EM Holmium Charging

EM Holmium Charging

Vanilla holmium goes through a fluid, and fluids cannot carry quality. This mod is a holmium chain that never lets the metal get wet.

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TL;DR

• Crush holmium ore into powder, load the powder onto iron plates by ion exchange in an Electromagnetic Plant, strip holmium plates back off in a Foundry. Three recipes, no fluid holmium anywhere.
• Quality survives the whole way — ore → powder → charged matrix → plate. The vanilla Holmium Solution route drops it.
• The iron is a catalyst, not an ingredient. Every iron plate that goes into the loading step comes back out of the stripping step. Net iron cost: zero.
• 1 Holmium Ore → ~2.67 Holmium Plates, slightly above vanilla's 2.5, as payment for the longer chain.
• Seed the loop once at the quality tier you want — the iron has to match the powder's quality, and then it circulates at that tier forever.
• One technology, Solid-State Holmium Refining, unlocks all three recipes. No vanilla holmium recipe is touched; the solution path keeps working for everything that does not care about quality.
• Requires Space Age and the Recycler. Optional Crusher support with Crushing Industry, Krastorio 2 and Krastorio 2 Spaced Out.

Recommended alongside — built to run together, none of them needs the others:

• Fulgorite Harvesting — grows quality holmium ore out of the ground on Fulgora. This mod is what carries that quality to the plate.
• Fulgorite Mining — a lodemast mineralizes fulgorite ore into the ground around it, and a Big Mining Drill digs it up. Recycle fulgorite into holmium ore and stone.
• Storm Ionizer — calls lightning down on demand, day or night.

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What it does

This mod adds a parallel solid-state processing chain where holmium never enters a fluid state. Quality propagates from ore to powder to charged matrix to plate — fully intact at every stage.

Iron plates serve as reusable electromagnetic ion-exchange carriers: they get loaded with holmium ions in an Electromagnetic Plant and thermally stripped in a Foundry, recovering both the holmium plate and the iron carrier. The iron loops back indefinitely once seeded.

All vanilla holmium recipes remain completely untouched. The existing Holmium Solution path continues to work as before for non-quality-sensitive use cases.

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Processing Chain

Stage 1 — Holmium Pulverizing

Mechanically crush holmium ore into fine powder to increase surface area for ion exchange.

• Building: Assembler or Crusher (with Crushing Industry, K2 or K2SO enabled)
• Recipe: 1 Holmium Ore → 8 Holmium Powder

Stage 2 — Ion-Exchange Loading

Load holmium ions onto iron plates using sulfuric acid and lubricant as carrier medium inside an electromagnetic field.

• Building: Electromagnetic Plant
• Recipe: 3 Holmium Powder + 2 Iron Plate + 3 Sulfuric Acid + 20 Lubricant → 2 Charged Iron Matrix
• Effective output: ~3 Charged Iron Matrix per craft (due to EM Plant productivity)

Stage 3 — Electromagnetic Stripping

Thermally strip holmium from the charged matrix in a foundry, recovering both the holmium plate and the iron carrier for reuse.

• Building: Foundry
• Recipe: 3 Charged Iron Matrix + 5 Heavy Oil → 1 Holmium Plate + 2 Iron Plate
• Iron output is not affected by productivity — the iron carrier is recovered as-is

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Ratios

• 1 Holmium Ore → ~2.67 Holmium Plates (slightly above vanilla's 2.5, as an incentive for the more complex chain)
• Iron Plate consumption: zero — iron cycles between Stage 2 and Stage 3 as a reusable carrier
• Net cost per plate: ~1.1 Sulfuric Acid, ~7.5 Lubricant, ~1.9 Heavy Oil, no iron

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Iron Loop

The two iron plates fed into Stage 2 are fully recovered in Stage 3. Over a full productivity cycle (2 loading crafts + 1 bonus craft → 2 stripping crafts), 4 iron plates enter and 4 iron plates return. No iron is created or consumed.

You will need to seed approximately 6–8 iron plates per Electromagnetic Plant as initial working stock. After that, the loop is self-sustaining.

Quality note: Since iron plates are a solid input in Stage 2, they must match the quality level of the holmium powder. To produce quality holmium plates, you need to upgrade the iron in your loop once to the target quality tier. After that, the iron circulates at that quality level indefinitely.

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Cost Comparison to Vanilla

| | Vanilla (per ore) | EM Holmium Charging (per ore) | |---|---|---| | Stone | 0.5 | — | | Water | 5 | — | | Sulfuric Acid | — | ~2.67 | | Lubricant | — | ~17.8 | | Heavy Oil | — | ~4.4 | | Iron Plate | — | 0 (catalytic) | | Plates out | 2.5 | ~2.67 | | Quality preserved | No | Yes |

On Fulgora, lubricant and heavy oil are effectively free. Sulfuric acid is the only meaningful cost, requiring oil cracking and iron plates to produce.

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Technology

Solid-State Holmium Refining unlocks all three recipes.

• Prerequisites: Electromagnetic Science Pack, Sulfur Processing
• Cost: 500 packs (Automation + Logistic + Chemical + Space + Production + Electromagnetic)

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Compatibility

Mod Compat with Crushing Industry. Note: The Holmium ore-to-powder ratio has changed from 1 ore -> 1 powder to 1 ore -> 8 powder. The Holmium solution recipe has been adjusted accordingly, from 2 (3) powder to 16 powder. However, the total cost of Holmium ore remains the same as in vanilla.