Refined Metal

Refined Metal is one of the types of Resources in the game Oxygen Not Included. It was introduced in the Automation Upgrade. Every type of Metal Ore in game has a corresponding refined version of itself. The refined version of any Metal Ore has slightly better properties compared to its unrefined version.

Usage

Refined Metal is used in the construction of all Automation wires, gates and sensors; it is also used to make the highest tier wires, and many of the most advanced buildings.

Conductive Wire and Conductive Wire Bridges can only be built out of refined metals. They have a maximum capacity of 2 kW instead of the 1 kW maximum capacity of normal Wire. Additionally there is Heavi-Watt Conductive Wire and the Heavi-Watt Conductive Joint Plate which increases the max power to 50kW from the 20kW in the Heavi-Watt Wire and Heavi-Watt Joint Plate but they require refined metal and have a significantly smaller Decor penalty and 50 °C increased overheat temperature.

It is also used to build Metal Tiles which provide the largest Decor bonus of any tile (+15 in a 3 tile radius), Metal Blocks (+20 in a 8 tile radius) and may be used to build Tempshift Plates.

Plug Slug consume refined metals and produce 5% of the consumed volume as hydrogen in exchange.

Production

Metal Ore can be refined using either the Rock Crusher or the Metal Refinery. The Rock Crusher is only 50% efficient at converting raw ore into refined metal (converting the other 50% of the raw ore into sand) whereas the Metal Refinery is 100% efficient. Alternatively, Smooth Hatches can eat any unrefined metal and convert it into its refined variant at 75% efficiency (it will not produce any side product like the Rock Crusher does).

Steel is the exception and needs a multitude of ingredients to produce, needing Lime , Refined Carbon and Iron to put inside the Metal Refinery.

Niobium is obtained from space missions. After one or two space missions, a Niobium-Thermium cycle can be estabilished.

Metal volcanoes can provide an infinite source of Refined Metal, but care must be taken not to let them warm up their environment too much. The hot debris can be used for building immediately, and using it in such a way will reset its temperature and effectively delete the heat, but your dupes may become injured when handling it. When done right, you may never need to refine most metals yourself. Ore is also not easily available in unlimited quantities and still used for some important buildings, so counterintuitively, ore could be more valuable than its refined metal.

List of Refined Metal

Name	SHC [(DTU/g)/°C]	TC [(DTU/(m*s))/°C]	Melting Point	Hardness	Bonus
Aluminum	0.910	205	660.3 °C / 1220.54 °F	25
Cobalt	0.420	100	1494.85 °C / 2722.73 °F	75
Copper	0.385	60	1083.85 °C / 1982.93 °F	25	Decor: +20% Overheating: +50 °C
Depleted Uranium	1.000	20	123.9 °C / 255.02 °F	250
Gold	0.129	60	1063.85 °C / 1946.93 °F	2	Decor: +50% Overheating: +50 °C
Iridium	0.131	170	2445.9 °C / 4434.62 °F	200	Decor: +20% Overheating: +500 °C
Iron	0.449	55	1534.85 °C / 2794.73 °F	50	Overheating: +50 °C
Lead	0.128	35	327.5 °C / 621.5 °F	10	Overheating: -20 °C
Nickel	0.440	91	1454.9 °C / 2650.82 °F	30
Niobium	0.265	54	2476.85 °C / 4490.33 °F	50	Decor: +50% Overheating: +500 °C
Solid Mercury	0.140	8.3	-38.8 °C / -37.84 °F	2
Steel	0.490	54	2426.85 °C / 4400.33 °F	50	Overheating: +200 °C
Thermium	0.622	220	2676.85 °C / 4850.33 °F	80	Overheating: +900 °C
Tungsten	0.134	60	3421.85 °C / 6191.33 °F	200	Overheating: +50 °C