Gallium FAQ

What does Gallium add?

A chain from ash to gallium-arsenide semiconductors: recover the metals, synthesize GaAs, establish seeds, grow crystal boules, and slice and finish wafers. Wafers feed electronics and solar power; compatible mods add detectors, radio electronics and liquid-metal thermal interfaces.

Factorio 2.1.20 or later in the 2.1 series is required. Space Age is optional. The base game has two crystal tiers; Space Age or Space Exploration adds orbital MK3 growth.

Do I need new terrain or a gallium ore patch?

No. The starting source is coal: pulverize it, collect fly ash in an ash-recovery boiler, and purify the ash with water. Electric ashing becomes available later. Supported ash mods and aluminium/zinc processing can provide additional feedstock.

What are the basic recipes?

These are the standalone recipes before productivity, at crafting speed 1. Integrations may change the inputs or mineral byproducts.

The boiler also produces steam; its ash comes from burning pulverized coal. The kiln is the electric alternative. Growth times depend on installed seed modules, as described below.

How do I start the first puller?

Make two MK1 seeds with Initial seed nucleation. Install one in the puller's module inventory and supply the other as an ingredient with 10 GaAs. These are separate jobs: the installed seed stays in the machine; the working seed is consumed by the recipe.

That first pull takes ten minutes. Cut the boule into four seeds, install three more modules, and feed the fourth into the next growth recipe. Four matching MK1 modules reduce the growth time to four minutes. Cut another boule for a reserve before making wafers.

Why is my puller stopped or so slow?

It needs power, at least one installed seed module, a working seed in the recipe ingredients, and the matching GaAs feedstock. Installing a seed is not the same as inserting it as an ingredient. A puller with no installed seed is disabled.

Higher-tier working seeds can start with any installed seed tier. Matching or better installed modules improve the growth speed; one installed MK1 seed is enough to bootstrap a newly discovered MK2 seed. An orbital recipe additionally needs a valid orbital location.

How many seeds should I keep?

Every growth recipe consumes one working seed. Cutting a boule gives four seeds instead of wafers. Ordinary wafer slicing has a 50% chance to return one seed of the same tier.

At steady state, roughly one boule in seven needs to become seeds. That is an average, not a guaranteed splitter ratio: unlucky returns and new machines can drain the stock. Give working seeds priority and keep a buffer. Installed modules also tie up seeds while the factory expands.

What do the three tiers change?

Growth also consumes a working seed. Research unlocks inspected slicing with a 2% chance of a next-tier seed, or guaranteed selection at a higher material cost. MK1 is enough for required circuitry. MK3 seeds can be shipped home to improve terrestrial pullers.

Do Quality, productivity or recycling multiply seeds?

No. Growth, seed cutting, seed selection and boule slicing do not gain extra seeds or boules from productivity or Quality. Seed modules are reserved for Gallium's pullers, and recycling these reproductive materials only destroys stock.

Keep GaAs, seeds and boules at normal quality. Ordinary wafer finishing and finished electronics are where productivity and Quality become useful. Space Age's dry platform finishing is the exception: it runs at fixed speed without productivity or Quality gains.

Why does purification return ash, and why does extraction make stone?

Purification recovers only part of the raw ash each pass. Route the returned ash back to purification and give that return priority over fresh ash. Atan and QuirkyCat recipes return the same kind of ash they consume.

Extraction leaves mineral material after the trace metal is removed. This is stone in vanilla, or an existing early gravel/sand material when an appropriate production route is available. K2 alone yields five sand per normal extraction; AAI/SE and K2SE yield four. Remove this byproduct so the extraction line can keep running.

Is alumina supposed to produce so little residue?

Yes. A ten-ore alumina batch has a 1% chance of one purified mineral residue. Other supported aluminium and zinc routes scale with their ore input, and zinc recovery is rarer. The main metal products stay unchanged. Later smelting and casting do not award the trace residue again.

Before productivity and improved extraction, the averages are one gallium per 10,000 aluminium ore or 20,000 zinc ore. This is a supplemental byproduct route; ash recovery is the dependable starting supply. Several hundred batches without a residue are possible.

Where do the wafers go in K2SE?

