Wolframite to Niobium at a 1:1 ratio ???

[Ixiah]

Backstory time  :
So I just finished getting my first few kg of niobium in my game, and I remembered reading somewhere in the forum saying that thermium can be used in the rock crusher to produce even more niobium at the cost of tungsten.
I was about to do that, but then found this in the refinery, a much better way than using the rock crusher to get more niobium.



So I then check back the forum, and I cannot seem to find anyone mentioned about this, but only the rock crusher recipe. So I made this post, just checking if anyone else know about this ???

[SkunkMaster]

yes, but while it's true, you only have that much Wolf on your asteroid, and it's non-renewable atm.. no planets no volcano no nothing to replenish your wolf.

So while it's true you can convert to Niobium, that also limits how much Thermium you can make. 

[zergologist]

Isn't it alot cheaper in the molecular forge?

[Ixiah]

31 minutes ago, zergologist said:

Isn't it alot cheaper in the molecular forge?

The molecular forge convert 5 kg of niobium with 95 kg of tungsten into 100 kg thermium, while this recipe in the refinery convert 100 kg thermium back to 100 kg niobium that you can use to make 2 tons of thermium more.
Since you can only get 25-35 kg of niobium per cargo bay per trip, this is a very cheap way to multiply the initial amount of niobium you have.

[JukedByLife]

I saw this mentioned yesterday but was unaware of it prior to that.

[SkunkMaster]

13 minutes ago, Ixiah said:

The molecular forge convert 5 kg of niobium with 95 kg of tungsten into 100 kg thermium, while this recipe in the refinery convert 100 kg thermium back to 100 kg niobium that you can use to make 2 tons of thermium more.
Since you can only get 25-35 kg of niobium per cargo bay per trip, this is a very cheap way to multiply the initial amount of niobium you have.

it's honestly still a waste. you'll gona farm asteroids a lot, and Niobium will build up rather fast.

[Ixiah]

1 hour ago, SkunkMaster said:

yes, but while it's true, you only have that much Wolf on your asteroid, and it's non-renewable atm.. no planets no volcano no nothing to replenish your wolf.

So while it's true you can convert to Niobium, that also limits how much Thermium you can make. 

Yes, but if we look at the math: you use 95 kg more tungsten for every 1900 kg of thermium you make, which alone has already cost you 1805 kg tungsten.
With the refinery, you would only waste like 5% of the wolframite but will save you tons of fuel and time going back and forth for niobium, while fullerene is much rarer and isoresin is needed in a much larger amount (like a few tons) than thermium.
Still, this is much less wasteful than using the rock crusher xD, glad I found out this before going down that road

[SkunkMaster]

1 hour ago, Ixiah said:

Yes, but if we look at the math: you use 95 kg more tungsten for every 1900 kg of thermium you make, which alone has already cost you 1805 kg tungsten.
With the refinery, you would only waste like 5% of the wolframite but will save you tons of fuel and time going back and forth for niobium, while fullerene is much rarer and isoresin is needed in a much larger amount (like a few tons) than thermium.
Still, this is much less wasteful than using the rock crusher xD, glad I found out this before going down that road

Fullerene, while scarse, is not really used that much. after 10 trips you'll have enough for most big projects, and by the time that project is done you'll have enough for 2 other... you get where this is going ? 

 

While isoresin on the other hand is something you can't get enough of, farming both, even on seperate asteroids, is not really that big of a deal... 

[SakuraKoi]

1 hour ago, Ixiah said:

Since you can only get 25-35 kg of niobium per cargo bay per trip, this is a very cheap way to multiply the initial amount of niobium you have.

You can actually get 2000kg of any rare material if you have gas giant, hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Or 1000kg with Petroleum and LOX. This requires a gas giant. Or does Storage not get filled up to the brim?

Organic Mass may also yield much more as well as Volcanic Planets. Currently I am testing a bit to see what celestial bodies there may be where with what since it is random. I'd be glad if someone could tell me a formula which allows one to e.g tell how much one will get if a planet has 19% Slime, 21% Algae and 6% Isoresin.

