Brine

Brine is a liquid element found naturally in low-temperature regions of the Tide Pool Biome. It is also created when Salt Water is cooled below its freezing point: at -10.5 °C it separates into Ice and Brine, with the Brine portion making up 23% of the mass. If Brine Ice is melted, it becomes Brine again.

Its main use is as a raw material for desalination and heat management. A Desalinator converts 5 kg/s of Brine into 3.5 kg/s Water and 1.5 kg/s Salt, making it a direct source of both fresh water and salt. When Brine is heated to 105.75 °C, it turns into Steam and Salt; this conversion deletes heat because the products have a lower combined specific heat than the input. Running hot Brine through a Desalinator is also heat deleting.

Brine can also be harvested from renewable space point-of-interest missions in Spaced Out!:

• Salty Asteroid Fields: 216–648 kg per cycle
• Interstellar Oceans: 37.5–125 kg per cycle

In practice, Brine is useful when a colony needs Salt, Water, or an intermediate step in a cooling or freezing chain. Since it exists in cold biomes and can be recovered from space content, it can serve as a steady late-game resource rather than only a byproduct of Salt Water processing.