Crude Oil

Crude Oil is a liquid element used as a mid-game fuel and industrial resource. It appears naturally in the Oil Biome, is produced biologically by Slicksters, and can be extracted from Oil Reservoirs using an Oil Well. Crude Oil stacks up to 870 kg per tile when not pressurized and can also be obtained on rocket missions from Oily Asteroid Fields at a renewal rate of 17–56.5 kg per cycle.

Crude Oil production methods include: Slicksters that breathe Carbon Dioxide and excrete Crude Oil at a 2:1 CO2 → Crude Oil mass conversion (for example, 500 g/s CO2 → 250 g/s Crude Oil for the standard Slickster); tapping an Oil Reservoir with an Oil Well using power and water (one source equivalence given is 1 kg/s water → 3.33333 kg/s Crude Oil); and natural Leaky Oil Fissures in the map. Rocket POIs in the Oily Asteroid Fields also yield Crude Oil.

Crude Oil is primarily processed into Petroleum for use in Petroleum Generators. Conversion options are:

• Oil Refinery: converts Crude Oil into Petroleum at 50% efficiency and requires Duplicant operation.
• Thermal conversion: heating Crude Oil to a narrow high-temperature band—above 402.85 °C (turning point +3 °C) and below 541.85 °C (vaporization point +3 °C)—will produce Petroleum with 100% efficiency. Converting Crude Oil to Petroleum while it is inside pipes will still burst the pipe; this makes converting in ordinary liquid piping dangerous and is why using metal refining or liquid reservoirs without precautions is discouraged. The thermal conversion method can be used to preheat Crude Oil; a controlled insulated cavity with a thermo sensor and a small Radiant Liquid Pipe segment can regulate the process.

Thermal and physical properties make Crude Oil useful as a coolant and thermal transport medium. It has about 2.5 times lower heat capacity than Water, but around 4 times the thermal conductivity and a wide usable temperature range (~440 °C). These properties make Crude Oil a viable mid-game coolant when exploited carefully.

Interactions with generators and by-products:

• Feeding Petroleum produced from Crude Oil into a Petroleum Generator yields Polluted Water and Carbon Dioxide outputs; those by-products can be used in various recycling chains (for example, Polluted Water can irrigate Arbor Trees).
• Carbon Dioxide output from petroleum or ethanol systems can be fed to Slicksters to reclaim Crude Oil (or Petroleum for Molten Slicksters) and partially recycle fuel, but this loop is not perfectly mass-positive and requires significant ranching to be viable at large scale.
• Be aware of a temperature-related bug: if a Petroleum Generator’s temperature exceeds ~122.35 °C, its Polluted Water output may immediately flash to Steam and lead to packet deletions; keep generators cooled below ~120 °C when water output integrity is required. Conversely, a deliberate setup can vaporize Polluted Water and dump residue as a mass-deleting shortcut when wanted.

Practical notes and cautions:

• Converting Crude Oil to Petroleum via heat is efficient but hazardous for piping; avoid letting conversion occur inside pipe networks unless deliberately contained.
• Oil Refinery requires Duplicant labor and loses half the mass to inefficiency; weigh space, automation and labor costs versus the complexity of a thermal converter.
• Crude Oil’s thermal characteristics let it serve as a coolant, but its lower heat capacity means more temperature change per unit mass compared to Water.
• Use Slickster recycling carefully — standard Slicksters convert CO2 into Crude Oil, while Molten Slicksters convert CO2 directly into Petroleum, enabling different engineering choices for fuel loops.