 

Also, if the recipe for Thermium needs Tungsten and can not be gotten otherwise while Niobium can be found in Space, it is then unwise to turn Thermium into Niobium.

[Saturnus]

The recipe has changed with the last update then. I tested it yesterday and it was 50kg niobium and 50kg sand you got back.

3 minutes ago, SakuraKoi said:

Also, if the recipe for Thermium needs Tungsten and can not be gotten otherwise while Niobium can be found in Space, it is then unwise to turn Thermium into Niobium.

You're converting tungsten to niobium at 1:1 ratio. I fail to see the problem. Just don't convert all of it. Niobium can for most use cases be used instead of thermium. 

[SakuraKoi]

39 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

You're converting tungsten to niobium at 1:1 ratio. I fail to see the problem. Just don't convert all of it. Niobium can for most use cases be used instead of thermium. 

Of course, Niobium can often be used instead, it even has a deco advantage but ultimately it decreases the max amount of Thermium one could have while Niobium is infinite. Upgrading Tungsten is but a short* term solution.

 

*~1000-10000 Cycles if one saves like 10t for Thermium

[Sasza22]

I`m on cycle 450 and i have over 2t of thermium (4% niobium on nearest asteroid). A simple steam rocket with boosters can get more niobium every 5 cycles or so. Once you got the infrastructure it`s pretty easy to get a lot of niobium as long as you got it close.

[SakuraKoi]

27 minutes ago, Sasza22 said:

I`m on cycle 450 and i have over 2t of thermium (4% niobium on nearest asteroid). A simple steam rocket with boosters can get more niobium every 5 cycles or so. Once you got the infrastructure it`s pretty easy to get a lot of niobium as long as you got it close.

Well, if it is a far away Gas Giant one should be able to fill your Cargo Bay to the brim with rare materials... 

Though chances are that it is not Niobium or it is along with another material. Currently I looked at 65 objects and only 14 had Niobium.while 29 had Isoresin, 26 Abyssalite (discounting Volcanic Planet) and 26 Fullerene. Whether it is 1 or 2 materials is also a 50:50 split.

4% Niobium is by the by not bad at all, the most I recorded was 5% and the smallest was 1%. The 5% was on a 10k km Carbon Asteroid. Still I will increase my sample size since after all, I only saw one Terrestrial Planet (no, it has no Wolframite) and one Ice Giant (which seems no different from normal Ice Planets, why does it not have Wolframite?).

40kg Niobium should also be 800kg Thermium already, enough for a few pumps.

Bad News by the by: Some Starmaps can have 24 objects while others may only have 20. Obviously gonna have to increase my sample size which could result in worse.

[crypticorb]

I feel like I've missed a critical point somewhere. Nobium is the material acquired from space exploration, correct?

If I'm understanding the refinement process correctly it goes like this:

1. Acquire 5kg of nobium from space exploration
2. Molecular forge recipe (5kg nobium + 95kg tungste) = 100kg thermium
3. Two un-refining recipes, in refinery or granulator:
   • Refinery recipe: 100kg thermium = 100kg nobium
   • Granulator recipe: 100kg thermium = 50kg nobium and sand.

 

If nobium is acquired from space, and thermium is the better material, why is the recipe in the refinery a downgrade? Is nobium somehow better than thermium?

Why would anyone want to make more nobium when they could just use thermium? Is it because space exploration for more nobium is so hard? I suppose you could use this method (if incredibly energy intensive) to turn tungsten directly into nobium. Is there any way to acquire more wolframite/tungsten in game currently?

[Ixiah]

 

12 hours ago, crypticorb said:

I feel like I've missed a critical point somewhere. Nobium is the material acquired from space exploration, correct?

If I'm understanding the refinement process correctly it goes like this:

1. Acquire 5kg of nobium from space exploration
2. Molecular forge recipe (5kg nobium + 95kg tungste) = 100kg thermium
3. Two un-refining recipes, in refinery or granulator:
   • Refinery recipe: 100kg thermium = 100kg nobium
   • Granulator recipe: 100kg thermium = 50kg nobium and sand.

