Did the "Basic Refinery" replace the Arc Furnace?

[hermanJnr.]

I seem to remember last time I played that there was a dedicated Iron/simple ore furnace called the Arc Furnace, but now that seems to have gone?

Basic Refineries are new to me too. Little bit confused because I can't find a removal patch note of it anywhere.

Thanks for any help :)

[Rox]

Yes, the 'arc furnace' was changed to the 'basic refinery' and its production stats now make it pointless other than as an entry level item before the proper refinery can be made.

[hermanJnr.]

Originally posted by Rox:

Yes, the 'arc furnace' was changed to the 'basic refinery' and its production stats now make it pointless other than as an entry level item before the proper refinery can be made.

Ah thanks mate :)

They made it just flat out worse than the standard Refinery too? I always thought it was supposed to be better at basic metals :\ Hmph.

[Pembroke]

Part of tech and resource progression. You go from Survival Kit to Basic Refinery and then advance to the Refinery.

[Dantheotherone]

In my opinion they should have kept the arc furnace.
Maybe have it unlock in progression at the same time as the full refinery.

Even though it processed only iron, nickel and cobalt, it was faster than the refinery.
Plus it would leave the refineries to do all the other ores.

The end result is that all of my ships and bases now have basic refineries instead of arc furnaces.
They are useless considering that they do less than a full size one.

But . . . then again, I never did understand some of Keen's decisions.
They took the cyber-hounds and turn them into wolves, but they still eat metal and you find electronic parts inside them.
Which makes absolutely no sense.

Now, they took a useful bulk ore processing block and basically turned it into a stepping stone.

I don't have a problem with this, I just don't understand their decisions at times.

[hermanJnr.]

Originally posted by Dantheotherone:

In my opinion they should have kept the arc furnace.
Maybe have it unlock in progression at the same time as the full refinery.

Even though it processed only iron, nickel and cobalt, it was faster than the refinery.
Plus it would leave the refineries to do all the other ores.

The end result is that all of my ships and bases now have basic refineries instead of arc furnaces.
They are useless considering that they do less than a full size one.

But . . . then again, I never did understand some of Keen's decisions.
They took the cyber-hounds and turn them into wolves, but they still eat metal and you find electronic parts inside them.
Which makes absolutely no sense.

Now, they took a useful bulk ore processing block and basically turned it into a stepping stone.

I don't have a problem with this, I just don't understand their decisions at times.

I suppose there is still use to it - I use it as a low power alternative for processing ore when I don’t want my Refineries eating the whole grid.

It’s weird because the Wiki says the Basic Refinery is faster than the standard Refinery (non-upgraded) for basic ores, but there’s no clarification on this.

I’m still digging for info but it’s frustrating that there are no obvious stats on all this.

[Rox]

All the stats are in the game files. Never use a wiki for numerical data when the real current information is right there on your machine, the wikis (there are five of them now for Space Engineers...) are never trustworthy, accurate or current.

Specifically all the block data is in the CubeBlocks.sbc XML file in <path>\Steam\steamapps\common\SpaceEngineers\Content\Data

Relevant extract from there :

<Model>Models\Cubes\Large\BasicRefinery.mwm</Model>
...
<StandbyPowerConsumption>0.001</StandbyPowerConsumption>
<OperationalPowerConsumption>0.33</OperationalPowerConsumption>
<BlueprintClasses>
<Class>CommonMetals</Class>
</BlueprintClasses>
<RefineSpeed>0.65</RefineSpeed>
<MaterialEfficiency>0.7</MaterialEfficiency>
...
<Model>Models\Cubes\Large\Refinery.mwm</Model>
...
<StandbyPowerConsumption>0.001</StandbyPowerConsumption>
<OperationalPowerConsumption>0.56</OperationalPowerConsumption>
<BlueprintClasses>
<Class>Ingots</Class>
</BlueprintClasses>
<RefineSpeed>1.3</RefineSpeed>
<MaterialEfficiency>1.0</MaterialEfficiency>

[Husky306]

It would make sense if there were refineries with better efficiency, up to 200%, that only worked with one ore. Having iron, silicon, gold, uranium and junk work absolutely the same is futuristic but... weird.

[Pembroke]

Originally posted by Rox:

<RefineSpeed>0.65</RefineSpeed>
...
<RefineSpeed>1.3</RefineSpeed>

Only double speed? Doesn't that mean that in some cases you'd be better off using basic refineries instead of refineries?

The refinery has the size 4x2x2 whereas the basic refinery is 2x1x1. This means you can put 8 basic refineries into the same space as 1 refinery. The 8 basic refineries would be 4 times faster than a single refinery plus they could process different ores simultaneously.

