Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-25618639-20150426193759/@comment-6078851-20150428124341

averaging out the whole empire, from feral to industrial, i would've put the imperium, which is pretty wasteful in terms of energy, as a type 1 civilisation, whereas the previous human empire i would say was, possibly, a type 2, although i don't think even they had dyson spheres.

necrons are almost certainly a type 2, probably nearer a type 3 than anyone else. alongside them i would have to put the dark eldar as a type 2 too: commorragh has suns which have been 'captured' and provide "a near limitless source of energy". not exactly a dyson sphere setup but relatively similar as the majority of each sun's energy is harnessed.

i'd also agree that tyranids, who have the greatest efficiency of energy conversion among 40k's races (and their energy conversion is galactic in scale), could qualify as a type 3.

it isn't a great scale to measure 40k's civilisations by though - i don't think dyson spheres actually exist in 40k, or at least i havn't heard/read about dyson sphere technology within 40k... but with 40k's scale it's easy to miss stuff :)