Plastium

Plastium is a high-temperature construction material that increases the overheat temperature of buildings made from it by 900 °C. It is especially useful in extremely hot environments, where ordinary Plastic-based buildings would fail much sooner. Compared with Thermium, it provides the same overheat bonus, but its main distinction is its poor heat transfer. That makes it far less useful for active heat exchange, but very good for structures that simply need to survive high ambient temperatures.

Plastium is a Generic Buildable, which means it can be used anywhere the game accepts heat-sensitive Plastic for construction. This includes buildings such as Mini Liquid Pump, Mini Gas Pump, Plastic Tile, and Steam Turbine. In practice, it serves as a stronger replacement for Plastic when the goal is durability in heat rather than thermal conductivity. Its low thermal conductivity also makes it useful for buildings that need some insulation while still being placed in hot areas.

It can be produced only in the Molecular Forge. The recipe is 15 kg Thermium + 70 kg Plastic + 15 kg Brackwax = 100 kg Plastium. Because of this, it sits at the end of a fairly advanced production chain and is not a material that appears early in normal progression.

A few practical points stand out:

• Plastium’s overheat bonus is applied to the building it is used to make, but not every building benefits equally if Plastic is not the main construction material.
• It has a much higher phase-change temperature than Plastic, which makes it more reliable for hot builds.
• It can replace Plastic in any construction that accepts Plastic-derived build materials.
• It is also one of the materials that can be used to make the game’s most radiation-resistant Tile, alongside Plastic, Lead, and Depleted Uranium.
• Be careful using it near Magma, since its sublimation point is close to the temperature of most asteroid-core Magma.

Overall, Plastium is best treated as a premium high-heat building material: excellent for keeping key systems operational in punishing temperatures, but not a substitute for Thermium when strong heat transfer is the priority.