A bore miner would likely benefit from this setup as there you've to mind the size and the cross section of the ship.

[Rox]

Originally posted by Pembroke:

A bore miner would likely benefit from this setup as there you've to mind the size and the cross section of the ship.

I guess you could argue that in some applications, but the basic refinery does only process limited ores. If I'm building a miner with on-board refining, I would always add a full refinery and assembler so it has full self-repair capability for one thing, as well as being able to replenish the fuel (uranium).

The game overall is very flexible, you play it the way you choose :)

[hermanJnr.]

I like the idea that to refine the "rarer" ores with lower yields, the large refinery is best, but you can have cheap small refineries that do well with common ores. The Arc Furnace was perfect for that niche and it's a shame they changed it.

Originally posted by Pembroke:

Originally posted by Rox:

<RefineSpeed>0.65</RefineSpeed>
...
<RefineSpeed>1.3</RefineSpeed>

Only double speed? Doesn't that mean that in some cases you'd be better off using basic refineries instead of refineries?

The refinery has the size 4x2x2 whereas the basic refinery is 2x1x1. This means you can put 8 basic refineries into the same space as 1 refinery. The 8 basic refineries would be 4 times faster than a single refinery plus they could process different ores simultaneously.

A bore miner would likely benefit from this setup as there you've to mind the size and the cross section of the ship.

You would also be using nearly 5x the power of a refinery though - equivalent to a standard refinery with 5 speed modules, which would be more efficient for only an equal footprint. That would give you a speed of "6.5" for the large modded refinery and "5.2" for your 8 small refineries.

I guess they're useful but highly situational. Kind of like the Survival Kit.

[Bread]

is noone worried about the thing that you only get 70% material out of the ores processed in the small refinery?

[Pembroke]

Originally posted by hermanJnr.:

You would also be using nearly 5x the power of a refinery though - equivalent to a standard refinery with 5 speed modules, which would be more efficient for only an equal footprint. That would give you a speed of "6.5" for the large modded refinery and "5.2" for your 8 small refineries.

You can only fit max 4 modules on the refinery and if you do shouldn't we then compare it to 12 basic refineries because you could fit 4 more basic refineries into the space occupied by the upgrade modules? As far as processing speed per volume occupied is concerned basic refineries seem to win. That's why I was surprised the refinery had only 2x the speed of the basic refinery.

Power consumption isn't really a big issue. At least my experience has been that you can always build up to any amount of power you want. As for resource efficiency, even with the new rarer deposits, they are still abundant enough for you to mine more than you can store and there's an infinite amount available. The actual bottleneck in ingot production is usually the processing speed. You mine ore faster than you can turn them into ingots.

However, your two other points are quite valid:
- It's indeed situational. If space isn't a problem then, of course, you're just going to build a bunch of full refineries instead.
- You can't process all ore types with the basic refinery

The second point means, at least to me, that if it's a choice between a single refinery or a bunch of basic refineries, I'll always go for the refinery. *However*, where things start getting interesting is when you want to add a second refinery. Looking at the stats I think my choice has changed in that if space is a concern then I'd prefer "refinery + bunch of basic refineries" over "2 refineries". If space is not an issue, then I'd of course just keep on adding full refineries.

[Kasper Hawser]

I too landed here trying to figure out why i couldn't find Arc refineries! I thought i hadn't unlocked them yet XD
Watching outdated (but not old YT vids to blame for that one lol)

However it is somewhat interesting to read the debate on whether Refinery or stacking basic refineries is best... from my limited hrs and only in single player, it seems very subjective on what you are looking to accomplish be it production, role-play or a balance of the two.

Maybe i'm not yet building prolifically enough yet but my little 2 drill [PAM] atmo miner and a single refinery (+2 speed, +2 power) supplies me with more refined materials than i can use up in 8hrs solid building, grinding, breaking and re-designing of pretty much anything!

Ok so the rarer rarer elements do occasionally dwindle when i just can't seem to build a reliable orbital ship (mostly cos i break them on their maiden LOL)

I do mean a LOT of grinding... Just cant seem to grasp using those odd shaped blocks to wrap around without 8 or 9 iterations HAHAHA
Dunno if its low/average/high, but over 1M kg of blocks built and ground down in first 100hrs of 1up Survival

[Royal Raven]

Wow that sucks. I guess I have to go in my old save and remove the Basic Refineries. I had the Arc furnace hooked up to my system to do the iron ore. Glad I checked on what has been changed, I will have to remove them.

I feel like if I start a new save, I would still almost skip over the Basic Refinery. I would go from Survival Kit, into a regular Refinery.