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 2.1.23 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.

Which planet mods does it support?

• Paracelsin: Optional zinc purification has a 20% chance of giving 1 purified mineral residue, and tetrahedrite processing has a 10% chance of giving 1 arsenic oxide.

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 Fluffy-only starter recipes. External material packs add the production stages described in this FAQ.

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.

With Molybdenum, Seeded semiconductor growth needs advanced oil processing and the crystal puller needs molybdenum steel.

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 runs at fixed speed and normal quality, but accepts productivity bonuses.

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 the other family mods add?

With phosphoric-acid production, optional gallium extraction replaces the
ordinary sulfuric acid one for one, with the same yield and 12 seconds instead
of 10. Packs using mandatory caustic leachate recovery retain that chain.
Arsenic can also replace phosphine in Phosphorus's doped silicon: one arsenic
per ten silicon, retaining the other ingredients and time per output.

Arsenic oxide improves poison-capsule batches by 25%. With a supported glass
provider it can also fine glass in a chemical plant: the native raw ingredients
for 20 glass plus one oxide make 25 glass. Both alternatives follow the ordinary
product's research and keep its original recipe available.

With Phosphorus, 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.

In a family-only pack, magnesia insulates pullers and improves extraction: 50 purified residue yields seven gallium with two magnesia, rather than the ordinary five gallium. With reachable trikop Manganese, the ordinary material-pack arsenic recipe instead requires two manganese plates per five arsenic oxide. 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.

Neodymium's high-temperature magnets take gallium and half the dysprosium, rare earths can be leached from purified ash, and the crystal puller, slicer and ashing kiln get optional magnet recipes. Caesium makes photocathodes from gallium wafers (10 per caesium instead of 5) and grows scintillator crystals in the crystal puller while a seed is installed. Packs with early gallium wafers use them as Antimony's memory-substrate backing, replacing copper and halving the plastic.

With Molybdenum, cleaning molybdenum catalysts in a chemical plant has a 1% chance of arsenic oxide, and hydrogen can reduce arsenic oxide instead of coal: 5 arsenic instead of 4. The gas turbine takes semiconductor packages. The crystal puller uses molybdenum steel, so Seeded semiconductor growth comes after advanced oil processing.

What changes with Space Age?

• Vulcanus: recover gallium from local coal ash, synthesize GaAs in the foundry, and collect arsenic oxide from lava-copper flue dust. With Tellurium, one joint lava process supplies both byproducts.
• Fulgora: divert scrap into GaAs feedstock instead of its usual recycling products.
• Gleba: bioleach stone with iron bacteria and water into purified mineral residue. Carbon replaces coal for arsenic reduction, so local semiconductor production can supply rocket parts.
• Platforms: grow MK3 crystals, crush metallic asteroids for supplemental mineral residue, and dry-finish ordinary blanks with asteroid carbon. Bring bootstrap seeds and supplies; expand with asteroid feedstock.
• Specialist machines: foundries synthesize GaAs; EM plants finish wafers, package semiconductors and build both panels; cryogenic plants run Gallium chemistry. Original machines remain available.
• Infinite productivity: red, green, blue, space and electromagnetic science improve refining, GaAs synthesis, scrap recovery and all wafer finishing by 10% per level. Seeds and boules keep fixed yields.
• Aquilo: import gallium or Galinstan for the first cryogenic plant and semiconductor feedstock for quantum processors. Cryogenic machinery can process imports locally.

Gleba bioleaching uses 20 stone, 1 iron bacterium and 20 water for 4 residue in 10 seconds. Its trigger research requires crafting 10 iron bacteria after recovery and Jellynut. Vulcanus flue-dust research costs 250 red, green, blue, space and metallurgic science; its recipe has a 10% chance of 1 arsenic oxide per 20-second batch. Meteoritic gallium costs 500 of the advanced asteroid processing packs, with 60-second units; each 3-second batch yields 10 iron ore and 2 residue, returning its chunk with a 20% chance.

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 bootstrap seeds and initial GaAs to orbit; advanced asteroid processing later supplements that GaAs from local minerals. 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. With Tellurium, the combined lava-copper recovery recipe moves to Arsenical flue dust research; the ordinary lava recipe remains available. 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.

Selector combinators

Selector combinators require one gallium semiconductor package each, alongside their existing decider combinators and advanced circuits. Advanced combinator research gains Gallium crystal growth as a prerequisite at the same blue-science tier. Constant, arithmetic and decider combinators keep their existing recipes. Existing selector factories need the new package supply after updating; research Gallium crystal growth if needed. Packs that hide the standalone package in favor of native electronics do not receive this direct ingredient, and early or cyclic research placements are skipped.

Why does the main recipe now need more supplies?

Version 0.3.0 activates required native supply chains with BZ, Planetfall, Timeken and trikop material providers. They include chemical reagents and waste handling, foundry GaAs, argon/crucible growth charges, mechanical parts and finishing chemicals. A Fluffy-only game retains the original recipes and research. See the player guide for complete conditional bills.

Crucibles return from growth and selection: loop them back into charge preparation. Pullers stay dry; ship prepared solid charges to orbit. Old optional boosted extraction and discounted machine recipes cannot bypass the required bills. During an update, displaced items return or spill beside the machine, and displaced liquids move to nearby recovery tanks. Chemical plants formerly making GaAs need replacing with a suitable foundry when the early-foundry integration activates.

What do the material-pack integrations add?

Matching material packs add purification reagents, leaching and waste handling, foundry-made gallium arsenide, growth charges with returning crucibles, and supplies for wafer finishing. Native motors, bearings, ceramics and electronics join machine construction. If gallium arsenide moves out of a chemical plant, build a suitable foundry for that line.

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.