NOTE: The information in this thread may become obsolete at any point if Greg changes the behavior of the Crucible at any point. Test before applying.
GregTech 6 introduces a new form of metal processing: the crucible. In this thread I will assume you know the basics of smelting with this block: the mold, the automation, the energy/fuel-to-heat conversion ratio and associated math, as well as the quirks of the crucible that I will explain below:
- The crucible holds up to 16 units of material at a time.
- Items physically thrown into the crucible or fed into it via automation (through the top, typically via hopper) are processed one at a time. The item entering the crucible generally has the temperature of the surrounding biome, with exceptions such as lava/ice.
- If it is force-fed a stack or an item which exceeds its capacity, said stack/item will be "queued" in the crucible, and not be in the molten mass inside that you can interact with. Accordingly, it will not affect the temperature/mass of the crucible's contents until processed.
- When enough space is created in the crucible, the queued item will be processed, appropriately changing the temperature of the mixture as if you had thrown it in at that moment. No material is wasted during force-feeding, they will just not be instantly processed.
- As a result of the above rules, hoppers will deposit one more item into the crucible than it can hold, then stop outputting until the queued item is processed.
Now, onto the content: You might be processing all your ores into dust to get nice, whole number ratios for smelting: macerate, wash, centrifuge, then crush again. The last step, however, is wasteful - refined ore is worth 11/8 units of the material, whereas the dust is only worth one unit. This guide aims to give you guidelines on calculating the exact quantities needed for common smelting operations.
Clarification (UPDATED):
- Ore - refers to any processed form of ore, not the ore block or the crushed ore, which contains stone.
- Ore Values -
- Crushed Ore is now 1.125 Units (9/8ths)
- Purified Ore is now 1.250 Units (10/8ths)
- They can be turned into dust "losslessly" in a Mortar, if you need the material in units that aren't multiples of 1.25.
- Processing becomes significantly simplified once Mortar is obtained - get this machine ASAP!
- Refined Ore is now 1.375 Units (11/8ths) and was previously known as Centrifuged Ore.
- Since scrap is 1/9 of an ore, this doesn't match the values given above. This means that any remainder less than 1/9 of an ore will be wasted when you clean out the crucible, or create recipe issues in automation if not calculated properly.
- Pile - refers to a tiny pile of dust (1/9, or 0.111 units), unless specifically stated otherwise. Scrap can be substituted.
- Compound ore - ores that directly smelt into the metal, but do not smelt directly at a 1:1 ratio (3 Garnierite smelts into 1 nickel, for instance)
- Compound ore recipes will not be mentioned here - it can be assumed that you can just substitute them in the appropriate ratio for the pure ores (you could, for instance, use 36 tetrahedrite ore instead of 9 copper ore in a recipe calling for the copper ore).
- Iron processing will have a section be specifically dedicated to it - the ash/carbon requirement is special.
Ore Washing:
Note that as Greg has changed the ore values, purified ore is now worth more than the unwashed ore. Therefore, there's little reason to not wash your ore, especially since you can wash entire stacks in seconds by setting up a sunken cauldron next to a water source. If you have a Sluice, it will be a better (but slower) way of maximizing output from your ores.
The Sluice does give quite a lot more byproducts, and if you cannot yet process Sluice Juice, you should invest in a Dryer -> Dust Funnel setup to not waste the Sluice Juice. Dryer is easy to power as it takes HU/t, which can be supplied with a Burning Box.
Refining:
Unless you are dealing with a gem ore that you need the whole gem for (Coal, Diamond, Apatite, etc.), always process the ore further into Refined Ore. This takes place in a large variety of machines now, so use NEI to figure out what you can make!
Refined ore is more valuable than purified ore and gives byproducts that often are lucrative.
Crushing:
<TO BE UPDATED>
Convenient Smeltery Ratios:
Tin and Copper will generally come in nice whole number ingots/chunks early game, but what about processing Iron in a larger quantity?
Thankfully, 1 Purified Ore is 1.25 units of Material now, meaning you can just throw 4 Purified Hematite in for the 5 unit requirement, nicely fitting with the 5:2:2 ratio required by the Combination Smelting Recipe.
Some convenient applicable ratios are listed here; you may already know some of this. If there are some I missed please let me know and I will add them.
- Hematite: 4 Purified Hematite Ore + 4 Limestone OR 3 Marble + 2 Dark Ashes => 2 Iron
- Nickel: 16 Purified Garnierite Ore => 15 Nickel
- Black Steel: 4 Garnierite Dust + 3 Black Bronze + 9 Steel => 15 Black Steel