It won't be long until you've learned the ins and outs of Wolfram and Titanium in StarRupture, rapidly improving upon the automated miners you'll have set up during the tutorial. Soon enough, though, you'll need truckloads of Calcium, and you won't have any pointers as to where to look.
Whatever you do, don't waste time endlessly mining meteorites for only a handful of Calcium Ore. For context, you need a whopping 1,000 Calcium to unlock the Smelter Calcium Block upgrade in the Recipe Station, and even more to create the Calcite Sheets and Calcite Blocks required to level up the Moon Energy corporation from level three to four. The answer is simple: you need an automated Calcium miner, so here's what you should do.
How to get Calcium in StarRupture
While Calcium can be found in small amounts in both small and large meteorites, what you're really looking for is Calcium Ore deposits, which are large, sandstone ledges often with puddles on the surface.
You'll find one Calcium Ore deposit almost directly north of the orbital lander where you start the game, and another directly east. If you have the map upgrade, the Calcium veins appear as large sandy patches:
However, it's not as simple as just mining it with your laser. Given the distance from the starting location where you'll make a base during the tutorial, you'll now need to make a second base further away (don't forget to bring some food and water with you). If you're anything like me, you've likely forgotten how you actually do that:
- Build a Base Core near the Calcium vein (you'll need to break a large meteorite for its heart).
- Place power generators like solar panels around the Base Core to provide electricity to the area.
- Build an Ore Excavator on any of the deposits.
- Create rails from the Ore Excavators to a deposit of any kind, such as a Smelter, Fabricator, or Orbital Cargo Launcher.
Once that's all set up, your excavators should start digging up the Calcium, which you can then collect from the miner for the Smelter Calcium Block upgrade in the Recipe Station. Then you can start creating Calcium Blocks en masse, turn them into Calcite Sheets and so on, just like you'll have done with Wolfram and Titanium.
