I'm just going to go ahead and mark this question as solved 

Interesting discussion I stirred up though!

Maybe TN materials are like semiconductor materials in that their properties allow the creation of new types of products or improvements to existing ones.  Most of our homes are full of these products and the majority of them contain only a small percentage of actual semiconductor material.  Unless your doors are made of pure gallium arsenide and duranium of course.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_materials

. . . which magically appears on a barren world after only hauling the 2-5% TN materials there. . .  yes correct

No, which is included in the installation 'package.'

The installation takes up, say, 25000 tons.The TN materials only took up about 1200 tons.The rest of the installation didn't 'magically appear' anywhere, it was transported on the ship.Isn't that extra tonnage the very thing you were complaining about? Why would you think you would need to make it magically appear on the planet it is delivered to if it's obviously already on the ship, taking up space? =P

Show me any modern complex design where this effect is larger then the extra amount of wasted raw materials needed to build it that disappears during refinement! It does not exist.  

My point still stands that a TN minerals used should take up both more mass and more volume then their end product shipped for delivery.

An oil refinery probably would take up more space 'packed' than the refined materials used to make its various components.

But space is just one factor.Installations aren't built solely out of TN materials.They use ordinary metals and plastics and glass and many other materials in their construction.They aren't building the walls out of duranium. The TN materials are used for specific technologies. Duranium is very hard, so it is probably used for particular factory components that need the strength that non-TN materials could not have provided. Which is why a TN construction factory is more efficient than a non-TN factory.

Who in their right mind does this?

Have you seen any company selling houses or "installations" in reality transport the entire building from their factory in one piece? No they transport the walls / beams in a very efficient manner without empty space and assemble it on spot.

You even do this with furniture now thanks to companies like IKEA.

It's an insult to my intellect to claim that they are not capable of doing this in the future

Of course it's broken down.  But that doesn't mean it's flat packed.  You can't flat pack a water heater.  Or a fridge.  Or a reactor.  Or a great many things.  Installations aren't just a series of walls.  Anything of sufficient complexity is going to become less and less efficient in the space it takes up, because not everything is flat.  A lot of things incorporate air volume in their very design (like the aforementioned water heater).

Also worth noting that a fist-sized lump of clay can actually make a pretty large pot.  Installations are mostly empty space.  When you are transporting an installation, a lot of the tonnage is 'volume' more than it is 'weight. '

Who in their right mind does this?

Have you seen any company selling houses or "installations" in reality transport the entire building from their factory in one piece? No they transport the walls / beams in a very efficient manner without empty space and assemble it on spot.

You even do this with furniture now thanks to companies like IKEA.

It's an insult to my intellect to claim that they are not capable of doing this in the future

That is 4800 tons of TN minerals. Presumably, the rest is regular old steel and concrete construction materials, or just air, as volume and weight are combined in terms of ship design.

And you can explain it away by any kind of sci fi fluff too, but it still doesn't stop it from being deeply illogical that I can move 10 ton to a barren planet and from those 10 tons build 250+ ton worth of building!

It also ruins my immersion when most of my freighters doesn't carry raw resources

But I guess for that to be feasible you would have to change some core functions of the game so that civilians either can be contracted to move resources or move them autonomously to where the needs are the greatest for you to buy expensive from a "civilian" market.

Each point of minerals weighs 2 tons, I don't really know why, so a standard 5000 ton hold can hold 2,500 minerals.
Also the wiki needs love as it says "Most planetary installations, such as factories, mines, terraforming installations etc., weigh 25,000 tons but can be disassembled into parts of 5,000 tons each and transported separately"
I was under the impression that terraformers and research centers weighed significantly more.

I don't like that balance to be honest. Raw minerals should always take up more space/mass then refined products for logic and consistency.

But here you have refined products like a Research center take up 125'000 tons but the minerals to build it only takes up 4'800 ton (3.8%!)

Each point of minerals weighs 2 tons, I don't really know why, so a standard 5000 ton hold can hold 2,500 minerals.
Also the wiki needs love as it says "Most planetary installations, such as factories, mines, terraforming installations etc., weigh 25,000 tons but can be disassembled into parts of 5,000 tons each and transported separately"
I was under the impression that terraformers and research centers weighed significantly more.