Neodymium FAQ

What does Neodymium add?

A rare-earth chain from stone to magnets: wash stone for heavy mineral sand, sort out the monazite, leach it, and separate the neodymium in separator banks. Magnets go into motors, belts and machines. Cerium and lanthanum come with every magnet and make precision optics for production science and feed optional, better recipes. Later tiers add dysprosium for high-temperature magnets, a magnetic separator for iron, and direct-drive wind turbines.

Factorio 2.1.23 or later in the 2.1 series is required. Space Age and all other mods are optional.

What changes for energy shields?

Mk1 energy shields add two neodymium magnets for a fictional field-generator assembly. In vanilla and the current family pack this makes five advanced circuits, ten steel and two magnets, still crafted in ten seconds. Shield research requires Neodymium processing at the existing red/green/military tier; earlier overhaul recipes are left alone when the gate would add science packs or create a cycle.

Mk2 retains its recipe and inherits twenty magnets through its ten Mk1 shields. Capacity, recharge, power consumption and installed equipment are unchanged. Existing researched saves keep their unlocks and gain missing Neodymium research through the existing upgrade handler; supply magnets to shield assemblers. Bypass with energy-shield-equipment.

Do I need a new ore patch?

No. The chain starts from stone and water. With Krastorio 2, AAI Industry or crushing-industry, sand replaces the stone. Krastorio 2's rare-metal enrichment also yields a little monazite, and Gallium's purified ash can be leached straight into monazite liquor.

What are the basic recipes?

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

Standalone recipes before productivity, at crafting speed 1. Integrations may change the reagents.

The mineral spiral has crafting speed 4.

Does the magnetic separator need replacement magnets?

Yes. Every separator recipe takes one neodymium magnet and returns it with 98% probability. Feed the returned magnets back and top up losses: on average, one replacement per 50 crafts. The return cannot gain productivity or quality. Its feed belt moves while it works and stops when production stops.

You can still start magnet production by sorting sand in an assembler without magnets. On Fulgora, the electromagnetic plant sorts scrap without magnets. With Caesium, magnetic pegmatite sorting gives 25% more pollucite, while the X-ray sorter needs only ore and electricity; it suits outposts without a magnet delivery route.

Existing separators switch to the new recipes when loading the update. Their inputs and products are retained, but they need a magnet feed to resume.

Can I use surplus stone without making more monazite?

Yes. Wash it into heavy mineral sand, then choose Iron-rich sand sorting in a magnetic separator: 4 sand and 1 operating magnet make 3 iron ore in 4 seconds, with 98% magnet return. With Caesium, Mixed-metal sand sorting in the X-ray sorter makes 1 copper ore from 4 sand in 4 seconds, plus independent 2% chances of tin and lead when installed. It needs both processing technologies and no operating magnets.

These are optional recovery routes with no productivity or quality. The standard washing bill makes four sand from 40 stone and 200 water, so direct ore mining remains much more productive. The original monazite route stays available.

How do I lay out the separator hall?

Per magnet per second, you need:
- a fifth of a mineral spiral;
- one rough-cut bank and 0.4 neodymium-cut banks (5 rough-cut banks to 2 neodymium-cut banks);
- about four chemical plants;
- one and a third assembler 2 for the magnets.

The inputs are about 4 stone, 0.8 iron plate, 2.35 sulfuric acid and 0.7 petroleum gas, and you get 0.6 light oxide and 0.2 iron ore back.

Pipe the neodymium cut's monazite liquor back into the rough-cut input. That reflux is part of the design: without it half of your neodymium is lost. If the reflux backs up, the rough cut is starved of fresh liquor or the neodymium cut is out of extractant.

Which recipes need magnets?

Only machines researched after Neodymium processing. Their research gains Neodymium processing as a prerequisite, so the magnet is always available when the recipe unlocks.

Space Exploration adds its spaceship console, space telescopes, meteor defence and fluid burner generator. Recipes are always changed from the pack's final version, so other mods' ingredients stay.

What are the "much better" magnet recipes?

Machines you get before Neodymium processing keep their normal recipe. After the Magnet motors research, each also gets an optional magnet recipe with reduced materials plus magnets. Pumps keep one engine per pump, and locomotives keep half their engines. In 0.1.4, pumps and fast inserters share a magnet across two outputs; offshore pumps share one across three. Other materials and crafting time scale with the batch. Examples from the base game:

Pumpjacks and bulk inserters get one too, and so do the machines of the family mods: Cadmium's fume scrubber, Gallium's crystal puller, precision slicer and ashing kiln, and Phosphorus's conversion kiln. Recycling these machines gives the normal recipe's ingredients back, never magnets.

What happens with Manganese and Bismuth?

