As i started playing I noticed positively that the ressources are aligned with what we know (C, H, O,…).
I then planned on doing something what needed “C” and “H”, and (without really looking before) established a production line that gave me “C” (incinerator) and “H2O” (Water…). I planned on using the “H” from “H20”, as it is a simple step in reality.
BUT not in PU?
What every child could do (take a battery an put the wires into water) is not possible in the science fiction world of PU? I hope some basic conversions (H2O -> H & O in appropriate amount) will be implemented soon.
2. Occurance of ressources
At the moment, planets seem kind of “simple” in kind of ressources. In general just 1-4 ressources, everything else is just impossible. What about the little bar that you already show? Why not (as in reality) give every planet a wide variety of ressources (must not be all) and some are just so sparse that it is not efficient but possibile to harvest them? As soon as the economy grows, no one would harvest those anymore, but you always have a fallback (in case you do not have money) and you have a chance to establish bases far away from commodity exchanges without the need of regular shipments.
(in reality: you could gain gold from earth in germany, but it is just not efficient im comparison to other areas of the world.)
I’m not the game designer on the team, so take this with a grain of salt.
To your first point: The material tree needs to balance realism and game design, with the latter being a more important factor. Game design considerations like balancing or transparency will usually beat realism, although we are trying to approximate realism (with as little damage to game design as possible) with every new iteration. The material tree is far from finished, and your feedback has been heard.
Your argument is rooted in realism - which, again, is a super important factor to us as well -, but designing it this way would result in worse game design imho. The way the resources are distributed right now encourages trading, which is what the game is all about. It might be true that less efficient sources of a resource would become obsolete over time, but the way we envision it, trading for almost all resources should be a requirement from day one.
All for it and I see processes like these become a part of material tree eventually. But what we are currently missing that’s an integral part of your child’s example is the battery: To turn H2O into 2x H and O requires energy, and the “energy system” is yet to be implemented.
Disclaimer: I am well aware of the fact that all production processes require energy to some extend. But you get the idea
About the planetary resource design, i really think that a more diverse occurrance of resources would be pleasable to exist in planets resource spawn. But theres come with new rebuilded system for concentration, that actualy is linear, that somewise would be a log/exponential factor or other formulaes.
Like this exemple: a diference between a gaseous planet of 90% of Hidrogen concentration and a Rocky planet with 20% do exactly a constant* 70% /per day more of it. That impels people to base gaseous for a lot more investment than a rocky one. For just a linear plus factor. That a diferent production Formulae than a linear one would be fit more softly.
And with a non linearized factor, would able people to take others disponible resources without cause a huge interference in economical logistics. enabling people to take some special source without disbalance the efficience factor of cost/production.
For example : someone are allow to take a tiny quantity of a rare ore like AUO, but probabbly the cost of operation of an EXTtrator for this tiny quantity dont be economically favorable/sustentable like a operation of native high concentred ore. But allow people to do specialized itens or buildings, despite of the VERY HIGH divergence of a Cost/prod of this operation and a operation in a native AUO planet + delivery. Demonstrating this possibility despite of this operation be very low economicaly viable.
