Nickel Ore

Nickel Ore is a raw mineral element used primarily as an intermediate resource. It can be found naturally in the world and is especially useful once a colony begins working with higher-temperature industry and certain critters that can consume metal ores.

In terms of material properties, Nickel Ore has the same specific heat capacity and radiation resistance as Iron Ore, but a slightly lower melting point and thermal conductivity. It does not grant any building overheat temperature bonus, so it is suitable for constructions where high thermal conductivity is not a major concern rather than for specialized high-performance heat-transfer applications.

Nickel Ore can be refined into Nickel at both the Rock Crusher and the Metal Refinery, and both processes require a Duplicant to operate them. The refinery recipes shown in the sources convert 100 kg of Nickel Ore into 100 kg of Nickel in the Metal Refinery, while the Rock Crusher converts 100 kg of Nickel Ore into 50 kg of Nickel Ore? No—this source indicates a split output for the Rock Crusher and a full conversion for the Metal Refinery, but the practical takeaway is that both buildings can process the ore into Nickel.

Nickel Ore also has several creature and fabrication uses:

• It can be fed to certain Hatch variants, which consume it at 140 kg/cycle and 100 kg/cycle, respectively, with corresponding solid output rates of 35 kg/cycle and 75 kg/cycle.
• It can be fed to Plug Slug and its variants, which consume it at 60 kg/cycle and 30 kg/cycle, with output rates of 3 kg/cycle and 1.5 kg/cycle.
• A Duplicant can use 50 kg of Nickel Ore to fabricate 1 unit of an item.
• In the Spaced Out! DLC, a Duplicant can use 200 kg of Nickel Ore to prepare 1 unit of an item.

Because Nickel Ore can be turned into Nickel and also serves as critter feed, it is worth stockpiling once it becomes available. Its modest thermal properties make it a reasonable building material for general-purpose structures, but it is not a substitute for better high-heat or high-conductivity metals when those are required.