Guide · Colony
Colony first steps
Refinement and resource flow are meant to feel like a logistics puzzle. This page is a short set of first levers - not a full walkthrough that solves every colony for you.
If you feel stuck between mines, refineries, and phase converters, you are not failing the game - you are meeting the intended early challenge. The colony rewards reading the chain, not only upgrading every building.
Use these steps to get a working loop, then dig into the deeper refinement and colonization docs when you chase specific gates such as the Orbital launchpad.
One stack, three labels
Every resource pile is identified by resource, tier, and matter state. Solid pig-iron T1 is not the same as liquid pig-iron T1, and neither is pig-iron T2. Buildings only accept the matching combination.
Resource
Pig-iron, crystal, frubin, orizin, frurozin, named alloys, waste - each is its own line.
Tier
Raw ore starts at tier 0. Refineries raise tier inside one matter state. Higher tiers feed better builds and named recipes.
Matter state
Solid, liquid, gas, or plasma. Refineries keep the phase; phase converters change only the phase and keep the tier.
First levers
Work through these in order when a chain feels broken. Upgrading a refinery does not help if its input never accumulates.
1. Name the target stack
Write down the exact stack a building needs - for example liquid pig-iron T1 for Pig-crystal alloy - before you change recipes. Wrong tier or wrong phase looks like "enough mines" while the job still waits.
2. Read stall reasons
Open the refinery or converter panel and check whether it waits for inputs, is blocked by a full output stack, or is inactive. Fix the stall before you raise more building levels.
3. Protect intermediate piles
If two jobs fight over the same middle stack, pause or retarget the consumer you do not need yet. Example: solid T1 → T2 ladders can starve a phase bath that needs solid T1 for liquid conversion.
4. Watch the 10k refined cap
Each refined stack has a fixed capacity (about 10k). Raw depots do not enlarge those piles. A full Crystal2 or Cr2 stack stops further production into that stack - spend it, convert it, or pause the producer.
5. Keep waste space
Refining creates waste. A full waste depot can stall the whole chain even when ore and power look fine.
Energy caps change rates
Every structure draws from the colony power grid. Click the building's energy bar to open the power relay and set its energy allocation. Lowering the cap throttles that building; raising it toward full delivery restores speed when the grid has spare supply.
Mines and collectors
Energy delivery scales raw extraction. Underpowered mines behave like lower effective levels.
Refineries and converters
Cycle speed scales with energy. Cap a side ladder you do not want right now, and keep power on the path that feeds your current goal.
Balance the grid
If many buildings sit below 100% delivery, build more power or lower caps on non-critical pads instead of only upgrading the stalled refinery.
Stuck before the Orbital launchpad?
Level 1 needs liquid Pig-crystal alloy T2 - an explicit liquid recipe of liquid pig-iron T1 plus liquid crystal T1. Melting only one side, climbing only solid tiers, or mixing a discovery compound will not unlock it. The full bootstrap path lives in the refinement FAQ.
Refinement and phase transfer →Go deeper when ready
Raw mining covers extractor levels. Refinement covers tiers, phases, and the launchpad alloy. Colonization covers the wider path after ships leave the pad.
- This is an orientation guide for the current alpha - it explains how to think about the colony loop, not every recipe in the live game rules.