Antimony FAQ

Do I need Space Age or another material mod?

No. Only Factorio 2.1.23 or later in the 2.1 series is required. Space Age, Quality and supported material providers add optional integrations. Their own dependencies and conflicts still apply.

Do I need circuit network knowledge?

No. You can run the memory workshop using the machine panels and automatic controls, without combinators or circuit wiring. Select the recipes, supply heat, electricity and coolant, and remove the warm return. The process cooler's built-in thermostat regulates the heat network; machine panels show temperatures, process stages and reasons for a stalled batch.

Circuits are optional. Use them when you want remote enable/disable, temperature and status monitoring, or a circuit-controlled cooler setpoint. The machines already provide those readings, so you do not need a separate temperature-reader building.

Where can I find tips in game?

Install the optional Informatron mod, then open Informatron → Antimony. The guide covers a first green workshop, normal machine ratios, primary water stock, idle heat and recovery. It is available from the start; no research or circuit knowledge is required to read it. Informatron is optional, and this FAQ explains the same essentials.

What can I do with antimony before blue science?

Research Antimony processing at red science. Metal enters existing fast-inserter bearing, piercing-ammunition and battery manufacture. Tin/lead providers can supply Babbitt or antimonial lead instead. Oxidation also unlocks here. The memory workshop starts at green science once advanced circuits, plastics and fluid handling are available in your profile.

Assembling machine 2 also requires one antimony metal per machine, or one early Babbitt alloy where available. This changes the normal recipe and gates its research on Antimony processing. Assembling machine 1 keeps its original recipe and can manufacture the upgrade; assembling machine 3 inherits the bearing material through its existing input.

Red logistics needs bearing linings: one antimony metal per belt, two per underground endpoint (four per ordinary pair), four per splitter and two per lane splitter. Supported early BZ tin selects the same item counts of Babbitt alloy instead. The normal ingredients and crafting times remain unchanged. Logistics 2 requires Antimony processing but remains before oil at red/green science in base and the current family pack. Yellow logistics stays available, while blue belts inherit bearing costs through red components. Existing red-belt assemblers need the new material after updating; placed belts retain their speed and behavior.

Babbitt uses 18 tin, one antimony and one copper to make 20 alloy items. Its extra supply chain saves raw antimony compared with the abstract raw-metal bearing route.

With Phosphorus, conversion kilns need two antimony metal for external drive bearings, or two Babbitt alloy with supported early BZ tin. Their existing ingredients and crafting time stay intact; Antimony processing becomes a prerequisite without moving the kiln beyond its existing science tier. Existing placed kilns keep working. Phosphorus's recipe bypass also skips this addition.

Gates also need one antimony metal for drive bearings, or one Babbitt alloy with supported early BZ tin. Gate research requires Antimony processing and stays at red/green science before oil in base and the current pack. Original gate ingredients, crafting time and behavior are preserved. Walls are unchanged. Existing gate factories need the new material after updating.

What uses antimonial lead with Fluffy and BZ?

Piercing magazines use two alloy per magazine instead of their raw-antimony dose. Piercing shotgun shells use one alloy per shell, and supported advanced cable uses one alloy per five cables. Caesium ore sorters, lead-lined storage tanks and lead-lined Neodymium separator banks replace their existing lead plates with equal alloy. Rubber-lined separators keep rubber. Original ingredients other than the named substitutions, crafting rates and productivity permissions are retained, including supported laser-mill routes.

This works with Phosphorus's iron-phosphate batteries, which do not use lead. Lead-bearing battery recipes in other packs retain their existing alloy substitution. Basic ammunition, pipes, solder and starter expansion bolts stay independent of alloying.

Existing factories need an alloy supply after the update. Recipe assignments, ghosts and quality survive; unfinished batches restart with their ingredients refunded. Displaced lead or antimony that cannot fit in the input inventory is returned beside the machine.

Do train controls need antimony?

