refined metals smelting?

[Kzual]

hi, I'm trying to figure out how to make exosuit docks and checkpoints but can't figure out how:

- they're made out of gold.

- gold is a refined metal that does not naturally occur much (I reached cycle 202 and only found 400KG - or maybe it transformed into gold from gold amalgam, as it was laying on the ground 4 tiles away from a steam geyser but I didn't see it happen so no idea - gonna have to find a way to bring more gold ama nearby that geyser to test that theory).

- smelting researched + metal refinery built and fonctional, but gold isn't in the list of materials I can produce.

- this steam forum doesn't seem to contain any explicative discussion on how to make gold.

- game's wiki doesn't say much, as there are no existing articles for "smelting" and "refined metals", and the gold's article only says "As all refined metals, Gold is highly thermal conductive, and has lower heat capacity than it's ore."

- game's dev forum doesn't give conclusive results when searching the terms "metal refinery", "smelting", "gold", "exosuit dock" and "exosuit checkpoint".

I'm starting to feel trapped in an impasse situation. I must be missing something, but what?

sidenote: can't wait to put my hands on clear and complete guides on how everything works in this game, i.e. guides that lists all the buildings every material can build, and under which conditions. would be even better if said guides were included in the game, like an equivalent of Sid Meier's Civilization's Civilopedia or something like that.

[Pyromancer]

Do you have gold amalgam mined? Smelter only shows metals you have ores for. Same with checkpoints and exosuite docks, you don’t need gold, any refined metal works but won’t show up until you smelt some

[Clonefarmer]

Gold is refined from Gold amalgam. It can be refined in either the metal refinery or the rock crusher.

You can use any refined metal for the docks and stations.

[CrazySession]

Originally posted by Clonefarmer:

Gold is refined from Gold amalgam. It can be refined in either the metal refinery or the rock crusher.

You can use any refined metal for the docks and stations.

RockCrusher gives only 50% though.. so its recommended to use the metal refinery

[Kzual]

@pyromancer I've got like 40t of gold amalgam available and laying on the ground everywhere

@clonefarmer Gold is not showing up at all as a produceable material in my refinery :/

[Clonefarmer]

You select the starting material at the refinery. Go to refinery and select gold amalgam.

[Clonefarmer]

Originally posted by CrazySession:

Originally posted by Clonefarmer:

Gold is refined from Gold amalgam. It can be refined in either the metal refinery or the rock crusher.

You can use any refined metal for the docks and stations.

RockCrusher gives only 50% though.. so its recommended to use the metal refinery

IMO it's better to use the rock crusher. The rock crusher produces less heat and doesn't require any coolant. You can set up a rock crusher quickly an get moving on to refining metal. Save the metal refinery for late game if at all. Unless you plan on doing a 1000+ cycle megabase the amount of metal on the map is sufficient even at a 50% loss.

[AquaX]

There is a way to use the smelter easier with almost 0 issues of you understand certain aspects of the game.

I use my smelter in the slime biome where I place my natural gas generators. By using an already coo polluted water source as a coolant for both the smelter and gas generators, the heat it emits barely rise. If you add wheezeworts near the generators, the temp will actually drop, making those generators release cool polluted water which you can reuse to the smelter.