Rare resources - usefulness

[Ri0Rdian]

Seems like there are just two groups, one is absolutely excellent, borderline must have and the other is more like... nice to have but I guess I can live without it, doh. And in the latter case it is less about having it and more about the fact that sooner or later you will find a lot of it most likely.
Ok, maybe there are 3 of them that feel sort of borderline between those groups, but closer to the must haves for sure.

Unipolar magnet = clear winner here, saves a ton of steps and hassle, shame it is really rare (black hole, neutron star and white dwarves?)
Optical grating crystal = used for two highly needed items, though the first one saves just some steps that only need stone/glass. I have huge trouble finding this, at least the magnet one I know where to look, after visiting about 40-45 of stars I found it on ONE planet.


Spiniform stalagmite = Saves a whole bunch of steps and is quite hard to find, though on the other hand, most people are overflowing with graphite anyway so maybe not finding some is not such a bad thing because... (below)
Fire Ice = being rare I find it incredibly common, at least every second system has it, but it feels like it is everywhere assuming there is more than 1 planet there. Saves a rather nasty step of having to produce one bothersome resource (sulfuric acid) and a lot of coal. So good for cutting down on the chain, on the other hand, as I said, it does not feel rare at all to me.
Organic crystal = feels similar to Fire Ice as far as cutting down on the chain goes except it also feels more rare to find. Fire ice has better ratio and better outputs though, OC is just 1=1 to crystals so you need much more of them. Will probably has its place forever since this is the first really obnoxious thing to craft otherwise.
Sulfuric Acid= Yes please! Saves you processed oil and while the way to craft it is not too complicated being able to take as much as you want out of an ocean is super nice.


Fractal silicon = really? I mean, not the worst thing to find but assuming it might replace other resource you could have found it is bad news. Not needed, just saves one step and even then the recipe is 4s instead of 2s crafting what the silicon gets... very meh and also feels quite rare on top of that..
Kimberlite = Now you do not have to process Graphite. Hooray. Or not. Very meh too.


Clearly, some resources when found will make me jump with YES! while the latter 2 are more like: This again?! Anyone feels like that?


Also, looking at the recipes, I could see another rare item, most likely some metal to treat Titanium ingots with and make Titanium alloy. Would have to be very rare otherwise there would be barely any use for Sulfuric acid (other than if you run out of the replacement).


Rare resources are quite possibly the most interesting thing this games has going as its addition to the genre, they should think about expanding and improving upon that. Having very late tech recipe require some new rare resources to be processed first in order to use, while still being very easy compared to normal stuff could be another way.



Your thoughts?


Edit:
I do not know how different can the generation be, this is based on my experience from 2 quite different seeds. Seeing how hard limited the Star generation is, and betting the rare resources are most likely tied to star and planet type (possibly both) it should be quite similar to all people.

[Honorable_D]

I got a Fire Ice gas giant, that was really nice. Organic Crystal vein is also something I really want to jack them titanium crystals up. Sulfuric ocean not too shabby.

Heaven't found any of the rest yet. >_>

[Panfilo]

The annoying thing about optical grating crystal is that you'll still need graphene+hydrogen to make the Casimir crystals. However if you happen to get fire ice on the same planet then you're in luck as it'll provide both the graphene and the hydrogen.

I got the spiniform stalagmites on a really diverse planet and one unmentioned advantage is that you can crank it out like crazy with multiple miners+Chem plants vs all the steps making it from scratch.

I see Fractal Silicon on way too many planets. Both that and kimberlite suffer from giving you materials that don't have that many needed recipes in my opinion.

Agreed on a titanium based rare material. One possibility would be an alternate to plane filters to bypass the need for titanium to make quantum chips.

While we're at it perhaps also metallic hydrogen to get hydrogen fuel cells (again, bypassing titanium) and some radioisotope ores you can throw in the particle accelerator for easy Deuterium and other stuff.

[Shedar]

I want oil ocean because why not?

[Stormsong]

Originally posted by Shedar:

I want oil ocean because why not?

That would end up in the "meh" category for me. Actually, if it shared "rolls" with water and sulfuric oceans, reducing my chances of finding a sulfuric, I'd actively dislike oil oceans.

[Nasabot]

I dont like the rare resources in their current state because they are imbalanced.
They either trivialize the game too much or have no meaningful impact.

One of the worst ones is fireIce from gas giants, which also comes in obsene amounts. This makes the whole graphene tree irrelevant and also fire ice is infinite.
Or also sulphuric acid is very bad in this regard.

Rare resources should have smaller benefits, ESPACIALLY if they are infinite.
For instance sulphuric acid:
4x light oil, 8x stone, 4x water
should be
4x sulphuric water(!), 4x stone = sulphuric acid

[mad duck]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2389973620
:)

[Ri0Rdian]

Originally posted by Shedar:

I want oil ocean because why not?