Train stops require one antimony trioxide each. Rail signals and chain signals each share one trioxide per five outputs. Original ingredient costs and crafting time per item are preserved; automated rail transport stays before oil at red/green science in base and the current pack. Supported electronics packs can supply the oxide upstream instead of adding it again. Existing factories need trioxide after updating; placed stations, signals and train behavior are unchanged.

Flamethrower turrets also need one antimony metal for traverse bearing linings, or one supported early Babbitt alloy. Research requires Antimony processing only where the bearing material can be made at the existing science tier. Existing turret inputs, outputs and crafting time are retained; already researched Flamethrower grants missing Antimony processing. Existing saves keep unlocks and placed turrets. Supply bearing material to their assemblers after updating. Tellurium and Magnesium add nozzle alloy and insulation separately.

How do I make trioxide?

Put antimony metal into an ordinary furnace: two metal produce two trioxide in eight recipe seconds. Air is implicit. Compatible foundries support the same recipe later. Trioxide feeds existing composite/polymer recipes; inspect its in-game recipe and ingredient links for your enabled providers.

Why did an existing recipe become a larger batch?

A small antimony or trioxide dose needs whole items. All original ingredients, outputs, byproducts and duration scale together. The original cost and crafting time per product remain the same. For example, base LDS becomes eighty copper, eight steel, twenty plastic and one trioxide for four structures in sixty recipe seconds.

Are there many alternative buildings or recipes?

Each thermal building has one construction recipe. Compatible parts add together in that recipe. Trioxide modifies the providers' existing physical manufacturing routes; it adds no parallel flameproof PCB, superconductor or LDS item. Host recovery and matter-synthesis recipes retain their roles.

What goes into the process heater with the Fluffy pack?

The full-family recipe uses 20 steel plates, 20 tellurium copper, 10 magnesia, 10 electronic circuits and 5 cadmium-plated hardware, assembled in ten recipe seconds. Magnesia replaces stone bricks as insulation, tellurium copper replaces copper plates at the electrical terminals, and plated mounting hardware replaces gears. Each substitution requires a production chain reachable at the workshop's science tier; missing or later materials retain the corresponding base ingredient. The workshop stays at red/green science in the family pack.

When updating an existing factory, unfinished heater assembly restarts with its ingredients refunded. Compatible inputs stay in the assembler; replaced materials are returned beside it. Supply the new parts for subsequent manufacture. Placed heaters retain their heat, health and controls.

Why does a disconnected heater stay hot?

It retains stored heat, which can still flow into connected conduits and machines. It produces no new heat after its small electrical buffer drains. From 0.4.6, an empty buffer shows Insufficient electricity with dark coils. The coils also turn off when operation is disabled or the heater reaches its 400 °C limit.

How do I set up the memory line?

Coat substrates in a chemical plant. Feed twenty into an annealer, connect a process heater with process heat conduits, and attach a process cooler to regulate heat. Hold the batch at 250–350 °C for fifty uninterrupted seconds. Feed annealed substrates to the quench station, supply 15–30 °C water and remove the 60 °C return. Cool and recirculate it through the air cooler, or use shoreline discharge and fresh supply. Package qualified substrates with copper cable and any eligible provider parts.

For the base recipe, coating uses one metal, two copper plates, two plastic bars and twenty water to make twenty substrates. Packaging uses twenty qualified substrates and ten copper cables to make twenty memory. Material packs can replace the backing or wash fluid and add their existing packaging parts.

How much water should I reserve?

At a 25 °C inlet, one twenty-substrate memory pulse transfers 40 MJ into about 571.43 water units, returning the same amount at 60 °C. Provide tank stock and return capacity with headroom; a short pipe's contents are not a batch-sized supply. The actual requirement changes with inlet temperature. Keep the return flowing to your cooler, and use the station's coolant budget to size the line.

