Prism

Prism is an intermediate crafting material made from Glass. It has only two direct uses, but both are important: early on it is turned into Plasma Exciters, and later it is combined with Circuit Boards to make Photon Combiners, which are used in Dyson Sphere components such as Solar Sails and Ray Receivers.

In the item chain, Prism sits between basic glass processing and more advanced optical and energy-related components. Its recipe is unusual: 3 Glass produce 2 Prism, so it does not follow the common 1:1 pattern seen in many other materials. This still works out cleanly in practice because both of Prism’s recipes consume it in pairs, making ratios easy to manage once production is set up.

Prism is a strictly intermediate component, so it is rarely worth dedicating a large factory to it on its own. Plasma Exciters need very few units over the course of a normal game, and even a single storage full of Prism is usually more than enough to cover that demand. For this reason, many players simply feed Plasma Exciter assemblers directly from Prism assemblers without belts.

• Prism is first used to craft Plasma Exciters with Magnetic Coils.
• It is later used to craft Photon Combiners with Circuit Boards.
• Photon Combiners become important once Solar Sails production begins.
• Because Photon Combiner demand rises much more sharply than Prism demand, direct feeding is less practical for that chain than it is for Plasma Exciters.
• A special case exists when feeding Photon Combiner Mk.IIs from Prism Mk.Is: the speed difference between the machines corrects the ratio well enough to make direct feeding effective.

Visually and thematically, Prism is a polyhedron formed by two intersecting glass planes. Its purpose in the game fits that image well, since it is used for splitting or dispersing light and for creating more precise optical instruments. In gameplay terms, it is a small but necessary bridge from basic Glass production into the higher-tier components that support Dyson Sphere construction.