrogen at 100% speed, 297 at 50%, and 160 at 10%. If you are not in a hurry, slowing a hauler down is close to free money. See Cargo for how fuel comes out of the hold.
Ships. The cheap hulls cost no hydrogen at all. It is the heavy end that wants it: 15,000 each for the Ares, Hades and Prometheus, 10,000 for a Gaia, 2,000 for a Poseidon or a Dionysus, 500 for a Helios, and 1,000,000 for a Zeus.
Defenses. 30,000 for a Plasma Cannon, 10,000 for an IPBM, 2,000 for a Gauss Cannon or an ABM. The rest are ore and crystal only.
Research. Most techs want a little. ARCNet is the big one at 80,000 for level 1, then Warp Drive at 6,000 and FTL Tech at 2,000. All of them double per level.
Buildings. The Foundry starts at 100,000, the Lunar Base and the Oracle at 20,000, the Warp Gate at 2,000,000 and the Lunar Dock at 4,000,000.
Oracle scans. Each sweep costs a flat 5,000 hydrogen, and it comes off the moon the Oracle sits on, not off your planet. Moons do not mine, so you have to ship it up there.
Other ways to get hydrogen
Mining is not the only source, and past the early game it is usually not the biggest one.
- Attacking players and NPC encounters. You take a share of what is sitting on the target, see Plunder. This is where most of the hydrogen in the game changes hands.
- Missions, secret missions, quests and the Lucky Draw.
- The Trade Merchant, which converts one resource into another for 5,000 credits a go. Hydrogen is the dear end of the table: 2,500 ore buys 1,000 hydrogen, or 1,667 crystal does, and 1,000 hydrogen going the other way buys 2,500 ore. See Trading.
What is not on that list is recycling. Debris fields hold ore and crystal only, so no amount of harvesting will ever bring hydrogen home. That is the main reason a fleet-heavy player ends up hydrogen poor while ore and crystal pile up.
What slows production down
- Not enough energy. Covered above. This is the common one, and the synthesizer is usually the mine that pushes a planet into it.
- Your own reactor. Also covered above. Check the net figure, not the synthesizer's gross.
- Full storage. Production stops dead at the cap.
- A warm slot. Nothing you can do about it after the fact. Terraforming adds fields, not degrees.
- Diplomacy Mode. Buys you protection from attack and charges you production for it. The cut is 25% under 50k RSP, 50% from 50k to 99,999 RSP, and 75% at 100k RSP and up.
- Vacation Mode. Production stops completely while you are parked.
- The capacity setting, if you have turned the mine down and forgotten about it.
Cost, energy and production by level
Ore and crystal are what that level costs to build. Energy is what the mine draws once it is at that level. Hydrogen per hour is the full rate at 100% energy and 100% capacity on a 40°C planet, which is the middle of the range, so scale it by the table in the Temperature section for your own slot. Gain is the extra you get over the level below. Hours to pay off takes the whole bill, converts it to hydrogen at the Merchant's rates, and divides by the gain, so it is roughly how long the upgrade takes to earn itself back.
