Iridium Extractor
A high-temperature refinery that pulls iridium ore out of the system's belts and processes it on-site. It does one thing: feed iridium into your depot, around the clock.
What it does
The Iridium Extractor adds a flat per-minute iridium income to its system. Whatever the rate says, that's how much lands in your depot every minute, even while you're offline.
Higher levels mean a higher rate.
Why it matters
Iridium pays for almost every upgrade in the game. Reactors, sensors, fleet systems, everything sits on an iridium budget alongside palladium. If your iridium income is slow, your whole empire grows slow.
Every claimed system has its own Iridium Extractor. They all run in parallel and they all feed into that system's local depot.
What stops the income
Two things can throttle the rate without an obvious deficit warning:
A full depot. If the system's iridium stockpile is at cap, production stops cold until you spend something or upgrade the depot.
An energy deficit. Like every other structure, the extractor draws on the system's energy grid. If the Reactor can't cover the load, the deficit multiplier slows the extractor's output along with everything else. See Energy.
Strategy
Pair extractor upgrades with depot upgrades. An extractor running into a too-small depot is wasted potential.
Keep the Palladium and Iridium Extractors close in level. Most upgrades cost both resources and letting one fall behind just bottlenecks the queue.
