Ceramic

This article has not been revised for the current version (***U50-587362***). It was last updated for *LU-356355*. It may contain inaccuracies.
This article has not been revised for the current version (***U50-587362***). It was last updated for *LU-356355*. It may contain inaccuracies.

## Ceramic

Ceramic is a hard, brittle material formed from heated Clay.
It is a reliable Construction Material.

### Properties

 Plumbable, Crushable, Generic Buildable, Solid, Raw Mineral

### Overheat Temperature

+200 °C

**Ceramic** is an advanced building material available in mid-game.

## Usage

Ceramic, when used as a building material, will increase that building's overheat temperature by 200 °C and boosts adjacent decor by 20%. Notably, Ceramic has a very low thermal conductivity value which can dramatically slow heat transfer. Its also worth noting that tiles made of Ceramic can safely contain Magma, which is hot enough to melt most early game materials, with the exception of Obsidian.

The heat transferring between two objects uses the thermal conductivity value of the material that is lowest, which will likely be the Ceramic itself until Insulation can be reliably made.

Rock Crusher can break Ceramic into Sand:

100 kg Ceramic = 100 kg Sand
This is usually not advisable due to producing Ceramic is relatively harder than acquiring Sand.

Building the Monument Midsection requires 2500 kg of Ceramic among other materials.

## Production

### Kilns

Kiln produces Ceramic from Clay and Coal:

100 kg Clay + 25 kg Coal = 100 kg Ceramic
As the Ceramic production generates a large number of small supplying errands, it's advised to set the building with a low priority for Duplicants, while an Auto-Sweeper loads it from nearby Storage Bins. Kilns can be automated using Smart Storage Bins to maintain a reserve of Ceramic if Coal consumption is an issue.

Through the use of Hatch ranching, Kilns can also be set up to run purely on Clay; a tame Hatch will consume produce 25 kg of Coal if fed 50 kg of Clay, essentially making 150 Clay produce 100 Ceramic.

## Heating Clay

Heating any amount of Clay to 929.85 °C also turns it into a natural tile made of Ceramic at the same temperature.

Due to how environmental transitions between different types of solid work, heating even a tiny amount of Clay debris will produce a natural tile rather than debris. While a duplicant or Robo-Miner can dig out the Ceramic, mining causes an unavoidable 50% mass loss. Compared to using a Kiln, heating 100 kg of Clay will produce 50 kg of Ceramic after mining; this is strictly worse than the Kiln and Hatch ranching combination, so there is little reason to do this unless you have a desperate need for ceramic and have no Hatches or other sources of Coal available.

This method is very heat-negative, but the high temperatures involved make it impractical for general heat deletion unless endgame materials are available.

* This can be done with diagonal tile-building into squares just above Obsidian seams in Volcanic Biomes; the diagonal tile-building also pushes out the Ceramic. This, of course, requires frequent micro-management.
* Automating with machines from the technologies about solid management is feasible, but that is near end-game tech and Ceramic is needed for mid-game endeavours. Any such work should be done in a vacuum to avoid overheating Auto-Sweepers and Conveyor Loaders.
* The resulting Ceramic will also be very hot, but building something with it will reset its temperature to 45 °C, as per deliberate coding by the developers.

## See Also

* Insulation
* Heat Transfer