SpaceCraft Chemical Factory: Unlock, Supply and the Right Recipes (2026)

The SpaceCraft Chemical Factory is the building that turns Water, Sulfur, Brine Water and farm pulp into industrial compounds. You unlock it with the Plumbing permit for 2,500 credits and build it from 8 Structural Beams, 80 Stainless Plates, 40 Concrete, 5 Pumps and 120 Watertight Pipes. After that it runs on its own and only needs a steady supply of inputs.

This guide walks you through the whole path: which permits come first, what the build really costs in ingots, how to hook the Chemical Factory up, which of its 22 recipes pay off first and which mistakes usually stall production.

🔓 Unlocking the Chemical Factory: the Plumbing permit

In the research tree, the SpaceCraft Chemical Factory sits behind the Plumbing permit on level 5. The permit alone costs 2,500 credits, but it needs two full branches before it. Starting from zero, you pay 5,640 credits across eight permits to get there, according to the tech tree in banrado's SpaceCraft database:

The most expensive step before it is Modular Systems 2 at 2,000 credits. In practice, the SpaceCraft Chemical Factory is not an early-game building. It's the step you take once your balance can handle the first big dent.

Good to know: the same permit also unlocks the Cistern, Pump, Watertight Pipe, Small Liquid Tank and the Simple Hose Pump. So you don't just buy one building, you buy half of your liquid logistics with it, and you need exactly those parts for the build anyway.

⚒️ Build cost: what the SpaceCraft Chemical Factory really eats

You place the building from the build menu. The blueprint asks for five items, worth 2,880 credits in total:

Break that list down to ingots with the recipes your permits unlock, and you end up at roughly 217 ingots plus 16 Silicate and 5 Motors. You won't find this breakdown on any blueprint in the game, but it saves you two trips because you know what to bring:

The 130 pipes are not a typo: 120 go into the blueprint and another 10 disappear into the five Pumps. That makes Copper the biggest item at 105 ingots.

Blueprints make it much cheaper. The Steel Plates blueprint (loot level 4) turns 3 Steel Ingots and 1 Silicon Ingot into 5 Stainless Plates, and another loot level 4 blueprint makes 5 pipes from 1 Aluminum and 1 Copper Ingot. With both, the total drops to roughly 148 ingots. Need more aluminum? Our SpaceCraft bauxite guide covers the ore, and the titanium guide covers the Strong Metal Sheet side.

One more detail from the game data that helps when you rearrange your base: when you tear the building down, you only get a random share back: 36 to 72 Stainless Plates, 60 to 120 Watertight Pipes and 3 to 5 Pumps, plus 8 Steel Scraps and 8 Industrial Rubble. Concrete and Structural Beams don't come back as such. Think the location through once rather than moving it twice.

🔗 Supply: water, power and connections

Unlike the Liquid Extractor, which "can only be assembled over a geothermal pool" according to its description, the SpaceCraft Chemical Factory is not tied to a deposit. You place it freely inside your claimed base area, ideally where the Cistern, storage and drone routes are close by.

Water is the most important input. The Chemical Factory can purify Water from Brine Water, but it won't pull it in on its own: you need a Cistern as a buffer and supply routes that keep Sulfur, Brine Water or pulp coming. How extractors, drones and storage fit together is covered in our guide to finding resources.

On power, we'll be straight with you: the sources we checked give no power figure with a clear unit for the Chemical Factory, so we don't put an estimate here. Use your base's power display instead. It shows consumption against capacity.

🧪 All SpaceCraft Chemical Factory recipes

The current game data (v0.5.25674) lists 22 recipes for the Chemical Factory. Here is the full list with what unlocks each one:

Two recipes give you two products at once: 2 Sulphuric Acid split back into 1 Water plus 1 Sulfur, and 1 Cinnabar gives 4 Mercury plus 4 Sulfur. That's a real safety net when a chain stalls: you can turn an acid surplus back into the inputs you're short on. The two suit chips are what you need for the hot and cold zones covered in our environmental hazards guide.