The whole loop needs more than one pulse's water. Machine inlets can retain cold stock while idle. With too small a total charge, an idle quencher can hold the available cold water while the process cooler runs dry, allowing the heat network to overheat. Charge enough primary water for all connected machines, their idle inlet stock and circulation; increase that stock when expanding the workshop.

Coating wash water and wet-cooler makeup are separate supplies. Feeding either from your finite primary coolant tank draws down that stock. The primary cooling operation itself conserves water one-for-one.

Does this generate electricity?

No. Heaters and qualification consume power. Coolers reject heat. Each memory qualification batch pays forty megajoules for heating, in addition to controls and startup warming. Solar and nuclear retain their normal electricity-generation roles.

Why does the heater stay at the same temperature?

A powered heater supplies 1 MW even when its temperature stays constant: connected machines can consume that heat as quickly as it arrives. Each working annealer needs 1 MW. Five simultaneously working chambers need five heaters, with short, well-connected heat branches. Pausing the chambers lets a working heater raise the network temperature; toggling the heater cannot increase its rated output.

Why does the process cooler's ghost shimmer?

Factorio's Animated ghosts graphics option applies a moving distortion shader to construction ghosts, including vanilla machines. It can look particularly busy on the detailed process-cooler render. Turn that option off for still ghosts; this is a local graphics preference affecting all ghosts. It does not change cooling or production.

Why are some thermal controls under Advanced?

Use the native circuit window for ordinary enable conditions and inventory readings. The compact quench panel shows its internal electric heating/cooling cycle; annealers and process coolers keep their temperature targets. Advanced contains optional thermal signals and detailed ratings. Use the quencher's phase and ready signals for cycle activity, while native inventory readings report stored items. Existing wired factories retain their configured readings. Heaters keep a simple enable switch because Factorio's reactor circuit controls provide temperature readings but no enable condition.

Why did my annealing batch fail?

Before its first attempt and after recovery, the chamber waits within 5 °C of its start target for two seconds. The default start target is 300 °C; keep it close to the process cooler's thermostat. The chamber then needs fifty continuous seconds in the accepted range. Going outside the range or disabling an active chamber destroys its loaded twenty-substrate batch. Queued inputs and finished output are preserved. The panel shows completed and failed batches and the last failure reason.

The base range is 250–350 °C; compatible early Tellurium widens it to 225–375 °C. Each working chamber draws 1 MW and can cool below its accepted minimum if heating is insufficient. After a failure it waits for preheating before starting again, so a cold or overheated machine does not repeatedly consume queued stock. The start target is adjustable inside the range; the process cooler's thermostat defaults to 300 °C.

Existing unfinished batches keep their reserved material and quality when upgrading to 0.4.9, and restart the fifty-second dwell after preheating.

Can an automatically controlled workshop still stall?

Yes. The controls manage temperature and batch timing; they rely on the equipment and supplies you connect. An undersized cooling loop can work initially while its tanks absorb the difference, then run short of cold water or return space. The station usually waits before starting another batch. Losing coolant, return capacity or control power during an attempt can force a paid retry while retaining its material.

For example, one blue station needs 2.5 annealers' capacity. Three annealers with three enabled heaters send about 2.5 MW into the water at full memory throughput. One dry air cooler removes only about 2.33 MW. Use two dry coolers, or one cooler in wet mode with separate makeup water. When annealing stops, the same heaters leave a 3 MW idle cooling duty. Size both process cooling and air cooling for that interruption as well as normal production.

If the workshop has already overheated, restore coolant and adequate cooling, temporarily disable its heaters in their machine panels, and let the loop recover before restarting. Heat-pipe gradients can leave chambers warmer than the process cooler's thermostat. If a chamber settles above its preheat band, adjust its start target to that measured temperature within the accepted range, or lower the cooler's thermostat to reach the existing target. Adding cooling capacity does not instantly remove stored heat or refill the cold side. Circuit wiring is optional for this recovery too.

