Why use purpose built recharge items?

[MechWarden]

I've played this game for awhile, both really early on for a bit, and of course been playing a lot of it now; and I still wonder why would we bother crafting Oxygen Capsules and Ion Batteries, let alone (the emergency) Life Support Gel.

Even in Survival, it was easier and more practical to just use the base materials than to tie up inventory slots for less versatile and seemingly bulker purpose built craft items (they felt bulky, regardless of what the math might say). You might get more use per unit of resource by spending the effort to craft them up, but there are so many opportunities to get resources that it isn't worth the effort in my point of view.

It is best to have a stack of Oxygen and stack of either Sodium or Sodium Nitrate early on, and call it done for basic needs. I've never had the need to craft any of the items, except for the rare times it was required for building something else, and wasn't near a trade terminal.

Anyone else feel the same way? Am I missing something here? I haven't explored out to other star types yet, so I don't know if those are more harsh systems types and would actually give a person a challenge.

[Bubba Fett]

If you can't find oxygen, life support gel can be crafted from di hydrogen jelly and carbon.
But sodium and oxygen are pretty common so most people just use those.

[Lindy Bomber]

Radiation protection uses uranium which is hard to find and has other uses so I use the ion batteries for that.

[Uueerdo]

Originally posted by Lindy Bomber:

Radiation protection uses uranium which is hard to find and has other uses so I use the ion batteries for that.

Also, Unstable Plasma can eat through your Oxygen stores if you lean on your Plasma Grenades too much.

[jonnin]

but vendors have unstable plasma. the main purpose i know of for these is if you find / buy them they are more efficient, and if you are on survival/PD. I ate through about 500 sodium on one nasty planet. Pre next, they were much better to use in harder modes. Now, its iffy at best.

[columbine]

I don't use the crafted recharge items unless I happen to have them lying around my inventory because I picked them up in a crate or whatever.

Also, I never use the Ion Batteries for anything but transit portals because I'm always building them all over the place and I like to save the batteries for that.

[BaneBlackGuard]

actually, now that we can stack that stuff in personal inventory, they seem pretty useful to me.

[MechWarden]

I admit, Uranium was a bit of a problem to find in stores, but once I did, it was really easy to get a stack or two and be perfectly fine in any irradiate planet. A stack of 250 Uranium is like 15 stacks of Advanced Ion Batteries (in Survival difficulty with S class module) and I can top things off at any time, rather than waiting until the thing to fully deplete just so I don't waste it. Far as I know, we can only stack 5 Ion Batteries of either type.

If I ever used the Geology Cannon/Plasma Grenades, I still might use Oxygen, since that is so easy to get, and I don't really see a need to use it often.

The new patch just hit and haven't found the log for it yet, but it would be funny if they addressed this in the patch, just after I bring it up