| Level | Ore cost | Crystal cost | Energy use | Hydrogen per hour | Gain | Hours to pay off |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | - | - | 0 | 0 | - | - |
| 1 | 225 | 75 | 22 | 32 | +32 | 4.2 |
| 2 | 337 | 112 | 49 | 70 | +38 | 5.3 |
| 3 | 506 | 168 | 80 | 115 | +45 | 6.7 |
| 4 | 759 | 253 | 118 | 169 | +54 | 8.4 |
| 5 | 1,139 | 379 | 162 | 232 | +63 | 11 |
| 6 | 1,708 | 569 | 213 | 306 | +74 | 14 |
| 7 | 2,562 | 854 | 273 | 393 | +87 | 18 |
| 8 | 3,844 | 1,281 | 343 | 494 | +101 | 23 |
| 9 | 5,766 | 1,922 | 425 | 611 | +117 | 30 |
| 10 | 8,649 | 2,883 | 519 | 747 | +136 | 38 |
| 11 | 12,974 | 4,324 | 628 | 904 | +157 | 50 |
| 12 | 19,461 | 6,487 | 754 | 1,085 | +181 | 65 |
| 13 | 29,192 | 9,730 | 898 | 1,293 | +208 | 84 |
| 14 | 43,789 | 14,596 | 1,064 | 1,531 | +238 | 110 |
| 15 | 65,684 | 21,894 | 1,254 | 1,805 | +274 | 144 |
| 16 | 98,526 | 32,842 | 1,471 | 2,117 | +312 | 189 |
| 17 | 147,789 | 49,263 | 1,719 | 2,475 | +358 | 248 |
| 18 | 221,683 | 73,894 | 2,002 | 2,882 | +407 | 327 |
| 19 | 332,525 | 110,841 | 2,325 | 3,347 | +465 | 429 |
| 20 | 498,788 | 166,262 | 2,691 | 3,875 | +528 | 567 |
| 21 | 748,182 | 249,394 | 3,109 | 4,476 | +601 | 747 |
| 22 | 1,122,274 | 374,091 | 3,582 | 5,158 | +682 | 987 |
| 23 | 1,683,411 | 561,137 | 4,119 | 5,931 | +773 | 1,307 |
| 24 | 2,525,116 | 841,705 | 4,728 | 6,808 | +877 | 1,728 |
| 25 | 3,787,675 | 1,262,558 | 5,418 | 7,801 | +993 | 2,289 |
| 26 | 5,681,512 | 1,893,837 | 6,198 | 8,924 | +1,123 | 3,036 |
| 27 | 8,522,269 | 2,840,756 | 7,080 | 10,194 | +1,270 | 4,026 |
| 28 | 12,783,403 | 4,261,134 | 8,076 | 11,629 | +1,435 | 5,345 |
| 29 | 19,175,105 | 6,391,701 | 9,201 | 13,249 | +1,620 | 7,102 |
| 30 | 28,762,658 | 9,587,552 | 10,470 | 15,076 | +1,827 | 9,446 |
| 31 | 43,143,988 | 14,381,329 | 11,901 | 16,643 | +1,567 | 16,520 |
| 32 | 64,715,982 | 21,571,994 | 13,513 | 17,857 | +1,214 | 31,985 |
| 33 | 97,073,973 | 32,357,991 | 15,329 | 18,926 | +1,069 | 54,485 |
| 34 | 145,610,960 | 48,536,986 | 17,373 | 19,919 | +993 | 87,982 |
| 35 | 218,416,440 | 72,805,480 | 19,672 | 20,864 | +945 | 138,677 |
| 36 | 327,624,661 | 109,208,220 | 22,258 | 21,778 | +914 | 215,071 |
| 37 | 491,436,992 | 163,812,330 | 25,163 | 22,670 | +892 | 330,563 |
| 38 | 737,155,488 | 245,718,496 | 28,428 | 23,545 | +875 | 505,478 |
| 39 | 1,105,733,232 | 368,577,744 | 32,093 | 24,409 | +864 | 767,870 |
| 40 | 1,658,599,848 | 552,866,616 | 36,208 | 25,263 | +854 | 1,165,293 |
Look at what happens either side of level 30. Level 25 costs 3.8 million ore and 1.3 million crystal and buys you 993 more hydrogen an hour. Level 35 costs 218 million ore and 73 million crystal and buys you 945 an hour, which is less, while adding another 2,299 to your energy bill. The curve turns over, and it turns over hard.
For most players the synthesizer sits a few levels behind the Ore Mine and the Crystal Mine, because it costs the most energy and pays the least per level. That is fine. Past the early game the fleet brings home far more hydrogen than the mine ever will, and the mine's real job is to keep your reactor fed and your fleet fuelled between raids. See Mines for how the three compare.
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