What to do after starting as Metallurgist

Hello everyone,

I was wandering around trying to find how to produce some basic materials such as Oxygen. I started as Metallurgist and now I would use some help or guide how to continue. What should I do now? I am mining some Limestone and Iron Ore, but that’s all I can do so far.

Any suggestions from you guys?
Thanks in advance, have fun!

Your dear playmate, Prebiusta.

Hi, Prebiusta!

Your production in Prosperous Universe is highly specialized (at least at first), so you need to trade in order to obtain most commodities. Oxygen can be collected from the atmosphere of planets that contain it by a Collector, but if you’ve already constructed mining buildings, it might be a while until you can build one.

As for guides, did you see the Handbook and the video tutorial series? If you want to go beyond that and are looking for good strategies to make money, maybe look for a corporation to join, where more experienced players can help you out. :slightly_smiling_face:

Good luck!

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I have seen all the guides already, I am looking more for experienced players who can help me.
Thanks for your advice, I will certainly check some corporations!

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Hi dadokon, welcome to PrUn.

From your post, I presume that you have started on Montem.

It is very difficult to become self sufficient, and is impossible without having multiple colonies. For now, your best bet is to purchase the inputs that you require on the Montem market.

I feel that you should focus your facility expansion towards making BSE and BBH in a Prefab Plant Mk1 [PP1]. If you wish to process your own Iron Ore [FEO], use a Smelter [SME] to do this. Ensure that you are using the recipe that requires Flux [FLX] as it is currently the most economically viable recipe to use.

For every PP1 that you have built, you will require 0.4 SME and 0.4 EXT to feed it with Iron [FE] and Limestone [LST] if you wish to have that part of the supply chain. Eventually, you should aim for around 6 PP1 with supporting facilities. Ensure that you have enough Habitation Mk1 [HB1] to provide enough pioneers to staff your facilities.

There will likely be enough FEO and LST on the market to feed your base without having to depend on your own EXT, so you may be able to squeeze more higher end production into your layout.

When you calculate your profits, you should be targeting price points that will yield approximately $1,000 per facility per day. Hab modules do not count towards this figure.

I hope this has given you some ideas. Have fun!

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That’s great info, Prdgi! Thanks.

I’m new, too, and too new to follow that plan, by a long shot. I’ve written it down for later on.

For the start, I see that I have only enough materials to build one Extractor, one Smelter, and two Pioneer Habitations. The Base Setup video recommends two Extractors, and in this thread, Mjeno suggests a Collector. Did I miss something?

So what should I make when starting? The only Orders I found I could fill (since not all materials are available on the market) take most of a day to complete. If I’ve calculated correctly, at current market prices, they’ll net me a couple hundred NCC. At this rate, it’ll be a long time before I can buy or make something new.

Any suggestions for that starting phase?

Thanks!

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Sounds about right if you’re a Metallurgist! At least it’s what the wiki page recommends. It’s true that it takes a while until you can add a new building to your base, the game moves a bit slowly. Nevertheless, many players have massive production chains at this point, so it’s possible!

As for the concrete strategy to run a successful company… I’ll leave that to someone who actually runs a successful company. :smile:

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@Spiff Welcome to PrUn!

I presume that you have started on the planet Montem. Your EXT and SME are a great start!

An EXT on Montem can produce 20.3 LST and 14.7 FEO per day at 100% efficiency. This is taking into account using luxury consumables, which is not always profitable. A more realistic production efficiency is 79.44% which may be achieved by providing RAT, DW, and OVE for you pioneers. An EXT on Montem would thus produce 16.17 LST and 11.67 FEO.

With the current prices for RAT, DW, and OVE, a single Pioneer costs 5.94 NCC per day. This means that your consumables costs for an EXT is (5.94 * 60) = 356.4 NCC per day. If you were to sell your production to the Market Maker, you would gain 590.97 which means that an EXT will generally always produce a profit for you. However, you want to maximize your profits.

There is a large FEO request order listed at a price of 55 NCC. For LST, you can sell them for 50 NCC really easily. These 2 price points will form an anchor for us to do further calculations.

If you just sold your FEO and LST, you could make 1450.35 in sales per day, which will yield profit > 1,000 NCC for this facility - which is a great target to use.

However, you also have a SME. This means we can generate further profits. We still want to maintain the profits of the EXT, so we use our anchor price for FEO - 55 NCC.

You will want to use the recipe that has FLX requirement to maximize your output. Your SME requires 50 Pioneers, so we’ll spend 267 NCC on them. Your inputs are FEO (55 ea), O (75 ea), C (400 ea), FLX (165 ea). At 79.44% production efficiency, we get 1.797 cycles per day from our SME.

So, our costs for the SME per cycle are:
148.58 on consumables (267 / 1.797)
330 on FEO (we make it ourselves, but we need profit)
400 on C
75 on O
165 on FLX

Which makes our sum cost per cycle 1118.58.

We make 4 FE in that cycle, so the unit cost of FE is 279.645

Now, each day we make (4 * 1.797) = 7.188 FE.

With a target profit of 1,000 NCC per day for the SME, our target price is (1000 / 7.188) + 279.645 = 418.77.

Thus, our colony’s profit per day is over our target of 1k NCC per facility and its doing great! At this rate, roughly every 7-10 days you may be able to construct a new facility.

Of course, lower input prices and higher output prices will only increase your profits!

If it were my colony, I would build a PP1 next and start producing BSE and BBH. Making your own prefabs makes expansion far cheaper. At this point, you could start following my initial reply.

All the best!

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Thanks, Mjeno. The ‘Base Setup’ Transmission recommends 2 Extractors & a Smelter, but I didn’t have enough materials for a 2nd Extractor, so I figured I’d ask here.

Prdgi, thanks for the excellent, detailed info. I’ve been looking along those lines, and your specific recommendations help.

But at 79% efficiency, I’m producing 7 FEO per cycle on Montem, not 11.67. Maybe I need more pioneers? Hmm… you note that EXT takes 60 and SME takes 50, so maybe I can’t get more without a new building. Is there some reason I’m producing less than expected?

In any case, I now have a good short-term and longer-term plan. Thanks for your good help!

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The production values I gave for the EXT are for a day rather than a cycle.

Oh no, then the transmission is out of date. :grimacing: Thanks for the heads up. The wiki is always up to date; if there is a discrepancy, trust the wiki over the transmissions.

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