Hey, here is a quick guide to where to get materials in the game.
MAKING A FORGE
A good way to get the alloys (metals that you melt and then mix together) is to build a Clay U-shape inside of another Clay U-shape.
Put charcoal in the bottom one (drill trees to get Wood pixels and then set them on fire with the Firestarter - then you can grab the charcoal pixels from inside the burning pile of wood - holding Left-Ctrl lets you pick a pixel type and only grab that one)
This lets the heat from the fire affect what's above it without the material smothering the fire or being lit on fire itself
an example forge: the heat from using it turns the pink Clay pixels into white Ceramic, but it doesn't ever melt from the heat
- Wood - drill through Trees (there is a pile of free Wood on the ground at the start you can use to buy the first Wooden Drill)
- Flint & Pyrite (for making the Firestarter) - deposits can be picked up on the surface in various places
- Charcoal - mine Trees to get wood chips, create a big pile of them, then set them on fire - the chips on the inside will light up but then the fire is extinguished bc they are covered up inside the pile - this turns them into charcoal
- Copper - melt Cuprite to get molten Copper
- Bronze - mix molten Copper and Tin to make molten Bronze
- Tin - melt Cassiterite to get molten Tin
- Iron - melt Hematite to get molten Iron
- Carbon - set trees or grass directly on fire and they will burn mostly into Carbon
- Steel - drop Carbon into molten Iron to make molten Steel
- Sulfuric Acid - mix Sulfur into Water
- Hydrofluoric Acid - mix Sulfuric Acid and Fluorite (found in the Limestone Caves)
- Lead - mine Galena to get Lead Sulfide - heat it in a forge to make Lead Oxide, and drop Carbon into the mix to separate molten Lead
- Silver & Gold - drops from mining Sylvanite
- Ruby - appears in the upper limestone caves (needs a higher level drill to access)
- Cobalt - heat or laser Cobaltite to get Cobalt Oxide, then reduce with Carbon to get pure Cobalt (this can mix with Steel in 1:5 ratio to make Cobalt Steel)
- Chromium - melt Chromite and reduce with Carbon to get Ferrochrome, then drop Aluminum into the molten Ferrochrome to separate out the Chromium
- Aluminum - heat Bauxite (from Limestone Caves) to ~1200K to turn into Alumina, reduce the Alumina with Carbon at ~2300K to get the pure Aluminum out
- Tantalum / Niobium - These both have a similar pathway - drop Columbite through Hydrofluoric Acid to get a combination of Heptafluoro-acids (one w/ Tantalum, one w/ Niobium); add Aqueous Potassium Hydroxide to these acids to get Potassiumfluorotantalate/niobate; next mix a lot of water with them and oxides will drop out (Niobium Pentoxide and Tantalum Pentoxide). Now, you can reduce these with 5 Carbon per pixel to get the pure metals out (it's useful to create a smelter with blender pixels along the bottom to help the carbons mix)
Example of Blender pixel arrangement - this is good if a reaction requires many pixels, since it scrambles their positions until you get the right combination together
- Vanadium Oxide - just lasering the Vanadinite clusters should get you this
- Germanium - Drops slowly from mining (not lasering) Sphalerite
- Nickel - Melt / laser Pentlandite, or heat it to get Nickel Oxide and reduce with Carbon
- Silicon - reduce Sand with Carbon, needs to be very hot, about 2500-3000K so use Coal
- Potassium Hydroxide - combine Limewater (from heating Limestone and dropping the Quicklime into Water) with Aqueous Potash (Potash from burning trees) to get Aqueous Potassium Hydroxide, then boil off the water or filter it
- Manganese - If you just want the pure metal, you can get there pretty easily with Pyrolusite and a lot of heat from Coal, and put Carbon on it
- Lithium Cobalt Oxide - combine Cobalt Oxide (from heating Cobaltite) and Lithium Carbonate at 973K in 1:2 ratio
- Lithium Manganese Oxide - combine Lithium Carbonate and Pyrolusite (from Buried City) at 973K in 1:4 ratio
- Lithum Carbonate - Drop Lepidolite (mined in Buried City) into Sulfuric Acid (need about 3x as much) at temperature of 523K (better to use Charcoal than Coal so the acid doesn't evaporate) - this gets you Lithium Sulfate (and a bunch of other things you can put aside for now). THEN - pour lots of water on Lithium Sulfate to get Aqueous Lithium Sulfate. NOW - combine with Aqueous Sodium Carbonate and the Lithium Carbonate drops out of the solution
- Sodium Carbonate - This is simple: Aqueous Lye (Lye from burning trees, mixed in water) + Carbon Dioxide gas which you get all the time. However, you need to make some kind of machine so that they will pass through each other. Using mechanical pixels, you can make a machine that will open two doors at the same time and let them fly/fall into each other.
- Noble Gases: Xenon, Krypton, Argon, Neon, etc. > these are supercooled out of the air by creating structures of Cooling Element (craftable pixel). It is unknown what shapes would be best for collecting these, so try different things and see what works. One handy thing is to build air cooling setup near where you will spend a lot of time, like your forge, so it can be constantly condensing the gases.
- Mercury - near Coal deposits in caves
- Glass - melt sand