Magnesium

[Lizara]

so everywhere it tells me that the mines in the desert have magnesium, but mine are only dropping aluminium. I have checked the one at the radar station and the one at the refinery. I also can't spot any different looking ores, just the aluminium ones

[Master☠]

Have you cleared the whole mine? Desert mines should drop you magnesium ores.

[Warped_One]

Ive noticed this too. I have a lot of aluminum but very little magnesium after clearing all mines except the Snow biome. It wasn't a guarantee to get magnesium when I smashed a ore node in the mines.

[Komissar Gebet]

Have you tried building extraction machines in deserts? The quest suggests that plenty of oil can be gathered in desert (still need to test it as I only started to explore the desert), maybe machines will provide steadier results than "manual labour"?

[Lizara]

it's probably just a drop chance and I should build a few mining machines at the fast travel point.
does the whole desert biome yield the same materials using the machines or are there areas that are better or worse?

[steve]

The one good thing about the desert survivor base is that it is ridiculously close to the oil refinery which makes farming it for crude oil so much better and there is that large field right across the street from the survivor base you could farm to your heart's content with mining machines.
At least the maintenance kits are fairly cheap to make .

[Spinmaestro]

You get very little magnesium in general, but it comes from the Alum. mines. I get my magnesium ore mostly from destroying armors from looting that are the correct tier.

[Peaceful Jim]

As other people have said, there is magnesium from both of the aluminium mines, but you don't get much in comparison to aluminium, and they all come from the same rock. I also was told the desert wasn't very good for using mining machines on....I think I remember one of the missions saying something along those lines, too. But 'not every good' is still better than not having any going at all, so I still set up some by the fast travel.

[Lizara]

Originally posted by Spinmaestro:

You get very little magnesium in general, but it comes from the Alum. mines. I get my magnesium ore mostly from destroying armors from looting that are the correct tier.

so I'm better off going into the buildings and mini dungeons, getting the gear and scrapping it later at base?

[Lizara]

Originally posted by Peaceful Jim:

As other people have said, there is magnesium from both of the aluminium mines, but you don't get much in comparison to aluminium, and they all come from the same rock. I also was told the desert wasn't very good for using mining machines on....I think I remember one of the missions saying something along those lines, too. But 'not every good' is still better than not having any going at all, so I still set up some by the fast travel.

I'm pretty sure the desert is a mid-tier in richness, with the snow biome being the richest in ore

[steve]

Snowfield is best for mining there is a spot there with high yields like the oil refinery is in the desert and a place in the western grasslands that is good for growing crops.

[CheckYourSix]

Magnesium is an uncommon drop from any ore node in the desert. It does not matter if the ore node is in the mines or not. The drop rate is seems to be about 1 magnesium ore dropped for every 4-5 nodes. I usually get about a dozen magnesium ore per mine run where a mine has about 50 ish nodes.

[AK615]

For anyone wondering, snowfield ores and mining machines do not yield Magnesium. Dissasembling Iron armour, jackhammers, chainsaws, crowbars and crossbows is a good source.

[Komissar Gebet]

Originally posted by AK615:

For anyone wondering, snowfield ores and mining machines do not yield Magnesium. Dissasembling Iron armour, jackhammers, chainsaws, crowbars and crossbows is a good source.

That same idea about disassembling hit me yesterday but in a more advanced way - get the stuff through crafting then reassembling items.

[steve]

I placed 10 miners right in front of the desert survivor's shelter and got 10 magnesium.
The mines there aren't much better but the 10 refineries there make up for a lot of my gas needs but I may place more there.

[RChang]

Make good use of your coil workbench. 65-82 is for T4 equipment.
'4 blue and 1 white' or '3 yellow and 2 white' T3 equipment can be synthesized into T4 equipment.
Dismantle T4 equipment to obtain magnesium ingots.

It’s also a good idea to go to the store and buy it directly.