A concise guide to learn need to know refinery recipes in order to minimize the grind.

Other No Man’s Sky Guides:

Refinery Guide

First off, there are THREE different refineries that can be utilized in NEXT. The first is required to advance the main storyline and warp, so you should be familiar with the portable refinery. The small refinery sucks though, because it is incredibly resource ineffecient. More on this to follow.

The medium and large refineries are unlocked through the base building quests. As of 7/28/2018, current bugs prevent existing saves from obtaining these in some cases. I am not sure if the experimental patch has fixed this, but you can safely assume it will be fixed in time.

The medium refinery is unlocked through the base analyzer missions. You will be granted this blueprint around the halfway mark.

The large refinery is unlocked through the science terminal missions. It is unlocked very early on.

*These advanced refineries afford two to three slots respectively, but CANNOT be moved once placed.

Important Recipes

This is what you came for. The advanced refineries can spit out resources at an ungodly rate. I will list the most effecient conversions I’ve found for the various resources. If you find something better, please let me know in the comments, and I’ll add it to the list.

Chromatic Metal

1 Copper + 1 Pure Ferrite = 3 Chromatic Metal

Magnetised/Pure Ferrite

1 Platinum + 1 Oxygen = 10 Magnetised Ferrite

Carbon

2 Carbon + 2 Oxygen = 5 Condensed Carbon

1 Condensed Carbon + 2 Oxygen = 6 Condensed Carbon

Sodium

Same ratios as carbon, but substitute carbon for sodium.

I.E: 1 Sodium Nitrate + 2 Oxygen= 6 Sodium Nitrate

Cobalt

Same ratios as carbon.

Dioxite

Sodium Nitrate plus Carbon or Condensed Carbon will yeild Dioxite.

*Dioxite can be turned into Ferrite Dust at a 1:1 ratio. Useful if no rocks are nearby, but you have a source of Sodium Nitrate and Condensed Carbon plus sufficient Oxygen.

Chlorine

Salt + Oxygen into Cholrine + Oxygen. Watch your money breed rapidly.

Silver/Gold/Platinum

Silver can be extracted from most manufactured alloys, except lemmium which converts to gold. Geodesite and Iridesite convert to Platinum. The ratio is 1:250 for silver and gold alloys, while Geo/Iridesite converts to Platinum at a 1:500 ratio.

Parrafinnium

1 Silver + 1 Oxygen = 2 Parrafinium

Pyrite

1 Gold + 1 Oxygen = 2 Pyrite

Outliers

Coprite can multiply existing sodium and carbon reserves. 1 Coprite + 1 condensed carbon = 3 condensed carbon.

This makes Coprite a useful 16th plant if you do 4 large planter production cycles.

It’s possible to turn Coprite into Mordite and then Mordite into Marrow Bulb with either oxygen or sodium (I forget which it is), thus making it possible to convert coprite into cobalt. Potentially useful.

Pungeum acts as a multiplier for many resources. Best used to expand ferrite reserves as oxygen is better for carbon and sodium.

Di-Hydrogen will convert into Duterium when placed with any secondary resource.

Tritium will multiply carbon by a factor of two when placed together, and when placed with almost anything else, can directly be transformed into Sodium Nitrate.

I’ve currently found no way to mass synthesize salt, unfortunantely. Hopefully someone else can discover the secret formula. I suspect many three part formulas elude me, as all of these are two part.

*Salt is important because salt + any plant will yield the environment specific element.

So, 1 Salt + 2 Gamma Weed = 1 Uranium.

Additional Info

Oxygen Harvesters have been added with NEXT, allowing for a self sustaining base that can create fuel and shielding without any need for a spaceport purchase. 50 Condensed Carbon is used to fuel the collectors, which return 250 Oxygen.

Oxygen can be combined with atmospheric gasses to transform it into any of the other two gasses. This allows for only needing one set of atmospheric harvesters assuming you have enough Oxygen harvesters. The good news is Oxygen harvesters fill relatively quick (around 5-10 minutes if I had to take a guess.) This means relatively few can keep up with your atmospheric harvesters if you stay around your base enough.

Suggestions: Maintain a large tray of coprite, and use the coprite to multiply your condensed carbon for your harvesters. One large tray requires 17 condensed carbon every 2 hours. You can use coprite to keep condensed carbon topped off. Especially if you’re trying to use Oxygen to convert atmospheric gasses to another planet’s form.

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