Current as at 22 July 2025 with Patch 7.0f
This guide was originally written as at 23rd December 2024 with game version .50g in Early Access.

Most games have a goal, and the current goal for this game is to terraform until you reach the furthest that Early Access can grant you. You do this by mining materials, creating products from them like Iron Plates, merging certain products such as creating an Osmium Drill by combining Iron Plates with Osmium Ingots and then building facilities that achieve in game goals / start changing the atmosphere.

You'll be spending 90% of your time on production lines.

Conveyor speeds limit the speed that your "stuff" moves around at. If your Automated Miner v2 spits out materials at 240 and you are using a v1 conveyor which has a max speed of 60, your goods will move at 60 so the extra 180 production is not being utilised.

Here is a table I always refer to. It shows the speed of the conveyor belts, and the speed of each automated miner for each version for every mine-able material.



x = Not applicable. For example, Uranium cannot be mined with anything less than a t3, and you cannot process gems with a Forge.

If you have a 240 conveyor belt and a Miner v2 on a gold ore spot that spits out goods at 120, and a forge processes the ores at 30, then you will need 4 forges to process the ores into ingots to maximise output while they work automatically (120 / 30 = 4). If you manage to upgrade the miner to v3, which outputs 240, you can go up to 8 forges to process the ores automatically.

This is of course if the ores were distributed equally. If you put a splitter outside the source of the ores, and then attach each forge with a subsequent splitter, you will end up with the forge furthest away receiving few ores until the prior forges are backed up with ores.

When it comes to deposits, there are three different types.

1. Deposits that appear on the map.
If you have a radar, you can spot these deposits on the maps when they are within range of the radar.

2. Deposits that appear on the map after being unlocked via quest progression.
These are deposits that can be spotted on the map with the radar once you have unlocked the ability to scan for that particular deposit. For example, once you unlock gold scanning, gold deposits will appear on the map within range of the radar. Note - If you find a deposit before unlocking the ability to scan for it and get close to it, that deposit will nowl appear on the map.

3. Deposits that will only appear on the map after scanning for it with the hand held device, which has a limited range.
These are - Graphene, Phosphorous and Basalt. (Yes, large rock deposits also exhibit the same behaviour but they are everywhere.)
The two main culprits / areas of frustration are Graphene and Phosphorous. They are mostly found in hot areas and hard to identify visually as they can look like Rocks or Balsalt deposits. Graphene is essential for many products you need. Phosphorous AND Graphene are required to make Catalytic Convertors so you will need to find two of them close-ish to another..

Short whine about the hand held scanner - it takes up an equipment slot, you have to link it to the bar and click the button to use it, and what the hell is 800m in the game? There's absolutely no mention of how far things are in the game. At present, it seems to be around the same distance that a wind turbine takes. There's no explanation on how to use it in the game.

What do graphene and phosphrous look like?

Graphite



Black, easy to confuse with Basalt. Oooo look at graphene deposit, hiding next to a large rock deposit. Sneaky devs.

Phosphorous

Plain brown / orange, which looks just like a rock deposit. Sometimes they are a bit shinier than a regular rock. Its like finding a tree in a forest.


And just for you, here is an example of a Diamond deposit. Sapphire deposits look almost the same.

That's it.

There is a bug / feature where sometimes the radar stops working in particular areas that you have set them up in, disabling the ability to see the deposits in that area. It isn't a result of them being unpowered (They only take 4 power, and even the worst power up item is 7), but they do kick back into gear when you get near them again.

The fun part of the game is building outposts for particular production lines. You want to avoid having to run all over the map collecting materials to deposit back into a central location so you need to plan ahead.

Lets say I need to build an AI chip and I don't want to run around all over the place. In order to do that, I need a location where I can source -

Copper
Quartz
Ruby
Osmium

I need copper and quartz to make Circuit Boards. I need Osmium to make Osmium Ingots. And then I mix those with rubies to produce the AI chip. I need to find a location on the map where all of these items can be located.

Let's have a look around.

Hmm, we have a ruby deposit to the SE, and copper, quartz and osmium around the center area. This could work well.

I also need to make a Fast Rotor, which requires

Osmium
Iron
Gold
Graphene

Hmm, I don't know about Graphene I would need to search further... Osmium yes... Iron yes.... Gold - No. Those two up the top that are faded yellow are sulfur deposits. This place is not a go for fast rotors.

There are different ways to setup production lines but this my way. If you have a better one, I look forward to your own guide.

This is how I set up my Iron, Copper, Osmium and Gold Ore - Ingot lines.



Miner - Container v2 - Splitters - Forges - Mergers - Container V2.

