Antimony FAQ

Do I need Space Age or another material mod?

No. Only Factorio 2.1.20 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.

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.

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 annealer keep restarting?

Its fifty-second dwell must remain continuously inside the accepted range. Leaving the range or disabling operation resets the dwell while retaining material. The process cooler thermostat defaults to 300 °C, with a small hysteresis band. Check heating supply, water temperature and return capacity. Compatible early Tellurium can widen the accepted range to 225–375 °C.

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. 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. Wire a conduit to read its local temperature. Machines expose temperature, setpoint and operating-state signals. Use the GUI to choose signals and optional circuit enable; the process cooler also accepts a thermostat command. Positive red-plus-green enable runs the machine. 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 chunks; already generated terrain is preserved. Removing a provider can remove its native items and recipes, so follow that provider's save guidance.

What is added on Fulgora and Aquilo?

Fulgora scrap has an independent one-percent antimony-metal result. Oxidize recovered metal locally for superconductors and equipment. Superconductor insulation carries oxide into Aquilo's cryogenic, quantum and fusion manufacture through existing imported components. Native fluoroketone remains a later supported qualification coolant with its own regeneration costs. The precision workshop's Space Age placement is scoped to Nauvis.

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. 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.