The Planet Crafter Ore Crusher Guide

This guide explains how The Planet Crafter Ore Crusher works and how you can use it to get useful ores in the new Planet Humble DLC.

The first major The Planet Crafter DLC has a lot in common with the base game — you can still build Ore Extractors and fill the planet up with animals. However, getting important resources such as Cobalt and Aluminum works a little differently on this new world. Read on to learn how to use the Ore Crusher and get the resources you need to survive!

How to Unlock the Ore Crusher in The Planet Crafter

The first Ore Crusher is unlocked by default in The Planet Crafter. You can subsequently unlock the T2 Ore Crusher at 25.00 KTi on the Terraformation scale and the T3 Ore Crusher at 1.00 MTi on the Terraformation scale.

How The Planet Crafter Ore Crusher Works

At a basic level, The Planet Crafter Ore Crusher works like this:

1. Build an Ore Crusher
2. Ensure that you have enough power for the Ore Crusher
3. Put a Planet Humble Ore into the higher input box
4. Wait for the ore to process
5. Take the new resources out of the lower Ore Crusher output box

You get access to the first Ore Crusher at the start of the DLC. The T2 and T3 Ore Crushers need to be unlocked by progressing Terraformation. Each Ore Crusher requires a different amount of power, works at different rates, and gives you a different number of ores:

• T1 Ore Crusher
  • Pressure: +0.10 nPa /s
  • Energy: -2.60 kW
  • Disintegrates an item every: 130 s
  • Number of items extracted: 3
• T2 Ore Crusher
  • Pressure: 1.20 nPa /s
  • Energy: -21.00 kW
  • Disintegrates an item every: 90 s
  • Number of items extracted: 4
• T3 Ore Crusher
  • Pressure: +13.00 nPa /s
  • Energy: -125.00 kW
  • Disintegrates an item every: 70s
  • Number of items extracted: 5

Each ore you put into the Ore Crusher will give you 3 to 5 resources depending on the loot table (which you can see below). In all cases, it will give you a random assortment of ores with a bias toward certain ores; for example, Bauxite has a high likelihood to always give you at least 1 Aluminium, and Dolomite has a high likelihood to always give you at least 1 Cobalt.

To better understand this mechanic, here are the results of running 5 pieces of Bauxite through the T1, T2, and T3 Ore Crushers:

• Bauxite in a T1 Ore Crusher:
  1. Aluminum, Silicon, Iron
  2. Silicon, Iron, Aluminum
  3. Silicon, Aluminum, Magnesium
  4. Aluminum, Iron, Magnesium
  5. Aluminum, Iron, Aluminum
• Bauxite in a T2 Ore Crusher:
  1. Iron, Aluminium, Silicon, Magnesium
  2. Aluminum, Aluminum, Iron, Magnesium
  3. Magnesium, Silicon, Aluminium, Iron
  4. Aluminum, Aluminum, Silicon, Magnesium
  5. Iron, Aluminum, Aluminum, Silicon
• Bauxite in a T3 Ore Crusher:
  1. Aluminum, Silicon, Aluminum, Iron, Aluminum
  2. Silicon, Magnesium, Iron, Aluminum, Aluminum
  3. Aluminum, Magnesium, Aluminum, Silicon, Iron
  4. Iron, Magnesium, Aluminium, Silicon, Aluminum
  5. Magnesium, Aluminum, Iron, Aluminum, Silicon

As you can see, some of the results gave multiple pieces of Aluminum, even with the T1 Ore Crusher. Based on this small testing sample, I'm confident in saying that Bauxite will always give you one piece of Aluminum.

Unfortunately, that also means that you won't always get the other possible resources from a single piece of ore. Some of the results did not give me one or more of the secondary ores when I put Bauxite into an Ore Crusher.

Higher-tier Ore Crushers consume more power, but they work faster and they give you more pieces of ore from a single input. You should therefore strive to get T3 Ore Crushers as soon as you reasonably can so you can ensure a steady supply of the rarer ores on Planet Humble such as Aluminum and Cobalt.

Thankfully, most of the input ores — Bauxite, Dolomite, and Uraninite — can be mined with an Ore Extractor once you've advanced far enough in the tech tree; check out our Planet Humble map guide to find the locations for mining these resources.

Possible Ore Crusher Outputs

Here are the possible Ore Crusher outputs for each of the new ores in the Planet Humble DLC:

• Bauxite: Aluminum (+), Iron, Magnesium, Silicon
• Cosmic Quartz: Blazar Quartz, Magnetar Quartz, Pulsar Quartz, Solar Quartz, Quasar Quartz
• Dolomite: Cobalt (+), Iron, Magnesium, Silicon, Titanium
• Uraninite: Dolomite, Iridium, Iron, Super Alloy, Uranium

Again, it should be noted that you won't always get the same combination of ores with each output; some of the ores have a stronger bias toward different outputs. Dolomite, for example, is highly likely to give you one or more pieces of Cobalt with every output.

We've reached the end of our The Planet Crafter Ore Crusher Guide, but there's plenty more to explore — check out our other guides below!