My philosophy for production line is what I call "open", meaning that I can add additional facilities (ie forges) to the line as the miner upgrades or if I need to utilise spare capacity I have been ignoring so far (ie I have 180 ores coming in and only 120 is being processed) without having to retool the entire line and find more space among existing setups. Adding another forge doesn't require moving everything around - I only need to build a forge, a splitter and a merger to the side I make sure when I place a line that there is room to add more. Osmium and Gold lines with a t3 automated miner will need 8 forges at most to process all the inputs whereas Iron and Copper max out at 4. The containers are there so I can see where the bottlenecks are at a glance (ie if it is full, the next stage in the production line is not processing enough materials.)

You only need to build enough forges to supply your needs. You don't have to overstuff the line until you need more.

Other materials such as quartz and rocks - you can get away with just having one forge for processing. Maybe two for quartz if you find that you might need a lot more but 90% of the time you won't.

The only thing that will give you a lot of trouble is rubber and rubber belts. The good thing is that you can get them for free from Greenhouses which throw them out at 60. The bad thing is trying to manage the production line since the (1) Greenhouses are so damn big and (2) require their own supply of water at a 90 degree angle to the left of the organics output slot. While I try, I eventually give up on trying to avoid merging pipes and buildings.

A parts producer can spit out 60 rubber per minute, but since each rubber requires 5 organics, that means it can process 300 organics per minute (5 x 60) to fully utilize its output so you aren't going to be able to do that with a conveyor belt that maxs out at 240. If you have a t3 conveyor belt, you only need 4 greenhouses to feed organics to the parts producer - any more will be wasted.

If you find that you really need more rubber, create another parts producer with its own greenhouses and merge the outputs together with the other parts producer via a merger or the second input slot of a v2 Container.

FYI, to absolutely max out the production line of rubber with a t3 conveyor belt, you would need 4 parts producers makine rubber (60 x 4 = 240) with 4 greenhouses each that's 16 greenhouses (4x4) to produce rubber at 240.

A rubber belt requires 2 rubber for each belt

Here is a list of the materials the analyser requires at each stage, and the important stuff that gets unlocked after analysis. I haven't included everything that gets unlocked, only the good stuff.

Sulfur
20 Sulfur
10 Filters
Unlocks - Lvl2 Oxy Tank

Graphene - 30
Unlocks - Nothing much really

Gold
60 Ore
60 Ingot
Unlocks - Alloy Forge, Bulldozer

Osmium
100 Ore
100 Ingot
Unlocks - Miner V2, Conveyor V3, Tunneller, Geothermal Power Generator

30 Phosphorous
Unlocks - Jet Pack

20 Ruby Ore
Unlocks - Miner v3, Advanced Assembler

25 Amethyst
Unlocks - Warehouse T3

30 Uranium Ore
Unlocks - Nuclear Plant

Do you want to flatten out terrain, but you don't want to spend a lot of time dissolving the terrain? You don't have a bulldozer / drill / steamroller yet?

Try Greenhouses. Build a greenhouse on the same level as the terrain you want to clear out, then 'x' to delete. Look at all the room that it just created, and how flat the bottom is! Great stuff!

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Don't forget that you can create another level above your production lines where you can put .... even more production lines! Two pillars, a platform on top and you are good to go. If you are like me and you don't want to have to play fun games of "Link up all the carbon refiners with massive amounts of water pipes", you can place the hubs on top of pillars or platforms and link up everything from up there. Can't get up to the top to build? Use a Drone!

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Do you hate having to build production lines over hilly areas? Did you run out of space while at the edge of water or gaping chasms? Build ... Floor panels. They are cheap at 8 iron plates and 8 basalt concretes and defy gravity and the laws of physics! You can build forever in one direction through space! Line up your production lines in beautiful straight lines on flat terrain! Make that small piece of terrain turn into a large gleaming edifice devoted to humanity's struggles!

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What's that, you want to get your spaceship in the air ASAP? How do you unlock vehicle fuel cells? You need to build - a Refiner. Yep, just a regular refiner. No quest unlocks, no material analysis etc. You can build it anywhere and then destroy it. It also unlocks Warehouse V2.

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Put a priority on building production lines for Composite Beams, Hydraulic Pistons, AI chips and Fast Rotors. You'll need a lot of them.

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What does the gem cutter need and what does it create?
Laser Emitter - Ruby
Crystal Lense - Diamond
Diamond Drill - Diamond
Energy Crystals - Amethyst
Plasma Conductor - Sapphire

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Try and make a slot in a warehouse for rocks and iron ore. You need those to build the basic crafting table and there are many locations where you can't find iron ore so easily. It is easy to find rocks, but its ok to be lazy.

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Having difficulty lining up conveyor belts and splitters? Use a drone to fly up to give you a bird's eye view to place things neatly.