The Planet Crafter: How to Build a Fusion Reactor (2024)

As you terraform the world of The Planet Crafter, you need to build bigger and stronger power systems to keep all your machines and displays running. You start out with renewable sources like wind and solar panels, but you can eventually build nuclear power plants that produce immense amounts of energy.

The ultimate power source in The Planet Crafter is the fusion reactor, which you unlock when you reach 750 micro-Kelvin. However, the reactor doesn't call for uranium like the nuclear reactors do. So how can you get what you need?

Fusion Reactor Basics

The basic unit of Heat in The Planet Crafter is pico-Kelvin, and 750 micro-Kelvin is equal to 750 million pico-Kelvin. You should expect to reach the Trees or Insects terraformation stage by the time you unlock the fusion reactor. However, you may unlock the reactor sooner if you focus on building heaters and heat-multiplying rockets.

Each fusion reactor costs five pulsar quartz and four super alloy. A single fusion reactor generates 1,485 kW, which is over four times as much energy as the nuclear reactor T2. The materials you need for a fusion reactor are almost completely different from the materials the T2 reactor demands, so there's no real point to dismantling them. 300 kW is still significant, and since the materials the fusion reactor needs are rare, it makes sense to keep the T2 reactors around as backup.

One other way you can make the most of each fusion reactor is to build machine optimizers nearby and stock them with energy multiplier fuses. You can buy them from the space trader for 6,000 Terra Tokens, and you can also find them in safes in procedural ruins.

Where to Get Super Alloy and Pulsar Quartz

You need super alloy in a variety of machine recipes, especially by the time you unlock the fusion reactor. However, you need a lot of it for each reactor. More importantly, you also need a special mineral called pulsar quartz, and the fusion reactor may be the first recipe you unlock that requires it. As such, you'll need to secure a regular source of both materials if you want to build as many as you'll need to power the late-game machines.

Super Alloy

Super alloy is the easier material to get. There are a few places you can find them, one place you can mine them, and the recipe is easy enough to unlock.

• Check the upper ledges of the Labyrinth Caverns for super alloy.
• Inspect the ground below the Sand Falls to find a few nuggets.
• There's a cave full of super alloy in the cliff wall by the Dune Desert and the Highlands. You can extract an unlimited supply of super alloy from this cave with an ore extractor T2 or T3.
• One of the meteor shower events drops dozens of super alloy nuggets. However, you'll need to be careful since the meteors land in rapid succession and the super alloy despawns faster than any other meteor product. This means you'll need to dodge meteors if you want to fill your inventory.
• Super alloy shows up often in crates once you reach the green stages of terraformation.
• If you deconstruct a golden crate, you get one super alloy and one aluminum.
• Super alloy is one of the recipes that comes for free with the advanced craft station. The station unlocks once you reach the first terraformation milestone of 175 kTi. You need one of each basic mineral to build it:
  • Iron
  • Cobalt
  • Magnesium
  • Silicon
  • Titanium
  • Aluminum

Pulsar Quartz

The first time you collect a piece of pulsar quartz, you get the achievement "The Pink Rare Ore." You can eventually unlock a recipe that lets you craft it in the biolab, but until then you'll need to hunt down the locations on the map that hold it. The ore extractor can't generate pulsar quartz (or any kind of quartz), so you're stuck with what's on the map until you can unlock the recipe or start visiting procedural wrecks.

• Scattered throughout the Meteor Field.
• A few quartz pieces are on top of the large Waterfall.
• Inside the cave connecting the Crater and the Arches biomes.
• Inside the cave in one of the sinkholes south of the Gate Desert.
• The Rainbow Caves include one or two caves of each type of quartz, including pulsar quartz.
• During the late terraformation stages, a large purple meteor will sometimes crash down and drop around six to eight pulsar quartz.
• Pulsar quartz shows up in chests you open after reaching the Trees stage.
• Pulsar quartz is a relatively common find in procedural wrecks.
• The recipe for pulsar quartz unlocks after you reach 175 GTi. You need several rare materials to make it:
  • Iridium
  • Uranium
  • Osmium
  • Zeolite
  • Methane cartridge

The Planet Crafter

Platform(s)

PC

Released

April 10, 2024

Developer(s)

Miju Games

Genre(s)

Open-World , Survival

How Long To Beat

19 Hours