Bismanol is the rare-earth-free magnet: about half as strong, so it takes two for each neodymium magnet. With trikop's Manganese and Bismuth, mining drills, pumpjacks, pumps, offshore pumps and fast inserters get their cheaper recipe with bismanol instead of neodymium magnets, after the Bismanol motors research. Electric engines, belts, locomotives and the other required machines still need neodymium magnets.

The magnetic separator is then built with 10 mangalloy instead of 10 steel: manganese steel is non-magnetic and hardens under impact, so it lines the drums.

What is the Neodymium motor?

In packs with a motor part (If I Had A Nickel's motor, or AAI Industry's electric motor, which Space Exploration brings and trikop's bismanol goes into), the magnet goes into a new part: the Neodymium motor. The ingredients of two normal motors, without the bismanol, plus one magnet make three.

It replaces the normal motor in every recipe researched after Neodymium processing. Earlier recipes (inserters, assemblers, labs, science packs) keep the normal motor, and each gets an alternative recipe that takes the Neodymium motor instead. Bismanol still carries the early game, and the manganese and bismuth it uses have other jobs.

What do I do with the light oxide?

Every magnet brings 0.6 light oxide. Use it before it backs up your hall. None of these recipes is required; each is a better version of something you already make:

At one magnet per second, treated solid fuel alone uses all the light oxide at 6 solid fuel per second.

Some of these depend on your mods:
- Polishing powder feeds precision optics in every supported pack. It also polishes Tellurium's crystals, BZ's sapphire and silicon wafers, MDbob's wafers or Space Exploration's observation frames where available.
- With BZ Gold, the light oxide stabilises the recipes that make its platinum and palladium catalyst instead (twice the catalyst per precious metal), and Neodymium's own cracking catalyst is not added.

Cerium separation (blue science) splits the light liquor into ceria and lanthanum oxide:
- Ceria treats twice as much solid fuel and makes twice the polishing powder per unit, and rocket fuel with half the light oil. It never adds fuel energy: treated fuel burns exactly like solid fuel, and treatment does not accept productivity modules.
- Lanthanum oxide makes twice the cracking catalyst. With BZ Gold it triples the precious-metal catalyst instead. Packs with nickel also get metal-hydride accumulators.

How do I make precision optics?

Research Cerium separation (150 red, green and blue science). In an assembler, 1 lanthanum oxide + 20 polishing powder + 10 stone make 5 precision optics in 5 seconds. A reachable glass or silica replaces the stone with 5 items: bismuth glass first, then K2 glass, ordinary glass, or silica. The provider becomes a prerequisite only when it fits the existing science tier and cannot create a cycle.

Production science needs one optics per three packs. K2's five-card recipe batches three original crafts together, including every input, output and the crafting time, and takes five optics for fifteen cards. SE keeps its space-manufacturing category and byproducts. Recipe bypasses remain available.

The 1 lanthanum : 20 powder ratio uses both products of 75 light liquor after cerium separation. At 45 production science per minute, before productivity, this needs 15 optics, 3 lanthanum oxide and 60 powder (from 6 ceria) per minute. That consumes 225 light liquor per minute, the coproduct of 15 ordinary magnets per minute in the unmodified chain.

Existing saves with production science researched receive Cerium separation through the existing upgrade handler. Existing science machines keep their recipe but need an optics supply.

How do I get dysprosium?

Research Heavy rare earths (red, green, blue and yellow science). The heavy cut takes neodymium liquor and splits off a little heavy liquor; the dysprosium cut concentrates it. Both return stripped neodymium liquor, which still makes oxide but can't be stripped again.

That gives one dysprosium oxide per 1,000 neodymium liquor, the liquor of about 200 magnets. Ten magnets and one dysprosium oxide make ten high-temperature magnets. With Gallium installed, the recipe adds gallium and needs half the dysprosium: 20 magnets, 1 dysprosium oxide and 1 gallium make 20. A spidertron's ten take the heavy cut of about 200 seconds of a one-magnet-per-second hall. The heavy tier grows with your neodymium throughput; productivity does not apply to the two heavy cuts.

How does the wind turbine work?

The direct-drive wind turbine is a 5×5 generator that gives a steady 150 kW on Nauvis, day and night, with no fuel. It costs 40 magnets.

Its power follows the air pressure:

Power stops rising at 4 times Nauvis, 600 kW. Quality raises the power like other generators: an uncommon turbine gives 195 kW on Nauvis. Other mods' planets use their own pressure.

If you don't want wind power, switch off Wind turbines in the startup settings. That removes the turbine, its recipe and its research.

What does Space Age add?