How many machines should I build?

At normal quality, each annealer produces 24 substrates/minute. One green station qualifies 15/minute and needs one chamber. One blue station qualifies 60/minute and needs three chambers; two blue stations share five chambers. A Caesium clock station qualifies 120/minute and needs five chambers. Coating and packaging retain their native effects; a normal chemical plant coats 120/minute and an assembler 2 packages 180/minute before modules or productivity.

For a short, tank-buffered water loop at 25 °C with heaters left enabled:

Choose dry or wet air cooling. These nominal counts also cover idle heat; long heat routes and insufficient tank stock can still limit production. No circuit wiring is required for these layouts.

Why does the quench station fail or stop?

Open the station and read its phase and blocked/recovery reason. Check the following in order:

1. Select a researched qualification recipe and the intended item quality; supply twenty matching annealed substrates.
2. Supply the profile's full heating power: 1 MW for green, 4 MW for blue, or 8 MW for the Caesium clock profile, plus 50 kW controls and the rest of the factory.
3. Deliver 15–30 °C inlet water and enough stored coolant for the batch.
4. Leave room for the 60 °C return and the finished substrate stack.
5. Cool within the selected deadline: forty seconds for green, ten for blue, five for clock.

A failed attempt retains its loaded stock. Let the core recover, correct the shortage and retry; every attempt pays for heating again. A full output or disabled circuit can also stop progress without consuming a new batch.

Why did faster cooling fail my detector batch?

InSb conditioning follows a target curve rather than only a maximum temperature. It pays a 30 MJ pulse at 2 MW, then must track 600→300 °C over sixty seconds within ±10 °C. Both insufficient cooling and cooling too quickly miss that curve. Read the target and measured core temperatures in the station GUI.

This optional branch appears only with an Indium source, supported glass and an existing optical consumer. Its research also follows the suppliers' actual requirements.

Why does my modded machine have no direct trioxide ingredient?

It may already inherit the additive through its electronic components or board substrate. K2 encapsulation takes priority over BZ laminate, then advanced Bob fiberglass. Eligible substations, electric furnaces and electromagnetic plants receive a direct dose only where their input chain does not already supply that stage. Check the supplied components' recipes.

Can process conduits serve a nuclear steam plant?

They can connect to native heat infrastructure, but stop at 400 °C and carry up to 10 MW. Nuclear heat exchangers need 500 °C. Use native heat pipes for the steam plant. A nuclear side branch can also overheat the workshop past its annealing range; the electric heater and process cooler are the supported controlled starter. Dedicated nuclear coupling remains a separate proposal.

Can I wire temperatures to the circuit network?

Yes. Conduits and heaters use native temperature readings. For chambers, stations and process coolers, enable thermal readings under Advanced and choose the temperature, setpoint and process-state signals. Use native circuit conditions for enable/disable; Advanced also offers the process cooler's optional thermostat command. Existing additional saved conditions are retained. Settings survive copying, blueprints and save/load.

What do speed modules and quality change?

Ordinary native manufacture keeps its recipe policies. Precision annealing, qualification and custom cooling do not gain speed, energy or timing benefits from modules or entity quality. Precision material quality is retained through the process; choose the intended recipe quality and supply matching-quality solids. Productivity applies only to declared ordinary manufacturing stages, with explicit caps on foundry oxidation and electromagnetic packaging.

What does wet cooling cost?

Dry mode returns one hundred water units at 25 °C from one hundred warm units in three seconds at 100 kW. Researched wet assistance does the same in two seconds at 150 kW and consumes ten additional makeup water through the south port. The primary hundred-unit coolant loop is conserved. A makeup shortage stops wet operation.

What happens when I mine a loaded machine or update an existing save?

The machine returns reserved material once, at its stored quality. Existing saves retain thermal state and newly added Antimony recipe effects unlock when their research was already completed. New ore appears only in future Nauvis and Vulcanus chunks; already generated terrain is preserved. Removing a provider can remove its native items and recipes, so follow that provider's save guidance.