I certainly hope we will see a planet type that has oil as its ocean. Titan-esque planet if you will, though making it crude oil just because there is no methane/ethane in the game. Imagine having as much crude as you can have pumps :D

[Xilo The Odd]

Oil is classified as a "rare" resource as well. i guess rare is the wrong classification, more like unique resource.

that said, Oil when fully tapped can be used to make all the yellow science you could ever need, just add titanium. my long term plan of the original starter world is to make it the sole research crafting and consumption dump, keeping all other color productions to scale with my yellow output. for now, early to mid way in that goal, its gonna be a plastics and sulfuric acid export till i get a sulfuric ocean world in my interstellar chain.

[Bobucles]

A fire ice giant kinda defeats the purpose of spiniform. Direct graphene production means no oil input, which is amazing. The nanotubes are a pretty trivial next step and spiniform adds little to the mix.

Optical grating and organic crystal are pretty similar, they both lead to the same place. Optical grating needs 6x to do the job of 1 organic crystal, but it also saves more steps.

Unipolar magnets are by far the best. It skips green motors AND it skips oil processing in one fell swoop. In fact it can be a huge downside to have your unipolar systems too close to spawn, since that will cripple your unipolar supply.

[RandomEnchanter]

my classifications of the resources into useful and meh results in this
Unipolar magnet - Meh : the rarity of these and the tech level you need to be at to reliably get these into a given system doesn't seem to really necessitate the high need for this. Yes it saves ~ 7 other steps (gear , coil , motor , green motor , sulfur , graphene , and energized graphite ) but you will more than likely be making these anyways for belts. So to me it seems like the hassle of trying to get these shipped to your factory planet or expanding the factory planet out makes this a meh

Optical grating crystal - Useful, mostly for the 3 steps saved (plastic, organic crystal, titanium crystal) because organic crystals are a pain

Oil - Useful. the amount of oil out there is vastly superiour to the amount of organic crystal veins.

organic crystal veins - useful. doesnt negate the need for Oil (read- plastic) though thus isnt that required,

FireIce - Useful (required) so useful and saves so many steps even the dev(s) considers it mandatory in your starter system.

Kimberlite ore - Meh - really saves you 1 step, that should really be a quick jump in the smelters anyways (go from coal into diamond strait). Turning this into some sort of natural plastic vein would be ideal

Spiniform - Meh -two steps saved since you have FireIce access by the time you want this

Fractal silicon - Meh - single step saved, I can understand the want for this, but it is like kimberlite. unless there is future plans for this its a 'why bother?'

Water - not listed but im going to include it. Useful. some systems dont have access to it and shipping it seems.... wasteful. We have hydrogen cant we just make the stuff on some Ozone planet?

Sulfic acid - Useful (included for the same reason as water) saves you several steps and is just better to have access to.


So yah, when looking for a next system i look for fireIce, Oil, and water as MUST haves. nice to haves would be Optical grating crystal, Sulfic acid, organic crystal, and unipolar. Mehs would be all else.

[yes]

Originally posted by RandomEnchanter:

FireIce - Useful (required) so useful and saves so many steps even the dev(s) considers it mandatory in your starter system.

it is not thought, my starter gas giant had hydrogen and deuterium.

[Arcane]

This is a good summary. Would be good to brush it up and post as a guide :)

[Panfilo]

Spiniform would be better if there was a way to recycle nanotubes back into graphene. But there's an annoying amount of things that still need graphene so the 'tubes don't solve all your problems.

[Baalzebul]

Originally posted by Ri0Rdian:

Rare resources are quite possibly the most interesting thing this games has going as its addition to the genre, they should think about expanding and improving upon that. Having very late tech recipe require some new rare resources to be processed first in order to use, while still being very easy compared to normal stuff could be another way.

Your thoughts?

I haven't found any unipolar magnets in the game yet, so I'm not sure how useful it would be. I have many many smelters producing magnets and plates so I''m not sure why I would bother, especially with those stars being so far away from where i am now. And, unfortunately I agree with you that the most of the "rare" resources are just there to eliminate a few steps in the production line.

Specifically there are 2 items that made me jump for joy, and one was the organic crystal veins and the optical grading stones, but I actually ditched the latter. With organic crystals and titanium, you can make titanium crystals which are used for yellow science AND for the production of casimir crystals which could actually replace the need for any optical grading stone (as far as I have seen). I agree that getting scads of sulfuric acid from oceans is a HUGE step up when creating titanium alloy.

So yeah, some of these "rare" resources really only eliminate 1 step (maybe more, I don't know...)

[Panfilo]

I think it also hinges heavily on the combination of resources you have access to. Like on the planets with oceans of sulfuric acid, do they have titanium/iron/silicon? Because if they do then that covers a ton of bases for you.

I want some crystal node that turns into green motors, that would be insanely helpful too lol.