Metal Collector — Placement & Crew Notes

Last verified: 2026-10-21 against Pacing & Bugfixing Demo Update (Steam, tagged patchnotes).

Why build a Metal Collector?

Manual metal runs work for minutes, not for a growing grid. Walkthroughs for launch week treat the Metal Collector (or equivalent automated miner name in your build menu) as the bridge between scraping surface ore and feeding construction plus later refineries.

Magic Fuel’s demo patch is the only official sentence we cite about the building by name:

Metal is now collected even faster by crew members assigned to the Metal Collector.

That confirms assignment matters; it does not publish numeric rates.

Where does it fit in the build order?

Place it after your headquarters and power spine, and after ship-linked logistics if you still depend on the Resonant for gaps:

Full narrative: first outpost build order. Keep pipes and storage in mind from logistics, power, water, and compute.

Source: Kourou gameplay reveal (frame ~2:04). Industrial modules at an early outpost; the Metal Collector is not individually labeled in this frame.

How should you place it?

Guidance that survives sourcing rules is positional, not numeric:

• Sit on or adjacent to a productive metal deposit revealed by survey/exploration.
• Add storage within short walking distance so haul jobs do not cross the whole map (Worldeka logistics section, 2026-10-20).
• Assign crew once the building is online; the demo patch is explicit about faster collection when staffed.

The demo patch also notes the starting camera points toward a metal-rich area—use that hint on Daegus before you copy the same layout to later, harsher worlds.

Source: Kourou gameplay reveal (frame ~2:18). Industrial buildings with an information panel open at right; we cannot read which building it describes, so this is context, not a Metal Collector stat card.

What we will not publish yet

• Range, tiles, or deposit compatibility percentages
• Power, water, or compute upkeep numbers
• Output per minute or comparison versus manual mining

Those require menu screenshots or official balance notes. Until then, tune by watching storage fill rates and crew idle time, and rotate specialists using crew, shifts, and morale.

If extraction stops entirely, check storage caps (community guides warn lines stall at 100% storage) before blaming the collector—details in beginner guide.