Refinery
| Refinery | |
|---|---|
| |
| Function: | Advanced refineries refine all ores into ingots.They can be upgrade... |
| DLC? | Vanilla |
| Fits large grid | |
| Mass: | 25328.0 kg |
| Hitpoints: | 123660 |
| PCU: | 90 |
| Size: | 2x4x2 |
| Time to Build: | 90 sec |
| Data Controls: | [purge] (?)) |
The 
Refinery is a mid-game and late-game production block in Space Engineers, necessary for converting raw ores into useful refined materials.
In contrast to the similar mid-game focused 
Basic Refinery which cannot process platinum, uranium, silver, and gold, the Refinery can process all ore types. The Refinery has much higher construction costs than the basic one, however, it can process ores faster, more efficiently, and uses less power.
The 
Industrial Refinery is a reskin of this block with the same size, recipe, and functionality; you can only build it if you have purchased the Heavy Industry Pack DLC, but the owner can let every use it.
Usage
The Refinery pulls raw ores into its inventory and turns them into refined materials (which then the 
Assembler can use to create components and tools).
To begin the process, simply place the ores into the Refinery’s input (top) inventory slots, or connect it to a conveyor system containing ores.
After the 
Medical Room, the Refinery is a secondary raid target in an enemy vessel or station, due to the immense amount of materials that can be salvaged from it, and its likelihood of containing valuable minerals inside of it, like 
Platinum or 
Uranium.
Refineries’ large ports allow all items to pass through, so it can be anywhere in your conveyor system.
What's the ore-to-material conversion rate?
During the conversion process from Ores to Ingots, some of the mass of the raw material is lost. For example; 1000 kg of Uranium Ore will not give you 1000 kg of Uranium Ingots. The following table will present the percentage of how much of the raw material gets converted into the refined product.
| Raw material (ores) | Conversion ratio | Refined material |
|---|---|---|
 Stone
|
1.4% |  Gravel
|
| 3% |  Iron Ingot
| |
| 0.24% |  Nickel Ingot
| |
| 0.4% |  Silicon Wafer
| |
 Scrap Metal
|
80% | Iron Ingot
|
 Iron
|
70% | Iron Ingot
|
 Silicon
|
70% | Silicon Wafer
|
 Nickel
|
40% | Nickel Ingot
|
 Cobalt
|
30% |  Cobalt Ingot
|
 Silver
|
10% |  Silver Ingot
|
 Gold
|
1% |  Gold Ingot
|
| Uranium
|
1% |  Uranium Ingot
|
 Magnesium
|
0.7% |  Magnesium Powder
|
| Platinum
|
0.5% |  Platinum Ingot
|
To clarify, this means:
- 1000 kg of Uranium Ore will give you 10 kg of Uranium Ingots,
- 1000 kg of Iron Ore will give you 700 kg of Iron Ingots, and so on...
How fast does it produce items?
Refining different materials does not happen at the same rate. For example; Iron Ingots are produced at a much faster rate than Uranium Ingots. The following table presents both the consumption and production of the different materials through the refinery at "Realistic" speed.
| Input (ores) | Consumption | Production | Output (material) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kilograms per hour | Seconds per kilogram | Kilograms per hour | Seconds per kilogram | ||
| Stone
|
468000 | 0.008 | 6552 | 0.55 | Gravel
|
| 14040 | 0.256 | Iron Ingot
| |||
| 1123.2 | 3.205 | Nickel Ingot
| |||
| 1872 | 1.923 | Silicon Wafer
| |||
| Scrap Metal
|
117000 | 0.03 | 93600 | 0.04 | Iron Ingot
|
| Iron
|
93600 | 0.04 | 65520 | 0.055 | Iron Ingot
|
| Gold
|
11700 | 0.31 | 117 | 30.77 | Gold Ingot
|
| Silicon
|
7800 | 0.46 | 5460 | 0.66 | Silicon Wafer
|
| Magnesium
|
9360 | 0.38 | 65.5 | 54.95 | Magnesium Powder
|
| Silver
|
4680 | 0.77 | 468 | 7.69 | Silver Ingot
|
| Nickel
|
7091 | 0.51 | 2836.4 | 1.27 | Nickel Ingot
|
| Platinum
|
1560 | 2.31 | 7.8 | 461.54 | Platinum Ingot
|
| Cobalt
|
1560 | 2.31 | 468 | 7.69 | Cobalt Ingot
|
| Uranium
|
1170 | 3.08 | 11.7 | 307.69 | Uranium Ingot
|
How to upgrade the refinery
In order to improve the Refinery or Industrial Refinery, you can attach up to 4 Upgrade Modules.
In order for them to be fully active, two attachment points at the bottom side of the module must match two of the attachment points on the Refinery. If only half the attachment points are connected, the module’s effect is reduced by half.
Speed Module
Increases the speed but also the power consumption. Compared to building 5 refineries, 4 speed modules save space, cost less PCU on multiplayer servers, cost fewer building materials and, since Refineries in large numbers can affect performance, also decrease the CPU load on your local machine.
Yield Module
Increases the efficiency of the refining process so that you get up to 200% ingots without increasing the power consumption of the Refinery. This module will save you some trips to your mines.
Power Efficiency Module
Reduces the power usage of the Refinery. This can be very useful at the beginning of the game or during an emergency.
Examples:
- If you are starved for power, use 4 efficiency modules.
- If you have only very little ore, use 4 yield modules.
- If power is not an issue, use 4 speed modules.
- Use Sorters to send slow-refining ores to a speed-maximised refinery and send rare ores to a yield-maximised refinery.
- Or you can mix and match these modules: For instance, add 1 Yield Module, 1 Power Efficiency Module and 2 Speed Modules, to get 200% increase to the speed while keeping the power consumption low and yielding a few more ores per kg.
And so on.
Power
The Refinery works at maximum speed when supplied with 560 kW of power. Supplying it with less will cause it to stutter and process ores slower, but it will still be functional.
Inventory
With Realistic settings, the Refinery has two inventories, both with a capacity of 7,500 L on large ships and stations.
- The input inventory accepts and pulls only ore type items.
- The output inventory accepts and pushes only material type items. It stores some of the ingots that have just been processed.
Ores are processed from left to right in the order you insert them into the input inventory. You can drag and drop them to prioritise.
If the refinery is attached to a conveyor system or placed with its ports directly touching other conveyor ports:
- The input inventory can receive pushed ores from other inventories (such as a docked miner).
- The output inventory can push materials to other blocks that need ores (such as assemblers).
- If it is running out of ores to refine, it will automatically pull ores from other inventories (such as cargo containers).
- If its output inventory is full, it will overflow and automatically push materials (including gravel) into other inventories.
Construction
The Refinery without upgrade modules takes up 2x2x4 blocks, having a square footprint and being quite tall, and 2x3x4 with upgrade modules. It exists only for large grids.
It has 4 conveyor / inventory ports: One on the front near the base, one on the back, one on a bottom face and one on the top. It has mount points on its top and bottom face, as well as the first block around its base on the other four sides.
If you intend to benefit from Upgrade Modules, consider the extra block space needed for each, and that modules potentially cover up conveyor ports.
Recipe
| Refinery | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Component | Large Ship/Station Required | Large Ship/Station Optional | Small Ship Required | Small Ship Optional |
 Steel Plate | 1100 | 100 | — | — |
 Motor | 16 | — | — | — |
 Metal Grid | 20 | — | — | — |
 Large Steel Tube | 20 | — | — | — |
 Construction Comp. | 40 | — | — | — |
 Computer | 20 | — | — | — |
