Technology · Machine
Industrial drill
A derrick whose great screw digs a shaft down to a uranium field's heart, then a chamber through it, and brings the ore up.
In the game
How to get it
Craft it in the grid (16 steel plates, 2 cogwheels, 2 copper coils, 12 steel ingots). Set it on the ground where the Geiger counter is loudest and connect a small power cable: it needs 8 kW.
What it is for
Every 30 s it really digs 16 m³ of rock under itself -- first a shaft down to the field's heart, then a chamber 16 m wide through the field -- and brings up the uranium ore it meets: a few voxels a load at the heart, fewer toward the rim. Its screen says how deep it is and how much of its chamber is dug.
Why it exists
Uranium is too deep and too scattered for a pickaxe: real mining needs a machine.
The same text the game shows in its progress tree and on the item's sheet (I).
Tips
- Off a field the drill waits and says why: move it where the Geiger counter is loudest.
- The bore is real: what it digs is gone, for every player. When its chamber is dug out, move the drill at least 16 m on, still over the field.
- Break the drill and its shaft opens under it, a long way down: mind your step.
- Two generators (5 kW each) on one small cable run it; a conveyor can carry its ore to a centrifuge.
On the progress path
NU3Nuclear energySide quest
- BeforeNU2 · Geiger counter
- This stepNU3 · Industrial drill (excavation)
- NextNU4 · Centrifuge: enrichment