Resources and Economy
Three kinds of resource Decided
| Kind | Behaves like | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Physical materials | Real items, stored in stacks in buildings, shared within a connected network, carried between networks by trucks, consumed by factories | Basalite, Ferrite, Cuprite, Colite, Iron, Copper, Steel Beams, Ammunition… |
| Electricity | A capacity, not a stockpile. Power plants set a base’s maximum power; buildings draw against it. If you run short, build more plants (which may need more fuel). Later solar plus batteries. | Electricity |
| Evolite | A global research currency. Not physical, not stored or transported, not tied to a base. One balance shared by every player on the map. | Evolite |
Evolite Decided
- Spent only on unlocking technology. It’s never a fuel.
- Collected Evolite goes straight into the global balance. Research can be done from anywhere in the UI (narratively, it happens at the ship). There’s no need to haul Evolite anywhere, except the one-time first sample that must be returned to the ship for study (see technology-and-progression.md).
Sources
| Source | When | How | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calcified Evolite (surface) | Early (Tier 0) | Harvesters, later drills; small deposits (one or two drills fit); currently never runs out | Slow, hard to extract, safe. The peaceful route. |
| Dropped Evolite (dead aliens) | Once fighting starts | Harvesters on Patrol & Collect pick it up; disappears after about 5 min | Requires killing and quick cleanup |
| Live Evolite (hives) | Early, if you fight | Kill defenders, hold the site, Harvesters pop the nest | Fast, but needs military control |
| Evolite Drill (underground) | Mid game (Tier 3-ish) | Big drill anywhere; flat 1× rate across the base area | Huge seismic signature |
| Rich underground pockets | Later, via the underground scanning unlock | Drill placed over a revealed pocket gets a higher rate | Reason to expand to a riskier location |
Rules:
- Killing is never required to progress Decided.
- Drilling on a visible surface deposit gives the big drill no bonus. Surface and underground are separate systems Decided.
- A richer underground pocket shouldn’t make more seismic noise for the same drill and run time. Its downside should come from its location Tentative.
- Early research must have no dependency loop (for example, needing drill-mined Evolite to unlock the drill) Decided.
- Upgrade costs grow exponentially Decided.
- Lore: the aliens evolved around Evolite, which is why the richest areas host hives Tentative.
Why big-drill placement matters Decided
The drill doesn’t have to sit on a deposit. Its default and easiest spot is the middle of your main base, where your power, resources and defenses already are. That’s the WarDogs-style hook: build a fortress, drop the drill in, and make the enemy come to you. Underground scanning later adds a second option: a dedicated outpost on a rich pocket.
Physical resource ladder
| Resource | Tier | Made by / from | Used for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basalite (stone) | 0 | Harvested | All Tier 0 construction; foundations, walls; the backbone of construction |
| Colite | 0 | Harvested / Colite drill | Fuel only, never a building material |
| Ferrite | 0 (harvest) | Harvested | Raw ore; can’t be built with directly, must be refined |
| Cuprite | 0 (harvest) | Harvested | Raw ore; must be refined |
| Iron | 1 | Refinery: Ferrite + Colite fuel | Machines, logistics buildings, defenses |
| Copper | 1 | Refinery: Cuprite + Colite fuel | Fabricators, drills, turrets |
| Basic Components | 1 | Fabricator | Early manufacturing, first ship repair |
| Ammunition | 1 | Fabricator | Turrets, possibly Gun Bots |
| Steel Beams | 2 | From iron | Large structures, defenses, ship repair |
| Wiring | 2 | From copper | Electrical infrastructure |
| Mechanical Parts, Electrical Components | 2 | Fabricator | Machines, generators |
| Silicate → Silicon | 2–3 | Refined | Electronics |
| Motors, Microchips, Precision Components | 3 | Specialized fabricators | Automation, sensors, advanced buildings, ship |
| Advanced Composites, Advanced Electronics, High-Energy Components, Propulsion / Navigation parts | 4+ | — | Late game and ship systems |
Everything from Tier 2 onward is Tentative placeholder. The middle layers (motors, circuits, composites, precision parts) still need real design, because they decide whether optimization stays satisfying for 50 hours.
Resource roles at a glance Decided: Basalite and iron are the construction economy. Colite powers it. Copper, silicon and advanced materials feed production. Evolite unlocks new possibilities.
Three kinds of cost Decided
| Cost | Paid in | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Research (unlock) | Evolite | Expensive; paid once; never lost |
| Construction (build) | Mostly Basalite, some iron | Accessible; must be easy to rebuild |
| Operating (run) | Fuel, power, consumed inputs | This is where most of the economic complexity lives |
- A building costs what it physically contains, not what tier it is. An advanced fabricator can be cheap to build: the breakthrough was learning how, and the expensive part is what it processes.
- End-of-chain buildings that don’t consume their outputs (for example a sensor tower) may need expensive parts like microchips to build, because they don’t eat them later.
- Defensive buildings are different. A turret is a finished product, so advanced turrets can reasonably need costly components. Otherwise rebuilding defenses would be nearly free.
- Keep advanced buildings from being spammed through footprint, power draw, and input needs, not high build costs.
- Why it matters: after an attack you rebuild capacity cheaply from the basics you produce in bulk. Output (stockpiles) is what’s expensive to replace. Knowledge (unlocks) is permanent.
Construction, demolition, rebuild Decided
| Action | Cost |
|---|---|
| Place a construction ghost | Free |
| Cancel an unbuilt ghost | Free |
| Construct a building | 100% of its cost, paid when the crew actually builds it |
| Rebuild a destroyed building over its ruin | 100% (same as new) |
| Demolish a working building | 50% refund (the crew salvages it) |
| Clear a destroyed building’s ruin | Free |
- You can design as far ahead as you like with ghosts. Crews only spend resources at build time. Blueprints work this way.
- Since destroyed material is already gone, the aftermath of an attack is a natural, guilt-free moment to raze and redesign a layout.
Units are free Decided
Vehicles and robots cost no resources. They’re limited by building slots and a respawn/build delay (see units-and-missions.md). Buildings are the investment.
Never stuck Decided
- Recoverable destruction: losing buildings, stock, vehicles and territory is all fine.
- Economic deadlock is never allowed. For example: no coal, so no power, so no way to get coal.
- Guarantees:
- Tier 0 needs no Evolite, no electricity and no refined goods, so it can always be rebuilt.
- Recovery doesn’t depend on any destructible special structure. The Crashed Ship is the single indestructible building. It can always deploy a Scout Drone, a Harvester and an Engineering Crew, and so restart a Basalite/Colite economy.
- Every essential raw resource can always be recovered (Harvesters can gather all four basics).
- The game must be generous enough at the start that the player can’t sink themselves in the first five minutes (for example, by building 15 drones and running out of materials for a base). Build times and cooldowns curb spamming.
- Later tech could add automatic emergency recovery (a gutted base restarting its own Colite and power) Tentative.
Strategy spectrum Decided
- Turtle: run the drill until you lose some walls, shut it down, let the creatures leave, rebuild the walls. Walls become a consumable, like ammo.
- Aggressive: build weapons, kill for Evolite, and clear hives. Your logistics end up safer.
- Hybrid: drill and kill everything it draws in, for double rewards at higher risk.
- Quiet: Harvesters instead of drills, shutdowns, slower but safer. The Doctor’s line.
- Staying on the small resources keeps you at your current tier indefinitely while you handle occasional attacks. Evolite is what moves you up.