In the supported MDbob electronics chain they replace half of the silicon-wafer input to Integrated electronics. When BZ Gold's CPU replaces that component upstream of advanced electronics, the CPU recipe gets the corresponding GaAs wafer input too. The host circuit hierarchy stays intact.

K2 advanced solar panels and SE solar tiers use wafers or orbital cells. With Tellurium, an alternative fabrication recipe makes more of the existing semiconductor product. With Them Thar Hills, GaAs-assisted transceivers make five normal output batches from four component batches plus wafers; the original transceiver recipe remains available.

What can I do with gallium metal or Galinstan?

Supported thermoelectric components, advanced processing units and high-voltage power regulators use a thermal contact material. Space Age cryogenic plants need 20 portions for construction.

When reachable indium and tin production is available, 7 gallium + 2 indium plates + 1 tin plate make 10 Galinstan in five seconds. Otherwise the consumers use gallium directly. Full-pack batches use one portion per six thermoelectric components, one advanced processing unit or ten regulators. Existing host ingredients and output quantities remain.

What do Phosphorus, Magnesium, Cadmium and Tellurium add?

Phosphoric acid finishes eight blanks in 12 seconds instead of 20. With hydrogen peroxide production, the optional peroxide recipe uses eight blanks, five acid and five peroxide: 12 seconds with sulfuric acid, or eight with phosphoric acid. All routes make the same wafer item.

Magnesia insulates pullers and improves extraction: 50 purified residue yields seven gallium with two magnesia, rather than the ordinary five gallium. With trikop's Manganese, two manganese plates do the same for arsenic: seven arsenic oxide instead of five. Cadmium filters, phosphorus furnace dust and tellurium residue can be diverted into arsenic recovery instead of their usual recovered products. Tellurium also improves semiconductor fabrication. With Space Exploration, Cadmium plus Tellurium enables detector assemblies for gamma-ray detectors and night vision.

What changes with Space Age?

• Fulgora scrap recovery: 40 scrap, 20 sulfuric acid and 20 water make two GaAs in 20 seconds. This gives up the usual scrap products. It is a separate recipe; ordinary scrap recycling is unchanged.
• Electromagnetic finishing: ordinary acid/peroxide wafer finishing and semiconductor packaging can use an EM plant's native 50% productivity.
• Platform finishing: 32 ordinary blanks and two carbon make 32 ordinary wafers in 20 seconds in a precision slicer. It needs no fluids and unlocks with orbital growth.
• Late-game demand: quantum processors use two wafers per processor before productivity; cryogenic plant construction uses 20 gallium or Galinstan.

Ground-made wafers still work in quantum processors. Choose between ground productivity and the platform's simpler fluid logistics.

What counts as orbit?

A real Space Age platform or a recognized Space Exploration orbital zone qualifies for MK3 growth and orbital solar-cell fabrication. SE spaceship interiors and arbitrary zero-gravity surfaces do not. The carbon dry-finishing route specifically requires a real Space Age platform.

Ship GaAs and bootstrap seeds to orbit. A precision slicer can turn an MK3 boule into four space-grade solar cells using copper and plastic, with a 50% same-tier seed return. Orbital operations stay in the dedicated machines; Lasing Around's laser mills handle ordinary ground seed cutting and wafer slicing.

Can I add it to an existing save?

There are no new ore patches, and Gallium refreshes its recipe unlocks when the mod configuration changes. Existing recipes gain their integration ingredients, so plan to supply them; processing units and supported electronics can stop until the new chain is running. Keep a backup before changing a save's mod set.

Can I leave an integration recipe unchanged?

Use the startup setting Recipe integration bypass list with exact recipe names separated by commas, for example processing-unit, quantum-processor. Log Gallium recipe modifications records integration changes in the game log. Bypasses do not disable seed safeguards. Different mod packs may use different internal recipe names.

Does it support every combination of BZ, Timeken, Ashier, K2 and SE?

No single configuration contains all of those plus Space Age. Some upstream mods need maintained Factorio 2.1 builds and some exclude Space Age. Full Pyanodons support is outside this release. Check the whole pack's own dependencies first.

How should I report a problem?

Use the Mod Portal discussion tab. Include the Gallium and Factorio versions, enabled mods and their versions, relevant startup settings, the recipe or machine involved, and the error or a screenshot. Mention whether the problem occurs with Gallium disabled. For a stalled puller, show both its module slots and ingredient inventory.