Solid Petroleum

Solid Petroleum is the solidified form of Petroleum. It is an element state rather than a separate resource type, and its main gameplay importance comes from how it behaves under cold conditions and pressure.

Like other frozen materials, Solid Petroleum can be useful when players want to control fluid movement or create storage and transport setups that rely on phase changes. Its most notable limitation is that it is not very stable when left under load. Solid Petroleum can withstand only about 765 kg of pressure. If it solidifies underneath a 4-tile column of Petroleum, it will burst from overpressure and lose half its mass in the process. If the low temperature continues, large amounts of Petroleum can effectively disappear.

Practical implications:

• Solid Petroleum is fragile in stacked or enclosed freezing setups, especially when additional Petroleum remains above it.
• The overpressure break reduces mass, so repeated freezing under bad conditions can be highly wasteful.
• Sustained cold can cause ongoing material loss, making temperature control important if Petroleum is being deliberately frozen.
• Because it is tied to Petroleum, any system that freezes or stores Petroleum should account for the pressure behavior of the solid state before sealing it in.

In practice, Solid Petroleum is most relevant when building temperature-based petroleum processing or when managing accidental freezing in cold biomes and industrial cooling systems. Careful heat management is necessary if the goal is to preserve the full mass of the material rather than letting it fracture and vanish.