Crude Oil

Details

It weighs almost nothing and stacks to 9,999, so there is no reason not to carry a full stack.

Where to Find Crude Oil

3 Pals drop Crude Oil when defeated or captured, which is usually the faster route if you are already out hunting — the drop list below is sorted by how reliably each one gives it up.

It also turns up in supply drops — best odds are the Grasslands drops at 100%, 10–20 per crate, with 5 other regions carrying it as well.

It also shows up as world loot — crates on the oil rigs, crates on the small oil rig and crates on the large oil rig, usually 5–150 at a time.

Sending a team on the Celestial Sakura Cavern, Dark Cave of Feybreak and Moonflower's Secret Hideout expeditions brings some back without you leaving base.

Two machines turn this from a looted resource into a renewable one. The Crude Oil Extractor is a level 50 technology costing 2 Technology Points, built from 250 Pal Metal Ingot and 50 Circuit Board, and it only functions planted on one of the map's oil fields — which usually means spending a whole base slot on a desert or Sakurajima field. The High-Pressure Crude Oil Extractor unlocks one level later at 51 for 4 Ancient Technology Points and costs 300 Pal Metal Ingot, 50 Circuit Board, 50 Bio Battery and 10 Ancient Civilization Parts, but it draws oil up from deep underground anywhere on the map, so your main base can pump its own supply.

How to Get Crude Oil — Dropped By 3 Pals

Maraith50% · 1Kikit50% · 1Sootseer50% · 1

Using Crude Oil Well

Budget the electricity before you commit to the high-pressure model: its power requirement is rated 3000 against the standard extractor's 2000, so a generator bank with Electricity-suitability Pals rostered on it has to be running first or the pump sits idle. It is also fussy about footing — it refuses any tile with a structure underneath, so leave it on bare open ground rather than setting it into a foundation with the rest of your production line.

Neither pump has a worker slot, so there is no work suitability to match at the machine and no Pal to station beside it — every Pal that matters is back on the generator. Both models also run at exactly the same speed: a barrel takes 8,000 work and the pump grinds through 120 of that per second by itself, which is one Crude Oil roughly every 67 seconds, or about 54 an hour while the power holds. Paying the ancient-parts premium for the high-pressure version buys you freedom of placement and nothing else, so if you already have a base sitting on a field, a second standard extractor is the cheaper way to double output.

The crates are not the only oil on an oil rig — the human garrison carries it too, so shoot your way through the defenders instead of running straight for the loot. On the standard and large rigs each armed hunter has a 30% chance of a single Crude Oil, and the heavyset gatling gunners double that to 60%; on the small rig every defender, gatling gunners included, sits at a flat 15%. Since a rig is staffed by dozens of them, a full sweep adds a respectable stack on top of the crate haul, and the same bodies pay out 30–400 Gold at 40% each plus a 1% roll on a chest key.

Alternatives and Upgrades

Other crafting materials at a similar tier, for when you want to weigh this against the rest of its class:

Hexolite QuartzNightstar SandPure QuartzSulfurCoalChromiteOrePaldium FragmentIron OreCoralum OreSoralitePaloxite

What Crude Oil Is Used For (6)

Menasting Terra Ring×15Flamethrower Fuel×2Missile Ammo×1Wing Cell×20Plasteel×2Frag Grenade Mk2×3