Do I need thousands of ore?

[Tom Diepstraten]

There are a LOT of those 2x2 ore balls in the game, and I could put drills on all of them. My question is if I really need more than like 1,000 copper, tin, iron, scarlet, etc. If I do I'd obviously like to get drills on those sooner rather than later

[Sotanaht]

Depends. You can definitely finish all the bosses with less than 1000 each no problem. But if you like to craft items that might not actually be strictly necessary, or if you do a lot of building, you will likely need a few thousand of several of them.

The legendary pick requires 400 gold and 800 scarlett, octarine, and galaxite to craft, but it's mostly outclassed by the legendary drill anyway. Portals require 100 each of Copper, Iron, and Octarine and it can be very useful to have several of them. Vehicles (go karts and boats) typically require a few hundred bars each and you might want several if you use them. Upgrading equipment can get expensive as well.

[chaucer]

depends on how much automation you want to do and how much equipment upgrades.

[Tom Diepstraten]

Cool, well my one group of drill per ore type is probably sufficient then, but maybe a second set just to be sure. But no need to tap the 20 copper balls then

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by Tom Diepstraten:

Cool, well my one group of drill per ore type is probably sufficient then, but maybe a second set just to be sure. But no need to tap the 20 copper balls then

Definitely. Unless you are building mega-projects or trying to collect every item upgraded to +19, the only reason you might need more than 2 balls is just to speed up production.