The standard Silica recipe
Silica is the only item in the game that converts Raw Quartz into a bulk ingredient, and the base recipe is simple:
| Recipe | Machine | Cycle | Inputs (per craft) | Inputs (per min) | Output |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Silica (standard) | Constructor | 8 s | Raw Quartz 3 | 22.5 Quartz | 5, 37.5/min |
| Cheap Silica (alternate) | Assembler | 8 s | Raw Quartz 3 + Limestone 5 | 22.5 Quartz + 37.5 Limestone | 7, 52.5/min |
| Distilled Silica (alternate) | Blender | 6 s | Limestone 5 | 50 Limestone | 27, 270/min |
| Alumina Solution byproduct | Refinery | 6 s | Bauxite 12 | 120 Bauxite | 5, 50/min |
“Silica: 3 Raw Quartz per craft, 8 s in a Constructor, 5 out, 37.5 per minute” — the row mirrored from the satisfactory.wiki.gg recipe table into
src/data/satisfactory-recipes.json.
37.5 Silica per minute per Constructor is the default, and it is unlocked early: the recipe appears with MAM Quartz Research and is also available at Tier 7 - Bauxite Refinement. Three Raw Quartz makes five Silica, so the ratio inside the recipe is 0.6 quartz per silica.
That number is the whole story of this item. Silica is cheap in machines and expensive in quartz — and quartz is one of the rarer resources on the map. Every alternate below exists to reduce the quartz per silica, and one of them removes quartz from the recipe entirely.
Quartz and limestone cost per silica
Push each recipe back to raw resource and the differences are stark:
| Recipe | Quartz per silica | Limestone per silica | Output per machine |
|---|---|---|---|
| Silica (standard) | 0.60 | 0 | 37.5/min |
| Cheap Silica | 0.43 | 0.71 | 52.5/min |
| Distilled Silica | 0 | 0.19 | 270/min |
| Alumina byproduct | 0 (2.4 bauxite) | 0 | 50/min |
Distilled Silica is the outlier: 5 Limestone becomes 27 Silica in a 6-second Blender cycle, 50 limestone per minute into 270 silica per minute, with no quartz at all. Per silica it costs 0.19 limestone — a rounding error next to the standard recipe’s 0.6 quartz.
That single recipe changes what a silica line is. Instead of a quartz outpost with a handful of Constructors, you build a Blender next to a limestone node and get 270/min from one machine — the equivalent of seven standard Constructors.
Machine counts for real targets
| Target silica | Standard Constructors | Cheap Assemblers | Distilled Blenders | Quartz needed (standard) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 37.5/min | 1 | 1 | 1 (with 232/min spare) | 22.5/min |
| 75/min | 2 | 2 | 1 | 45/min |
| 150/min | 4 | 3 | 1 | 90/min |
| 540/min | 15 | 11 | 2 | 324/min |
The last row is the practical argument for Distilled Silica. Two Blenders produce 540 silica per minute; the standard route needs fifteen Constructors and 324 quartz per minute to match it. If you are feeding a large aluminum base, the Blender route is not a marginal upgrade — it is a different factory.
The catch is the Blender itself: it is a Tier 7 - Control System Development building, it is large, and it draws serious power. Distilled Silica is a late recipe for late problems.
Where silica actually goes
Silica looks like an electronics item, but its biggest consumer by far is aluminum:
| Consumer | Silica per min | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Aluminum Ingot (standard) | 75 | 5 per craft, 60 ingot/min output |
| Silicon High-Speed Connector (alternate) | 37.5 | 37.5/min alongside 90 Quickwire |
| Silicon Circuit Board (alternate) | 27.5 | 11 per craft, 12.5 boards/min |
| Non-Fissile Uranium | 25 | nuclear chain |
| Blade Runners | 20 | equipment |
| Fine Concrete (alternate) | 15 | limestone-saving concrete |
| Infused Uranium Cell (alternate) | 15 | nuclear alternate |
The Aluminum Ingot draw dominates. Every Foundry running the standard ingot recipe eats 75 silica per minute for 60 ingot per minute, which is exactly two standard Silica Constructors. A six-Foundry aluminum block — the size needed for a 240/min Aluminum Casing line — needs 450 silica per minute.
That is twelve Constructors on the standard recipe, or under two Distilled Blenders. This is precisely the moment most players switch.
The Silicon Circuit Board and Silicon High-Speed Connector alternates are the second market. Both swap plastic or copper for silica, so a base that goes heavy on those recipes turns silica into an electronics input as well as an aluminum one. If you are running Silicon Circuit Boards at 12.5/min per Assembler, each machine wants 27.5 silica per minute.
Put that on a per-board basis and it is 2.2 silica and 2.2 copper sheet per board. Compare the standard recipe, which needs 2 copper sheet and 4 plastic, and you can see exactly what the swap does: it trades an oil dependency for a quartz dependency at almost identical copper cost. In a base where the oil block is already at its limit for Computers, that trade is the cheapest way to grow board output without laying another refinery.
The Silicon High-Speed Connector is the other conversion: 37.5 silica per minute per machine against 90 Quickwire and 3 Circuit Boards. Two of those machines consume 75 silica per minute, which is the same load as an entire Aluminum Ingot Foundry — so a combined aluminum and connector block needs its silica sized for both, not for whichever line was built first.
Building a silica line that scales
- Match the row to the Foundry count. 75 silica per Foundry is the ratio. Two Constructors per Foundry, or one Distilled Blender per 3.6 Foundries.
- Keep quartz for the recipes that need it. Only Distilled Silica removes quartz entirely. Everything else — including the Silicon Circuit Board — still consumes Raw Quartz somewhere, so do not dismantle the quartz line when you unlock the Blender.
- Feed limestone from a dedicated miner. 50 limestone per minute per Blender is modest, but two Blenders plus a Fine Concrete line on the same node adds up. Check the node before you build.
- Sink the surplus at 20 points. Silica is worth only 20 points at the AWESOME Sink, so overflow sinking is a last resort. Unconsumed silica usually means the aluminum Foundries are under-built, not that you made too much.
The quartz side of the chain is covered in the quartz automation guide, and the aluminum side in the bauxite processing guide. To scale the tables above to a specific target, the production ratio walkthrough shows the division steps.