Igneous Rock

Igneous Rock is a common raw mineral with no Decor bonus, but it is one of the most useful early-game building materials because of its high specific heat capacity and low thermal conductivity. These properties make it an effective insulator before Ceramic and Insulation become widely available, especially for constructing Insulated Tiles, Insulated Liquid Pipes, and Insulated Gas Pipes.

It is primarily formed from solidified Magma, making it renewable on maps with volcanoes. It can also be obtained from melted Regolith, which is renewable on every map and comes with a very large amount of heat that can be captured or managed as part of a colony's industrial setup. In Spaced Out, Igneous Rock can also be harvested from renewable space points of interest, including Forested Ore Fields and Rocky Asteroid Fields.

A few practical uses make Igneous Rock especially valuable:

• It can be fed to Stone Hatches, which excrete Coal.
• Rock Crusher can convert Igneous Rock into Sand at a 1:1 mass ratio, so 100 kg Igneous Rock becomes 100 kg Sand.
• Along with Obsidian, it has one of the highest Radiation Absorption rates among raw minerals, which can matter in radiation-heavy designs.

Because of its abundance and versatility, Igneous Rock often serves as the default material for mass insulation projects, especially in the early and middle game when more advanced thermal materials are scarce. Its usefulness is not limited to thermal management: it also supports ranching through Stone Hatches and can be recycled into Sand when a colony needs it for filtration or other production chains.