Ceramic

Ceramic is a refined building material produced from Clay and Coal in a Kiln. The standard recipe is 100 kg Clay + 25 kg Coal = 100 kg Ceramic, making it a straightforward way to turn common early-game resources into a high-end construction material. It is especially valuable because it combines strong insulation with useful construction bonuses, and it remains relevant well into late game.

As a building material, Ceramic increases a building’s overheat temperature by 200 °C and boosts adjacent decor by 20%. Its very low thermal conductivity makes it one of the best materials for slowing heat transfer, so it is often used where temperature control matters more than raw mass efficiency. Ceramic tiles can also safely contain Magma, which would destroy most early-game materials aside from Obsidian.

Ceramic can also be produced by heating Clay to 929.85 °C, which transforms it into a natural tile of Ceramic at the same temperature. This method is possible even with a tiny amount of Clay debris, but it is usually inefficient because the resulting Ceramic must then be mined out, causing an unavoidable 50% mass loss. Compared with Kiln production, this is a poor use of Clay unless you have an urgent need for Ceramic and no practical access to Coal. The output is also extremely hot, so any later building use resets its temperature to 45 °C.

Practical notes:

• Ceramic is useful for construction where heat resistance matters, especially around hot machines or lava-adjacent structures.
• Because it has low thermal conductivity, it is often chosen for insulation-related builds even before more specialized options become available.
• If you must use the Clay-heating method, it is best done in carefully controlled setups, since the heat involved makes it awkward for general use.
• Ceramic can be broken down in a Rock Crusher into Sand at a 1:1 mass ratio: 100 kg Ceramic = 100 kg Sand. This is usually not worth doing, since Ceramic is harder to produce than Sand, but it can be mass-positive if the Clay came from a source that also produced unwanted output.
• Building the Monument Midsection requires 2500 kg of Ceramic.