🎯 Which recipes pay off first

Right after you build the SpaceCraft Chemical Factory, Sulphuric Acid is the obvious first recipe: 1 Water plus 1 Sulfur gives 2 Sulphuric Acid in 9 seconds.

The second easy win is Xenic Oil from Spacekorn Seeds, once you've finished the lab study Spacekorn Seed II. If you already run a Xenic Farm, you have seeds to spare. How to keep them coming is in our guide to Spacekorn and the Xenic Farm. The same goes for Ethanol from Sour Pulp and Thermal Paste from Frost Pulp: both are farm byproducts that just sit in storage without a Chemical Factory.

The Chemical Battery is a trap for the impatient. At 20 Sulphuric Acid per battery it eats a lot of acid, but it needs its own permit for 3,000 credits. That permit comes after Plumbing.

For Mercury, 1 Cinnabar gives 4 Mercury and 4 Sulfur in 2 minutes 24 seconds. The Brine Water route needs 40 units and 6 minutes for only 1 to 3 Mercury, and it only unlocks with the Very Light Alloys permit for 30,000 credits.

⚠️ Common mistakes when setting it up

• Planning for only one input. Almost every recipe needs two or more ingredients at once. If Water runs out, the factory stops, even with 500 Sulfur in storage.
• Placing it too far away. The building can go anywhere in your base area, but every extra drone route costs throughput. Close to the Cistern and storage is almost always better.
• Underestimating Copper. Without blueprints, the 130 pipes alone cost 65 Copper Ingots and the plates another 40. Finding the pipe blueprint saves most of that.
• Working toward the battery without the permit. Buy the 3,000-credit permit first, then stockpile acid, not the other way around.
• Tearing it down and rebuilding. You only get part of the plates, pipes and pumps back, and no Concrete or Structural Beams. Pick the spot before you build.

📦 What changed since September

The workstation rework previewed on August 21, 2026 went live with Community Update #1 (v0.4.24444) on September 16, 2026. The Workshop and Smelter now keep crafting after you leave, and a queue handles up to 10 minutes of crafts including intermediate products. The Chemical Factory already ran unattended before that.

The same update added the Advanced Warehouse at Tech level 3 with 5,000 SU and up to 12 route drones, and reworked Technology XP. According to spacecraft.tools, the Chemical Factory grants XP for crafted Chemical Batteries (tiers at 15, 60, 200 and 500) and Levinium Ingots (20, 80, 250 and 600), plus 9 XP on first deployment. More SpaceCraft guides are on the SpaceCraft overview.

❓ FAQ: SpaceCraft Chemical Factory

How much does it cost to unlock the SpaceCraft Chemical Factory?

The Plumbing permit costs 2,500 credits. With all prerequisites, the path adds up to 5,640 credits across eight permits.

Does the Chemical Factory need a specific deposit to build on?

No. Unlike extractors, you can place it anywhere inside your base area. Staying close to the Cistern and storage just helps throughput.

How much power does the Chemical Factory use?

The sources we checked give no power figure with a clear unit. Check consumption in your base's power display.

Do I get the materials back when I tear it down?

Only partly and at random: 36 to 72 Stainless Plates, 60 to 120 Watertight Pipes and 3 to 5 Pumps, plus scrap. Concrete and Structural Beams are lost.

How many recipes does the Chemical Factory have?

22 in the current game data. Four of them are pure conversions between Water, Brine Water, Sulfur, Sulphuric Acid, Cinnabar and Mercury.

Why can't I see the Chemical Battery recipe?

Because it needs its own permit for 3,000 credits, which comes after Plumbing. The building alone isn't enough.

As of October 2026, SpaceCraft Early Access v0.5.25674. Checked against the spacecraft.tools game database (recipes, unlocks, dismantle yields, Technology XP), banrado's own SpaceCraft database (permit tree) and Shiro Games' official Steam patch notes for Community Update #1 (September 16, 2026). The ingot breakdown is our own calculation from the recipe data. SpaceCraft is in Early Access, so recipes, costs and permit prices can change with any patch.