Atmosfar reactor cores: where to find and what they power

The short answer: a reactor core is the fuel item your airship's reactor burns to generate power. Cores are rare, heavy and radioactive, and they can only be moved with the Hauler. One core powers one reactor. You need the first one to get a working ship, and a second only if you are building a large hull with a refinery, plant beds and turrets running at once.

Everything below is what the Early Access build documents, plus the parts that are still officially unstated.

What a reactor core does

The reactor is the power plant of your airship. It converts a core into power units per second (PU/s), and every powered module draws from that pool:

The development example is a 25 PU reactor running a refinery at 1 PU. That sounds like room for 25 refineries, but lift, charging and plant beds eat most of the budget before you get anywhere near that number. The practical rule from the airship building guide is to keep generation at roughly double your idle load, so turret bursts and Wasp charging do not brown out the ship. The same budget logic applies to the hydrogen refinery, which is usually the second-largest draw after lift.

Where to find reactor cores

Cores belong to the "knowledge" resource family, not the salvage family. They come from PACE sites and story locations, which means guarded facilities rather than random debris.

What that looks like in practice:

1. Follow the ship progression. Players report that the first core comes from a PACE facility reached through the airship chain rather than from a vendor. The game does not publish a core map.
2. Search machinery, not crates. Cores sit in equipment housings rather than loose loot, and the rooms around them are usually locked or powered down.
3. Bring the Hauler. A core cannot be carried by hand or by Wasp. If you arrive in a Wasp, you will be making a second trip.
4. Clear the drones first. PACE facilities are defended. Fighting inside a reactor room with a core on the floor is how you lose the trip.

The exact number of core spawns per region is not officially documented. Community maps exist, but they change between patches. The reliable method is the story chain plus a sweep of PACE facilities you have already cleared.

How many cores do you need?

One core is enough for a starter ship. The question is when a second one pays for itself.

Stay on one core if:

• Your hull is small or medium.
• You run one refinery and a siphon.
• You have no turrets or only one.
• You park at camp to process materials rather than running everything in flight.

Add a second core if:

• You run two refineries for a long cargo route.
• You keep plant beds and a diagnostics unit online during flights.
• You want turrets active while the refinery runs.
• Your fuel tanks keep losing cooling power when the ship is parked.

A second reactor needs a second core. That is the bottleneck, not the hull space. Do not plan a two-reactor ship until you have physically recovered the second core.

Core vs battery bank

A battery bank does not replace a core. It stores power so short peaks do not stall the reactor.

• Core: generation. Without one, the reactor produces nothing.
• Battery: buffer. Covers turret bursts, Wasp charging and the moment you power up lift.
• Siphon: fuel generation, not power. It still needs the reactor running.

The common failure is a ship with plenty of batteries and an undersized reactor. It launches, drains the bank in a minute, then sags. Adding batteries to that ship makes the first minute longer, not the flight.

Replacing and losing a core

Cores are not consumed like fuel. A core stays in the reactor until you remove it. The risk is losing the ship, not burning the core:

• If the ship is destroyed, the core goes with it.
• If you remove a core, you must haul it again.
• Treat one core as one Hauler trip.

That makes core recovery the most expensive logistical mistake in the game. Keep a backup route to a known PACE site before you fly a large ship into a dangerous region.

What is still unconfirmed

Three things this page will not invent:

• Exact core count per map. Not published.
• Core rarity tiers. The game describes cores as rare, but no tier list exists.
• Reactor upgrade paths. No official statement on upgrading a reactor without a new core.

If a guide gives you a fixed number of cores per region, check the date. The Early Access build has changed resource placement at least once.

FAQ

How many reactor cores do I need? One for a starter ship, two only if you run a large hull with heavy power draw.

Can I carry a reactor core by hand? No. Cores require the Hauler.

Do reactor cores get used up? No. They stay in the reactor; the risk is losing the ship.

Where is the first reactor core? Players report it comes from a PACE facility tied to the ship progression chain; there is no official core map.

Are reactor cores radioactive? Yes, the game flags them as radioactive cargo.

Official source: Atmosfar on Steam Official source: Atmosfar developer posts Official source: Apog Labs