• Vulcanus: 5 calcite and 50 sulfuric acid → 100 monazite liquor in 5 seconds, after Calcite processing and Neodymium processing. Separate the liquor for oxides, then cast 1 oxide and 20 molten iron → 7 magnets in the foundry. After Tungsten steel, 6 tungsten ore, 15 molten iron and 1 light oxide → 2 tungsten plates in 15 seconds.
• Fulgora: sort scrap in the electromagnetic plant (10 scrap → 1 salvaged magnet), then recover magnets there (4 salvaged → 3 magnets). This route needs no magnets to start. The magnetic separator offers the same scrap yield with one operating magnet, returned with 98% probability. Normal scrap recycling is unchanged.
• Gleba: after Bioflux and Neodymium processing, 1 monazite, 5 spoilage and 20 water → 100 monazite liquor in 5 seconds in a biochamber. Bio-separation then splits 100 liquor and 1 bioflux into 25 neodymium liquor and 75 light liquor, without extractant.
• Space platforms: Vacuum magnet sintering, after Heavy rare earths and Space platform thruster, costs 500 red, green, blue, utility and space science. An assembler makes 6 magnets from 1 imported oxide and 4 iron plates in 5 seconds; 20 magnets and 1 imported dysprosium oxide make 20 high-temperature magnets in 15 seconds. With Gallium, 40 magnets, 1 dysprosium oxide and 1 gallium make 40 in 30 seconds. Iron can come from asteroids; the oxides still need importing.
• Aquilo: fusion generators need imported high-temperature magnets. No Aquilo-only source is added.
• The EM plant also sorts sand and makes both magnet types. Foundries smelt iron concentrate; cryogenic plants run the chemistry recipes. All original machines remain available.
• Infinite Magnet productivity gives +10% per level to normal magnets, foundry casting, scrap recovery and orbital sintering. It needs Neodymium processing and Electromagnetic science pack; each level costs 1000 × 1.5^level red, green, blue, space and electromagnetic packs, at 60 seconds per unit.
• With Phosphorus, the plain petroleum-and-acid extractant recipe stays available beside phosphorus ash extractant.
• The spiral and separator bank need gravity. Salvaged magnets list Fulgora as their import planet, and an in-game tip explains all the routes.

Which planet mods does it support?

• Moshine: One mined neodymium and ten sulfuric acid make one neodymium oxide in five seconds in a chemical plant, after Neodymium processing and magnet research.
• Muluna: Its carbon electric engine needs a neodymium magnet too.
• Maraxsis: The air is too dense for wind turbines.

Does productivity or Quality break the loop?

No. The neodymium cut's reflux is ignored by productivity, so modules can't multiply liquor around the loop. The heavy and dysprosium cuts take no productivity at all. The other productive chain steps, including magnets, accept productivity. With Space Age, mineral spirals and magnetic separators accept quality modules; the separator bank handles fluids and has no quality effect. Recipes returning their own input, including beneficiation and catalytic cracking, reject quality to prevent improving the returned catalyst. Fuel treatment rejects productivity, and alloyed low density structures have a productivity cap of at most 200%, lowered when a pack's recycling returns require it.

Can I add Neodymium to an existing save?

Yes. If your save has already researched something that now needs Neodymium processing (for example express belts), you get Neodymium processing, and Heavy rare earths where needed, for free. The machines you already built keep working. New ones need magnets, so build a hall soon.

Removing Neodymium from a save removes its machines and items, as with any content mod.

Can I keep a recipe unchanged?

Yes. The startup setting Recipes Neodymium leaves unchanged takes a comma-separated list of exact recipe names. Neodymium adds no magnets to those recipes and makes no optional versions of them. List Neodymium's changes in the log writes every recipe and research change to factorio-current.log.

Which mods does it integrate with?

Neodymium supports these game modes and mod families:

• the base game, and Space Age;
• Cadmium, Tellurium, Magnesium, Phosphorus and Gallium, alone and together;
• Brevven's BZ mods, with and without Space Age;
• Timeken; Planetfall/Ashier; bismuth and manganese (trikop);
• Krastorio 2, Space Exploration, and both together.

Each mod keeps its own dependencies and exclusions. Space Exploration and Space Age are separate configurations.

Why does Neodymium load after the earlier family mods?

It is newer than Cadmium, Tellurium, Magnesium, Phosphorus and Gallium. The newer mod owns the links between them, so those five don't need to change when Neodymium is installed. Caesium, Antimony and Molybdenum came later and load after Neodymium. Molybdenum, the newest, loads last and owns its links to Neodymium.

What do the material-pack integrations add?

The matching material packs add carbonate precipitation, foundry-made magnet-alloy billets, nickel coatings and nylon motor insulation. Stainless vessels, flow controllers and turbine regulators give native parts regular uses. Optical production consumes polishing powder. Only connections with an available supply and suitable machinery become required.

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.