Refining

The subject of this article is from the Omega update.
The information from this article is up-to-date as of 26 March, 2024.

NmsTech Refiner Process — How a refiner works

Refining is one of the foundational pillars of No Man's Sky, alongside the closely related Crafting. It is a procedure where the player can use a variety of Refiners to convert different resources into other resources and/or combined multiple resources to create new ones.

Summary[ | ]

Refining is a process of combining various ingredients (mostly resources) into other ingredients through the use of a refiner.

Refined materials are usually more condensed or more powerful and efficient than raw materials. The advantage of refined materials is that they are more space-efficient to store, meaning you can carry more of them, and you need fewer refined materials to fully recharge something. The disadvantage is that refining takes time and possibly fuel.

Examples of such condensed/refined materials (that every traveller should know):

2 x Carbon --> 1 x Condensed Carbon
2 x Sodium --> 1 x Sodium Nitrate
2 x Cobalt --> 1 x Ionised Cobalt
2 x Salt --> 1 x Chlorine
30 x Di-Hydrogen --> 1 x Di-Hydrogen Jelly

You can take out refined materials before all are processed and you can also stop the refining process at any time or adjust the output number to meet your requirements. While the input slot can hold up to 9999 units of a given resource, the output slot can only hold a certain amount of items at a time; 250 resources or 5 products on Survival or Permadeath modes and 4095 in normal mode --- the refining process will automatically stop if the refiner detects that its output slot is full. This means that when refining large amounts of resources in bulk, one needs to periodically unload the refiner and restart the process if needed. If the refiner requires fuel, then the refining process will also stop if fuel runs out. One needs to refuel the refiner and restart it to continue the process.

Refiner Types[ | ]

There are five types of refiners with different properties. Three are deployable/buildable items and two are portable exosuit components. The Medium and Large Refiners do not require any fuel to operate while the rest require either 100 Carbon of 34 Condensed Carbon to power them, similar to a Biofuel Reactor.

Portable Refiner - Can refine one item into another (for example, Rusted Metal into Ferrite Dust, then into Pure Ferrite and finally into Magnetised Ferrite). It can be deployed anywhere and can easily be crafted and picked up (occupying 1x inventory space) and deployed again elsewhere; this means you don't need to carry its building materials. Requires fuel to operate.
Medium Refiner - Can refine two items into another (for example, Silver and Gold into Platinum). It can also be used to reduce complex materials into simpler ones (example: Extracting 250 Platinum from 1 Geodesite or 1 Iridesite). Requires no fuel as it is attached to a base or freighter power supply, but it cannot be deployed outside said base/freighter. This refiner must be built from the Build Menu, and can be moved, but cannot be picked up as an item; it can only be dismantled into its components.
Large Refiner - Can refine three items into another (for example, 1 Fungal Mould, 1 Kelp Sac and 1 Condensed Carbon to produce 10 Oxygen). Requires no fuel as it is attached to a base or freighter power supply, but it also cannot be deployed outside said base/freighter. This refiner must be built from the Build Menu, and can be moved but cannot be picked up as an item; it can only be dismantled into its components.
Personal Refiner - Works exactly like a Portable refiner, but is installed into the user's Exosuit interface and accessible from there. Items can be refined automatically by dropping them directly on the refiner icon (if the refiner has fuel), or manually by selecting the refiner icon and entering the refining control screen, like on a deployable refiner. Requires fuel to operate, but is able to process items without the need to deploy it anywhere, and can operate when on the move or when piloting a Starship or Exocraft.
Personal Refiner Mk 2 - This is essentially a Personal Medium Refiner, installed into the Exosuit interface and with two input slots. These two inputs have the same functionality as the Medium Refiner, meaning they can combine materials. Unlike an actual Medium Refiner, however, this refiner requires fuel. Has otherwise the same functionality as the regular Personal Refiner.

The Crafting recipe for the Portable Refiner is always known, while the rest must be obtained from the Space Anomaly.

Gallery of Refiner types[ | ]

A Portable Refiner
A Medium Refiner
A Large Refiner
All three deployable refiner types. From left to right: Portable, Medium and Large refiners
A Personal Refiner
A Personal Refiner Mk. 2

Notes[ | ]

Whenever you are looking at a Portable Refiner's interface, Hazard Protection will not be drained. This means that one could place down a Portable Refiner and use it to wait out a storm.
Single-name ingredients can often be refined into a double-name ingredient.
Refined materials can also be refined, oftentimes to reduce them back to their raw materials, but sometimes also converting them into new resources.
The numerical production ratios shown are structured as "Input:Output": A ratio of 2:1 means the output quantity will be half as much as the input quantity (2 in, 1 out).
Multiple refiners can be used at the same time, to run processes in parallel.
The arrow buttons increase or decrease the target total of the operation.
The displayed amount of time for the refining action is often incorrect.
If a refiner is processing a recipe and only has one item left in the inputs after finishing, the input will be consumed with no reward, so as to prevent the player having to deal with loose singular items such as carbon.
When a Personal Refiner of Personal Refiner Mk 2 is active and refining something, the round disc on the exosuit backpack will spin around and the backpack will emit smoke, in addition to making the Portable Refiner's noise.
If you have no free inventory slots available, then you will not be able to unload a Refiner's output, even if the output is Nanites, which are not stored in the inventory.

Additional Information[ | ]

A comprehensive refining/recipe resource is available at Refiner Recipe Search
Assistant for No Man's Sky is an Android and iOS App that includes a list of all Crafting and Refiner recipes, plus a Portal Library and user guides.
Mobile apps to browse recipes are available: Android (Google Play Android), iOS (App Store iOS)
A spreadsheet of Profitable Recipes that takes the products' total values into account can be found here.
A comprehensive spreadsheet of all NEXT recipes can be found here (created by Ket). (July 2018) (Outdated)

Release History[ | ]

NEXT - Introduced to the game.
NEXT 1.51 - Fixed a crash when multiple players put ammunition into a refiner.
NEXT 1.55 - Fixed a number of incorrect refiner recipes. Expanded the available refiner recipes. Wiki notes: It is no longer possible to use other resources as catalysts. The new recipes include the ability to refine asteroid metals (Gold, Platinum, Silver) without a medium or large refiner.
NEXT 1.58 - Fixed a number of issues around the refiner and general inventory systems.
Abyss - Wiki notes: Added recipes for the refiner, including the ability to refine certain underwater materials (Cyto-Phosphate, Crystal Sulphide).
Visions 1.76 - Fixed an issue that could cause Big Ball to become permanently stuck in a refiner output (this fix prevents any new occurrences, existing blocked refiners continue to be blocked).
Visions 1.77 - Fixed an issue where Big Ball would get stuck in the refiner output (any previously broken refiners will now be clear).
Synthesis - Introduced Personal refiner.
NextGen - Quadruple refining process removed.
Echoes - Introduced Personal Refiner Mk 2.