Glossary

This Page is here to serve as a Reference for words/terms, used by the community, and their intended meanings in context to Dyson Sphere Program. Words are in alphabetical order. If you have a term you'd like to add go ahead. If you'd rather not do it yourself you can message me in the wiki discord server and I'll add it (disclaimer I am not an Admin or moderator of any kind just someone what wants this to be an open community).

Logistics Terms

Balance(d)

A system that has been tuned to perfect efficiency for amount and/or throughput.

• For amount it would mean that the material going into the system to make a product adds up exactly to the desired amount of the product you want with no materials left over.
• For throughput it would mean that the production of an item would meet the capacity of your production system usual measured in belts e.g. you would need 6 Mk.I Smelters running at full capacity to fill one MK.I Belt or 6/s, Any more smelters would be a waste since the Mk.1 belt can't hold any more cargo.

Black Box

A completely contained, usually balanced, production line that only requires the input of the raw material and outputs the desired product. An early game example is Blue Cubes. With 18 Matrix labs , 8 Assemblers, 21 Arc Smelters, 6 Mining Machines producing 6 ore/sec, you produce exactly 6 Blue Cubes/sec. In layman's terms "basic thing go in, better thing come out".

Hub

Any point in a logistic/production network that centralizes the location of materials and/or products. Hubs are located at the middle or end of logistic chains. A good example is a Planetary Logistics Station it pulls material to a location to be used and can also proved an output for the product of those materials, either in the form of another material to be used in a production line or as the final product.

Mall

A Hub that provides quick access to building materials. A good mall is essential to early gameplay, it is usual placed in an easy to find central location that gives you quick access to commonly used building materials. Malls usually contain tier one buildings e.g. Conveyor Belt, Tesla Tower, Arc Smelter, Storage, Mining Machine, etc. that are used frequently and need to be on hand. Malls are usually fed with 5 basic components/materials Iron Ingot, gear, Circuit Board, Magnetic Coil, Stone Brick.

Polar Hub

An assortment of structures, mainly Interstellar Logistics Stations, at a planets Polls. Polar hubs are often times energy, science, power, small production, logistic, or any combination based systems used to facilitate colonizing new worlds or managing resource on an existing world. Building on the polls has the benefit of using otherwise unusable space in an efficient way. They are also often very aesthetic builds.

Production Chain

describes the whole system from start to finish for a single product. understanding a production chain can be as simple as this goes into that etc. or can be a detailed calculation of all necessary resources , components, buildings, power, and time that goes into the production of a product.

Sushi Belt

Is a technique of combining materials from multiple sources and sequencing them onto a single belt. Some pros to this technique are, Less belts so less spaghetti, easier to fit multiple material into a single spot if you are running short on space, and they can look pretty cool. some cons are that it can be complicated to set up, they are almost impossible to balance, and the main draw back is that they are prone to breaking. Another thing to consider is that sushi belts sacrifice future throughput for tidiness and are best used in systems that need multiple materials to make small amounts of a product.

Throughput

Refers to the maximum amount of resources that can go through a system. usually measured in Items per second e.g. mk.I belts have a throughput of 6 single staked Items per second (6/s). the throughput of a system can be increased by upgrading the logistic components like belts and sorters, upgrading the processing buildings like smelters and assemblers, or getting creative with pilers, splitters , sorters or proliferators.

Planetary Terms

Tropics/Tropic Line

Refers to the lateral grid line that separates two grid patterns on any given planet. Tropics are very noticeable when building belts since your belt will jump left or right to align with the new grip pattern. The one exception to this rule is the equator which is still a tropic but doesn't change the pattern. In building/designing it is best to avoid or be very careful around Tropic lines since it can mess with your layout. Tropics will also be referred to as fault lines by some but the developers refer to these lines as tropics.

Meridian

lines that extend unbroken from poll to poll. A prime example is the prime meridian that marks 0° in longitude. Meridians are marked with thicker lines.