Asteroids

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Space Age expansion exclusive feature.

Asteroids are floating minerals found in space. There are four types of asteroids in Space Age: metallic, carbonic, oxide and promethium. Promethium asteroids are only encountered when en route to the shattered planet. Asteroids appear around stationary space platforms. If a space platform is traveling through space with a thruster, asteroids are encountered much faster. Asteroid collectors can collect asteroid chunks. The resources collected from asteroid chunks can be fed into a crusher, grinding the chunks into useful resources.

When traveling through space, asteroids will appear in front of the space platform and damage it on contact. Turrets placed (mainly at the top) of the platform can prevent this, while asteroid collectors collect the resulting harmless asteroid chunks.

The density of asteroids can be seen by going to the Remote view > Surfaces > Space Map and alt-clicking on the interplanetary route to bring up the route in Factoriopedia, or by searching "route". The graph will show a white vertical line overlay on the asteroid graph corresponding to the ship's position when underway.

Asteroid types

Name	Description	Health (metallic/carbonic/oxide)	Health (promethium)	Resistances
Asteroid chunks	Harmless. Does not have health and are instantly destroyed on contact with the space platform. Can be collected by asteroid collectors.	N/A	N/A
Small asteroids	Do not spawn naturally. Produce chunks on destruction. Does small damage on contact with the space platform.	100	200	Electric: 100% Explosion: 50% Fire: 100% Laser: 20%
Medium asteroids	Spawn in space and in orbit of planets other than Nauvis. Split into small asteroids when destroyed. Does medium damage. Can destroy several foundations before expiring. Heavily resistant to laser damage.	400	800	Electric: 100% Explosion: 30% Fire: 100% Laser: 90% Physical: 10%
Big asteroids	Spawn in space beyond Fulgora and Gleba. Split into medium asteroids when destroyed. Practically immune to physical and laser damage Does large amount of damage. Can go right through the space platform destroying everything on its path. Because of the high flat physical resistance, gun turrets are ineffective against them, and has an even higher laser resistance than its medium counterpart.	2000	4000	Electric: 100% Explosion: 10% Fire: 100% Laser: 95% Physical: 2000/10%
Huge asteroids	Spawn in space beyond Aquilo. Split into large asteroids when destroyed. Will absolutely destroy the space platform if it is not equipped with a turret that can overcome its enormous flat physical resistance, e.g. a railgun turret.	5000	10000	Electric: 100% Explosion: 99% Fire: 100% Laser: 99% Physical: 3000/10%

Asteroid chunks

Asteroid chunks are the smallest asteroids in the game, serving as the sole resource source in space. Due to their size and low mass, these small chunks will not damage the player's space platform when colliding with it, as larger asteroids do. They are also pulled slowly towards the space platform, as if the platform has a gravitational pull, making it easier to collect them. To maintain sustainability, space platforms can be equipped with both asteroid collector and crusher. These chunks come in four distinct varieties, each of which can be processed into valuable materials using crushers. Advanced asteroid processing research unlocks the ability to extract additional materials from these chunks.

Asteroid Processing

Asteroids	Processed into	Advanced processing
Metallic asteroid chunk	Iron ore	Copper ore
Carbonic asteroid chunk	Carbon	Sulfur
Oxide asteroid chunk	Ice	Calcite
Promethium asteroid chunk	Cannot be processed, is a component to the promethium science pack.	-

Gallery

• 
  Metallic asteroids.
• 
  Carbonic asteroids.
• 
  Oxide asteroids.
• 
  Promethium asteroids.

See also

• Space platform
• Asteroid collector