Intended path to tungsten

I would like to inquire what the intended path to tungsten is, specifically in regards to crucibles. In the past, I believe we had a few split options through the tantalum or iridium crucibles. However, after looking exhaustively through NEI, I can’t find a way to obtain tantalum without first obtaining aluminium. The only source of tantalum appears to be through tantalite, which can only be converted into tantalum through 2 MV electrolysis recipes (112 and 98 eu). This of course requires aluminium, which then requires you to use the chromium crucible to create the aluminium fluoride, since you don’t have tungsten for the smelter method.
Is this an intentional change? I can’t help but feel this just railroads you into going a specific path (chromium crucible, aluminium, tantalite, tungsten), when before you did have a choice where you could rush to aluminium the hard way, or do the crucible path for tungsten and get the smelter to make your life easier

2 Likes

Oh, this is actually my responsibility… I posted this post at the beginning, hoping to improve the tantalum treatment. I also specifically said not to modify the original recipe of melting tantalite, because it will affect the upgrade of crucible, but it was changed.

1 Like

Ah I did actually read that post and wasn’t sure if these changes had been influenced by it. I think it’s a good idea overall, but like you said the original tantalite into the crucible step should be preserved, since otherwise the process is quite a lot harde. It sort of has you jump up to MV and extreme amounts of manual labor for aluminium, and (in my opinion) a dispraportionate amount of steam setup just to run the electrolyzer briefly for this material you really only need a small handful of for a long while

2 Likes

Tantalum has a few Issues currently indeed. I still need to do it well before I can release the next Version of GT6.

And using the Measuring Pot or similar to move Fluid from the Crucible to the Machines is right now the only real way, which is not intended to be the only way at all.

As I said above, I messed up something and need to fix it. ^^

1 Like

I did fix the Issue by making the Mixer Recipe for AlF3 output Liquid instead of Dust, so that you wont need to smelt it extra anymore.

For Tantalum related things I still need to figure out a nice way to fit into the Tech Tree. ^^

:gregory: This Version should probably be working for you. ^^

(note 1: The scary sounding Description is only there to make sure people don’t use that Version lightly.)

(note 2: if you use this Version more often, make sure your Browser didn’t cache the Download)

1 Like

Oh, no, it’s getting more and more difficult now… Now you even need aluminum to get niobium and tantalum, which means you need to enter LV, and then you need to use a cup to scoop out the molten sodium and molten aluminum in the crucible without a smelter. It’s too bad. It’s not as good as melting tantalite at the earliest time

I regret the suggestions I made at that time…

2 Likes

I personally don’t mind having to do aluminium before tungsten, aluminium has PLENTY of uses one might want to have before going into tungsten processing.

Namely filters, machine covers (with circuits of course) and other useful alu alloys.

Smelters, to me at least, are not nearly as good as crucibles in the early game. For automation they are a must (sadly) but other than that, smelters are just a worse version of the crucible.
I haven’t tested it but i am sure i can make a “smelter” out of a crucible if i put a robot on it which will extract molten stuff and put them into pipes.

Mind you, you don’t HAVE to use a “cup” to scoop out molten stuff from the crucible.
The crucible can hold 2304 liters of molten stuff. The jug is 2000 liters so that works exceptionally well for most cases below 2000 kelvin.
In any other case, or when i need to scoop out more than 2000 liters at a time, i just use a barrel.
Using a barrel on molten stuff in the crucible will pick that stuff up assuming the barrel can handle the temperature. (possibly even protecting you against acid stuff)

What bothers me is i haven’t found tantalum yet… So i can’t even get to tungsten via that route even if i wanted to.

I am actually entering EV (because i want cheap and big batteries) without being past the iridium crucible. And it’s iridium because i don’t have tantalum of course.

3 Likes

Uh did you miss the part where you do NOT need a Smelter to get Aluminium?

Sure you need a tiny bit of Molten Aluminium for making a Niobium based Crucible but that is a thing you do ONCE, since you dont ever need that much Niobium.

To get Tantalum or Niobium you need Tantalite, Columbite or Coltan. Those are the 3 Ores that contain it. If you have HBMs Nuclear Tech Mod installed it will also follow the HBM Rules of generating Coltan around the Area where the Coltass points to.

2 Likes

Well, now that this is the case, we can only accept these changes, which may invalidate some old strategies.

and some suggestion:

Sodium/potassium fluoride can be obtained by reacting sodium/potassium hydroxide and hydrofluoric acid?

Fluorine can be added to react directly with water to obtain hydrofluoric acid and oxygen, which is feasible in reality, although it is usually not used in industrial production because the reaction is too intense and byproducts may appear, which will make fluorine recovery easier (if sodium fluoride can be electrolyzed).

2 Likes