 

If nobium is acquired from space, and thermium is the better material, why is the recipe in the refinery a downgrade? Is nobium somehow better than thermium?

Why would anyone want to make more nobium when they could just use thermium? Is it because space exploration for more nobium is so hard? I suppose you could use this method (if incredibly energy intensive) to turn tungsten directly into nobium. Is there any way to acquire more wolframite/tungsten in game currently?

The purpose is to multiply the initial small amount of niobium you got from your first trip (about 25-35 kg, translates to 500-700 kg of thermium, sacrifice 100 kg of them and you have enough niobium to make 2 more tons of thermium) to fuel your initial expansion/upgrading systems to thermium (think petroleum/nat gas boiler) at the cost of some tungsten/wolframite.
It is not that energy intensive since you will only use this for every 2 tons of thermium (1 1200W run every 20 1600W run), and by the time you get niobium, energy will be the least of your concern.
And sadly, there is currently no renewable source of wolframite/tungsten, so this is only what you do at the beginning, you will eventually amass enough niobium through rockets to forget about this.

[Sasza22]

12 hours ago, Ixiah said:

And sadly, there is currently no renewable source of wolframite/tungsten, so this is only what you do at the beginning, you will eventually amass enough niobium through rockets to forget about this.

IMO it`s just better not to waste tungsten. You can easily send a steam rocket every 5 cycles for like 20kg of niobium per trip. You`ll get 2t of thermium after 25 cycles. You shouldn`t need much more of it really..

[Saturnus]

1 hour ago, Sasza22 said:

IMO it`s just better not to waste tungsten. You can easily send a steam rocket every 5 cycles for like 20kg of niobium per trip. You`ll get 2t of thermium after 25 cycles. You shouldn`t need much more of it really..

Or you'll get 2t of it after one trip and focus on something else. All up to preferences.

[SakuraKoi]

On a side note, it is actually better to do just that, i.e sending a Steam Rocket whenever possible. Why?

You get more Steam back than you spend.

You can even do the same for Hydrogen. I.e. getting more Hydrogen back than you spend,

How?

Subterranean Rocket Silos that take much more space than you want~

Example: Rocket built near magma (depression) and walls up to the upper limit => Over 2233kg Steam for 642kg Steam or ~150kg Hydrogen

 

Would I place one or two at the edge of my map? Sure, why not!

Will my duplicants suffer the ultimate and most inane heat death? Most likely unless I get Wheeze™.

Please note: Condensing Steam is a PITA. Thx debug tool for counting (ofc I deleted the gantry&rocket first, as well as the dupe plus pipes).

[Mullematsch]

9 hours ago, SakuraKoi said:

On a side note, it is actually better to do just that, i.e sending a Steam Rocket whenever possible. Why?

You get more Steam back than you spend.

You can even do the same for Hydrogen. I.e. getting more Hydrogen back than you spend,

How?

Subterranean Rocket Silos that take much more space than you want~

Example: Rocket built near magma (depression) and walls up to the upper limit => Over 2233kg Steam for 642kg Steam or ~150kg Hydrogen

 

Would I place one or two at the edge of my map? Sure, why not!

Will my duplicants suffer the ultimate and most inane heat death? Most likely unless I get Wheeze™.

Please note: Condensing Steam is a PITA. Thx debug tool for counting (ofc I deleted the gantry&rocket first, as well as the dupe plus pipes).

So the rocket outputs CO2, steam etc. as long as it has not left the asteroid? Meaning the lower you build it, the more you get? 

[SakuraKoi]

1 hour ago, Mullematsch said:

So the rocket outputs CO2, steam etc. as long as it has not left the asteroid? Meaning the lower you build it, the more you get? 

Yes, indeed. Steam when using Steam or Hydrogen, CO2 when using Petroleum or Copper(or was it Iron now?)+Oxylite..I had a tile counting 10kg Steam so there is that.