Where does antimony come from in Space Age?

Nauvis has stibnite patches. Vulcanus has stibnite in its highlands outside the landing area, mined by ordinary drills; Foundry research unlocks 10 ore + 30 molten iron → 12 metal in 6.4 seconds, before foundry productivity. Fulgora scrap yields metal independently at 1%. A separate metallic-asteroid crusher recipe supplies 2 stibnite and 10 iron ore per chunk, with a 20% chunk return. Gleba and Aquilo import antimony; platforms import finished memory.

Can I make memory away from Nauvis?

Yes. The whole workshop needs pressure of at least 100, so all five Space Age planets allow it. Space platforms and thin-atmosphere moons do not. Charge its closed water loop using offshore water on Nauvis/Gleba, condensed steam on Vulcanus, or melted ice on Fulgora/Aquilo. Keep supplying coating wash water and wet makeup separately. The shoreline outlet still checks for a water tile, including lava, oil and ammonia shores. Aquilo needs native heating, and can use locally regenerated fluoroketone. Other material mods may require imported coating or machine ingredients.

Cryogenic plants can coat substrates, and electromagnetic plants can run ordinary memory packaging. Dense packaging remains a separate researched productivity upgrade. Metallurgic science adds the one infinite refining productivity research; its red/green/blue/space/metallurgic cost is 1.5^L × 1000 at 60 seconds per unit. Each level adds 10% to smelting, oxidation and precipitation, up to +300%. Thermal qualification and memory packaging receive no infinite bonus.

Which planet mods does it support?

• Paracelsin: Tetrahedrite processing also gives a little stibnite.
• Secretas: Spaceship scrap sometimes contains antimony metal, like Fulgora's scrap. Recyclers get an extra result slot.

Which modpacks are supported?

Antimony integrates with Quality/Recycler, Space Age, BZ/Brevven, the fluffy_penguin material family, Bismuth, Manganese, Timeken, Planetfall/Ashier ports, K2, K2 Spaced Out, SE and K2+SE. Molybdenum's gas turbine takes antimony bearings, and antimony trioxide makes 25% more molybdenum lubricant. Providers keep their own conflicts and dependencies; SE and Space Age are separate configurations. Use provider versions compatible with your Factorio installation.

What is outside this release?

Specialty-glass fining, a PET catalyst adapter, glycol cooling, dedicated nuclear coupling and thermoelectric generation remain proposals.

How should I report a bug?

Use the Mod Portal discussion tab. Include the Antimony and Factorio versions, enabled mods and versions, startup settings, the affected recipe/machine and the error or screenshot. For a stalled process, show the GUI status, circuit commands, input temperature, electricity supply and both fluid connections.

What do the material-pack integrations add?

Native bearing alloys, solder, refractory materials, nylon parts and mechanical components join the thermal workshop where available. Trioxide enters appropriate circuit-board and polymer recipes, so finished machinery inherits its material cost through the parts you already manufacture. The existing thermal workshop remains the centre of the chain.

Will this change my Fluffy-only factory?

Fluffy-only games keep their existing recipes, machines and progression, with or without Space Age. The extra requirements activate only with the relevant external material providers. They do not add machinery requirements to a normal Fluffy-only game.

How should I update a factory that uses material packs?

Back up your save and update the Fluffy material mods you already use together. You do not need to install additional siblings. Existing external production lines may need new ingredient feeds, intermediate transfers or a different crafting machine. Saved materials and recipe references are preserved; check around machines for returned stock after upgrading.

The matching versions are listed in the Caesium FAQ. The companion mods remain optional.

Provider conflicts still apply. BZ + Trikop is supported; Manganese on its own has an upstream steel-furnace limitation that can block progression. Space Exploration and Space Age are separate configurations.