Production Chains

The 45 resources in Outer Directive are organized into five tiers. Each tier builds on the one below it, creating supply chains that span the entire galaxy.

The Five Tiers

Tier 1: Raw Materials

Extracted directly from planetary deposits. Iron Ore, Silicon, Carbon, Copper, Water. Found everywhere, consumed in massive quantities. The foundation of all production.

Tier 2: Processed Materials

Refined from Tier 1 inputs. Iron Plates, Silicon Wafers, Copper Wire, Carbon Fiber, Purified Water. Requires a Basic Refinery. Used in all intermediate and advanced recipes.

Tier 3: Components

Assembled from Tier 2 materials. Circuit Boards, Structural Alloys, Polymer Composites, Power Cells, Optic Arrays. Requires an Assembly Plant. The building blocks of ships and advanced structures.

Tier 4: Advanced Materials

Rare resources found only in Outer Ring and Lawless space. Plasma Isotopes, Quantum Crystals, Neutronium, Dark Compounds, Bio-Catalysts. Requires specialized extraction and Advanced Refineries.

Tier 5: Capital Components

The rarest and most valuable. Capital Drive Cores, Sovereignty Modules, Titan Plating, Jump Bridge Arrays, Dreadnought Reactors. Requires a Capital Assembly Array and inputs from all lower tiers.

Extraction Mechanics

Resources are extracted from planetary deposits using Mining Extractors (for solid resources) and Atmospheric Collectors (for gas giants). Each deposit has three properties:

Type: Which resource it contains.
Quality: Extraction rate multiplier from 0.5x to 2.0x. Higher quality deposits yield more per cycle.
Volume: Total extractable units. When depleted, the deposit is gone permanently.

Deposit quality tends to increase with distance from Core space. The best deposits are in Lawless zones, which is the primary driver of frontier expansion.

Key Recipes

Here are the foundational recipes every player should know:

10 Iron Ore→5 Iron Plates(Basic Refinery)

8 Silicon→4 Silicon Wafers(Basic Refinery)

3 Iron Plates + 2 Copper Wire→1 Circuit Board(Assembly Plant)

5 Iron Plates + 3 Carbon Fiber→2 Structural Alloys(Assembly Plant)

4 Circuit Boards + 2 Power Cells→1 Ship Computer(Advanced Assembly)

10 Structural Alloys + 2 Neutronium→1 Capital Frame(Capital Assembly Array)

Every recipe has a cycle time. Higher-tier facilities process faster. Multiple facilities can run in parallel, limited only by your power supply and input availability.

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