AETHUS Kaolinite Ore Locations, Smelting, and Uses

In AETHUS, kaolinite ore is mined from metallic cavern nodes using your drone laser. Smelting this mineral produces kalinite bars, which supply essential components for crafting benches, mining explosives, automated drill bits, and outpost structural frames.

Where to Find Kaolinite Ore Nodes

Deposits of raw kalinite ore appear in the outer caverns directly beneath the surface landing site. When exploring the cavern entrance, aim Roland’s mining laser directly at the dark metallic wall clusters. Roland fires the beam to crack the formation, allowing Maeve to pick up the loose mineral chunks.

Cavern exploration requires monitoring suit oxygen levels. Near the cave mouth, fresh air flows freely from the surface, replenishing life support tanks automatically. Venturing deeper toward the drilling sites depletes oxygen rapidly until temporary oxygen domes or permanent habitat safe zones are established.

Resources in the outer caverns regenerate naturally over time. Periodic geological tremors shake the subterranean tunnels, resetting harvested mineral nodes. Players can also deploy adapted terraforming charges through the quake maker facility to trigger immediate tectonic shifts and respawn depleted clusters.

Smelting Kalinite Bars at the Outpost

Raw ore cannot be used in construction until it is refined into metal bars. While the early makeshift forge relies on melting scrap with biomass fuel, processing mineral ore requires building an electric basic smelter inside an energized habitat.

Powering the smelter requires connecting your habitat to an active energy unit, such as the radioisotope thermoelectric generator found near the first cavern node. Once placed on the outpost floor, the basic smelter draws electric grid power to smelt raw kalinite ore directly into solid bars without consuming organic fuel.

The basic smelter handles early minerals but does not process precious metals like gold or meteorite ore. Maeve must construct a standard smelter at higher tech tiers when moving deeper underground to areas where to find gold.

Crafting Applications and Equipment Upgrades

Kalinite bars form the foundation for mid-tier outpost engineering and heavy exploration gear. Maeve must forge two bars to build the outpost crafting bench, unlocking advanced assembly recipes for cavern clearing and structural expansion.

Creating mining explosives allows Maeve to clear collapsed tunnel rockfalls, such as the cave-in obstructing access to the abandoned research module. Solazine, the second ingredient in explosive production, is obtained by processing sandstone blocks inside a powered stone crusher.

Corporation representative Trudy also issues delivery contracts via the trade node for assembled kalinite frames. Completing these delivery requests yields credits that help fund upgrades and outpost blueprints, including infrastructure like the water pump and expanded crew quarters.

Automating Ore Extraction at Cavern Drill Sites

Players can automate resource gathering rather than mining every node by hand. Cavern drill site 2 contains heavy excavation machinery set up specifically for sandstone and kalinite deposits.

To restore an automated drill, insert a crafted kalinite drill bit into the machine's maintenance slot and deploy a cargo drone. The drone hauls harvested raw ore directly up to the outpost Cargo Bay Mark 1 on the surface, keeping smelters stocked while Maeve investigates deeper planetary mysteries.