Volcano

The Volcano is a geyser that erupts extremely hot magma. It appears in the Volcanea asteroid and is one of the biome-defining features of the Volcanic Biome, which in game code is associated with the Magma biome. In its base form, it has no solids or liquids in the chamber itself and produces magma at 1226.85–1526.85 °C. The Magma Vent variant is also extremely hot, but it sits higher on the map and has a lower temperature range, while the Volcano Hole and Solid Magma variants change the eruption chamber so that magma cools into Igneous Rock. The Volcano variant is used by the Volcanoes world trait, which places eight volcanoes randomly on the map; Volcano Hole has five volcanoes.

Volcanea’s volcanic regions are large and hazardous, and abyssalite breaks can expose nearby biomes or even the starting biome to unwanted heat. Because of that, taming a Volcano usually requires high melting point materials for both machinery and tiles. The eruption output is valuable because volcanic magma can be used as a long-term heat source and as a source of raw material.

• Magma from a Volcano can be throttled by building a short, one-tile-high outlet. Magma does not flow more than ten tiles horizontally and will not gain enough pressure to move up a U-bend, so a ten-tile passage with a Mechanized Airlock can control outflow.
• For safer extraction, the tiles below the tenth tile can be made of steel Mesh Tiles. If debris would form in a mesh tile, it will search adjacent tiles, which can help move material into a Steam chamber while keeping the volcano chamber safe.
• A Volcano can serve as an early replacement for a Metal Refinery, since volcanic magma is hot enough to melt most Metal Ore into Refined Metal.
• It is also useful for petroleum boiling and, in a narrow temperature window, for producing Molten Glass from Sand.
• For power generation, a Steam Turbine needs input steam at 200 °C or below, so practical taming often uses separate steam chambers: one to buffer heat and debris, and another connected by solid tiles and a Mechanized Airlock to regulate the turbine room.
• Dropping the igneous rock output to 200 degrees can yield about 1680 kDTU/s over the full cycle, enough to support two actively cooled turbines.
• In large volcanic setups, the magma can also be used for high-pressure storage and later heat extraction for petroleum cracking or desalination.

If the Volcano is allowed to erupt without management, magma can solidify into Igneous Rock and clog the vent. In practice, keeping the mouth clear and giving the chamber enough space to absorb heat are the keys to making it a reliable industrial heat source.