I just checked it in-game. So, you can still smelt Rare Metals like normal on Nauvis. That normal recipe of Rare Metal Ore to smelting Rare Metals is still the same.
What the change did was remove the recipe where you could use tungsten carbide to make processing units (AKA blue circuits). This means that on Vulcanus the only recipe you can use to make processing units is the Krastorio one that takes 3x rare metals, 6x Advanced circuits (red circuits), and 10x sulfuric acid.
You can make rare metals on vulcanus with the following process though:
- Molten rare metals from lava: 2x Calcite, 500x lava, and 10x hydrogen chloride > 100x molten rare metals and 20 molten iron.
- Casting rare metals: 10x molten rare metals and 10x water > 1x rare metals and 5x dirty water
I've already setup a base on Vulcanus with a 180 hour save so now I need to find the space to setup several chemical plants to produce Hydrogen Chloride, which needs Hydrogen and Chlorine from the "Water Electrolysis Recipe," which in turn is made in a electrolysis plants with sand and water.
Another part of the change to 1.5.0 is that you no longer can turn water directly into thruster fuel and oxidizer on space platforms. You now need to find the space to on your platforms to fit electrolysis plants to turn the water into oxygen and hydrogen, for the new thruster fuel and oxidizer recipes.
Personally, I am going back to 1.4.32 for now and finishing setting up my train stations for getting Scrap on Fulgora, since I ran out of scrap on my initial island. Then I'll see how to setup the chemical plants and electrolysis plants on Vulcanus and my space platforms in order to seamlessly transition to 1.5.0. Good luck!
