There is a point still, because a star is massively more efficient at fusion by way of "production at scale" effects.
The additional benefit is the amount of power. With the power of a star at your disposal, beaming your energy using lasers and microwaves, even if only 1% efficient, would instantly solve the energy needs of any planet in a solar system. If we did it, we could instantly colonize all planets in our solar system because things like "running an AC on Mercury" or "Hovercraft in Jupiter Atmosphere" becomes trivial when you have limitless power.
Heck, you could start projects like moving planets in orbits or collecting astroids to built a planet if you wanted.
Black holes are the stage after that since you can use a spinning black hole to convert a given mass into energy at >10% efficiency (given E=MC^2). That would allow a civilization to power multiple solar systems at the cost of a few planets per year.
Granted, the sphere is difficult to build, but that is what you have dyson swarms for.
The additional benefit is the amount of power. With the power of a star at your disposal, beaming your energy using lasers and microwaves, even if only 1% efficient, would instantly solve the energy needs of any planet in a solar system. If we did it, we could instantly colonize all planets in our solar system because things like "running an AC on Mercury" or "Hovercraft in Jupiter Atmosphere" becomes trivial when you have limitless power.
Heck, you could start projects like moving planets in orbits or collecting astroids to built a planet if you wanted.
Black holes are the stage after that since you can use a spinning black hole to convert a given mass into energy at >10% efficiency (given E=MC^2). That would allow a civilization to power multiple solar systems at the cost of a few planets per year.
Granted, the sphere is difficult to build, but that is what you have dyson swarms for.