How To Get Carbon In Astroneer

Carbon is a refined resource in Astroneer.

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Output	Input	Module
Carbon	Organic	Smelting Furnace

Carbon is used to craft the following items:

Carbon can be used with a Medium Generator to produce Power.

Carbon gives 75 bytes when placed in a Research Chamber.

Carbon provides more power overall than a nugget of Organic.

Organic fuels a Small Generator for 120 seconds at 2U/s, which produces 240 Units.
Carbon, placed in a Medium Generator, runs for 120 seconds at 9U/s and produces 1080 Units.
Smelting Organic into Carbon only takes 60 Units in a Smelting Furnace, and consequently raises its effective power output by 780 Units.
Using a Soil Centrifuge takes 121.5 Units to make 4 or 8 Organic. Per Organic power cost is 30.4 for 4 and 15.2 for 8.

When planning for long trips, Carbon has the highest consumable power yield per single T1 slot of any item in the entire game, with a few exceptions;

The tier 2 slot that a Medium Generator takes up is effectively 24 tier 1 slots that could be used by a Medium Storage Silo to hold Organic and Small Generators.
Consequently, it's possible to carry more energy per storage space used by placing Organic instead of Carbon if space is limited.
The ratio flips above 12 spaces used; 12 T1 spaces worth of Organic or Carbon produce almost exactly the same amount of power, including the overhead of the space the generator takes up. An easy way to remember is that if you must carry more than 12 Organic for portable power, you will be able to store more total energy by using a Medium Generator instead. ;)

In Update 0.10.1 Coal was removed from the game and replaced with Carbon.
Coal's purpose in the game was as a solid fuel which powered the Medium Generator, even though it was generally thought to be superfluous in the main game flow; As a trade resource it was as valuable as titanium, making it nonetheless exciting to discover.

v · d · e Resources

Natural Resources	Soil • Compound • Resin • Organic • Clay • Ammonium • Graphite • Quartz • Laterite • Malachite • Sphalerite • Wolframite • Lithium • Hematite • Titanite • Astronium

Refined Resources	Carbon • Glass • Ceramic • Aluminum • Copper • Tungsten • Iron • Zinc • Titanium

Atmospheric Resources	Hydrogen • Argon • Methane • Nitrogen • Helium • Sulfur

Composite Resources	Rubber • Plastic • Aluminum Alloy • Tungsten Carbide • Graphene • Diamond • Hydrazine • Silicone • Explosive Powder • Steel • Titanium Alloy • Nanocarbon Alloy

Limited Time Resources	Spookysquash Sample • Squasholine • Attapetrol • Noxothane

Other Resources	Scrap • EXO Chip • Power • Oxygen