FIELD NOTE 01
Place the refinery in the loop
Field work creates or exposes resources. The refinery processes materials. Later purchases and progression depend on what the combined system can produce.
That makes refinery efficiency a handoff problem: how quickly inputs arrive, how quickly they are processed and whether outputs are useful now.
FIELD NOTE 02
Measure the bottleneck
Write down input amount, output amount and elapsed cycle or batch time exactly as your build presents them. Observe whether machines wait empty or inputs accumulate.
An empty machine suggests supply or routing may be slow. A growing input queue suggests processing may be slow. This distinction tells you which upgrade deserves comparison.
- Input units available
- Output units produced
- Cycle or batch duration
- Machine idle time
- Input backlog
FIELD NOTE 03
Compare a refinery upgrade
Use before and after throughput only when the unit is the same. If an upgrade changes capacity rather than rate, evaluate how often capacity was constraining you.
Do not convert a qualitative convenience into a fake money-per-minute number. Record it as utility and decide whether the saved attention matters to your play style.
FIELD NOTE 04
Current refinery progression evidence
Fully Operational confirms that more than one refinery can be unlocked. Refined Taste confirms that the full-release system tracks at least 500 refined barrels of pollution.
Neither condition states a recipe, cycle length, production rate, passive rate, multiplier or efficiency percentage. Those fields remain explicitly DATA-GATED.
- Fully Operational — All refineries unlocked
- Refined Taste — Refine 500 barrels of pollution
- No ratio inferred from either achievement
FIELD NOTE 05
Refinery automation is current, formulas are not
The official full-release announcement explicitly includes refinery automation among the launch additions. That makes automation a current feature, not merely a historical developer plan.
The announcement does not state an input resource, input amount, output resource, output amount, cycle time or modifier. Automation therefore strengthens this guide without opening the calculator gate or authorizing a recipe table.
FIELD NOTE 06
Why the numeric calculator remains 404
A trustworthy refinery calculator requires a current conversion with defined input/output units, amounts, cycle time and any modifiers. Current official sources verify the system and milestones but not that numeric contract.
The public calculator remains a real 404 behind a hard data gate. Internally, typed resources, recipes, modifiers, validation and formula tests are ready, but the production dataset contains no fabricated defaults.
FIELD NOTE 07
Current source checklist
The formula checklist captures exact input resource, output resource, amounts, cycle time when used, modifiers, source IDs, current build and checked date. Every record must pass validation before it can produce a result.
When enough formulas are reproducible, the route can become indexable, enter the sitemap, receive contextual links and inherit the existing tool ad layout around—not inside—the interaction.
EVIDENCE LOG