Many of you have discovered the bane that is resource turnover. Some of you have screamed, cried, and pouted at the fact that your beloved resources have disappeared for what seems like forever! Have no fear, a similar resource is near... or at
least says Raph.
RESOURCE TURNOVER - JULY 7, 2003
I've seen a lot of confusion on this issue, so I thought I'd post a little something on how and why resources turn over so that everyone knows how this works.
Resources are not infinite. They do run out, and for any given resource, it takes between 5 and 8 days or so. Resources come classified into types, as you know, and when a resource expires, we generate a fresh resource of that type. After a resource runs out, there might be a period of scarcity before a new resource of that type is discovered.
New resources might not be of the same quality as the old one. In other words, at any given time, you need to keep an eye on the resource market and make sure that you know what's out there and how available it is. There is room in the system to do a bit of market speculation on old resource types that are no longer available.
When you make a manufacturing schematic, it calls for a precise recipe. That means that it calls for exactly the type of resource that was originally used to make that schematic. Resources running out will therefore result in manufacturing schematics becoming obsolete. This creates a demand for new experimentation and manufacturing schematics, of course, as well as fueling a market for old resources. Over time, we expect to see some resource types that expired long ago but haven't been fully used up become especially valuable commodities.
Resource turnover also, of course, encourages an ongoing need for exploration to find new veins or hot spots for new materials.
Now, I know many of you are concerned about the turnover gating you. The first thing to know is that at higher levels, it is assumed that you will in fact need to travel or do interplanetary commerce in order to obtain the resources you want. You should also be aware that periods of scarcity are built into the game intentionally.
That said, we do have safeguards in place to make sure that people are not completely gated for any length of time. So here's a bit of info from the designer working on the crafting system, so that you can get a sense of the numbers here:
Minerals are always the things we hear about people not being able to harvest, so here's some numbers pulled from the current Resource Tree setup file.
There will always be between 16 to 70 types of mineral resources in the galaxy, with between 16 to 210 pools of these resources spread among the 10 planets.
Of the various metals,
There will always be at least 2 types of steel, with each type existing on at least 8 of the 10 planets. (you could have up to 20 types)
There will always be at least 2 types of iron, with each type existing on at least 2 of the 10 planets. (you could have up to 20 types, with up to 3 planets per type)
There will always be at least 2 types of aluminum, with each type existing on at least 8 of the 10 planets. (you could have up to 12 types)
There will always be at least 2 types of copper, with each type existing on at least 8 of the 10 planets. (you could have up to 18 types)
Of the various ores,
There will always be at least 1 type of Extrusive Igneous ore, with each type existing on at least 1 of the 10 planets. (you could have up to 10 types, with up to 3 planets per type)
There will always be at least 1 type of Intrusive Igneous ore, with each type existing on at least 1 of the 10 planets. (you could have up to 10 types, with up to 3 planets per type)
There will always be at least 1 type of Carbonate Sedimentary ore, with each type existing on at least 8 of the 10 planets. (you could have up to 10 types)
There will always be at least 1 type of Siliclastic Sedimentary ore, with each type existing on at least 8 of the 10 planets. (you could have up to 8 types)
Of the various gemstones,
There will always be at least 1 type of Amorphous gemstone, with each type existing on at least 1 of the 10 planets. (you could have up to 10 types)
There will always be at least 1 type of Crystalline gemstone, with each type existing on at least 1 of the 10 planets. (you could have up to 8 types)
And that's a quick summary of the mineral portion of the resource tree. Hopefully, that will give people a little bit better feel for why things behave the way they do.
Also, another thing players ask about a lot is polymer resource. Without breaking down the rest of the chemical portion of the tree...
There will always be at least 2 types of polymer, with each type existing on at least 8 of the 10 planets. (you could have up to 5 types)
So there you have it. Hope this clarifies things for people!
-Raph Koster,
Creative Director
Thanks to Snarlfang for bringing this to our attention on the message boards.
