Resources
Everything starts as something you dug out of the ground or cut down. Ores are the deep end: every world invents its own, and what an ore is good for comes down to five numbers.
Ores
No two worlds have the same ores. These pages explain how they work, so you can judge any ore you find.
How Ores Work
Every world invents its own ores, each with a name, a colour, a tier and five properties. Bare hands can't break any of them.
Ore Tiers
Common, Uncommon, Rare and Exotic. Higher tiers are harder to mine and better at almost everything.
Ore Properties
Hardness, Density, Energy, Reactivity and Combustion. Each one decides something different about whatever you make from the ore.
Signature Ores
Four ores, one per planet family, each 88–100 in a single property. No ordinary ore comes close, and the Warp Drive needs all four.
Coal
What a fuel ore becomes in a smelter: a dense black lump that burns far longer and harder than the raw ore.
Ground
Rock
The commonest block in the game, and half of every early recipe. Your hands can break it, slowly.
Dirt and Grass
The soil of living worlds. A spade moves it quickly, and a hoe turns it into a field.
Sand
Loose ground that falls when nothing holds it up. Melt any kind of sand in a smelter and you get glass.
Sandstone
Sand that's been under its own weight long enough. It doesn't fall, so it's what a dune stops pouring on.
Snow
The top layer of frozen worlds. Soft and quick to dig.
Ice
Frozen water, and the ground of the coldest worlds. Four of it go into a Coolant Jacket.
Crystal
A hard, glassy block covering crystal deserts and crystal moons. The Warp Drive needs four.
Hot Stone
Stone down where it's hot: darker, and shot through with red. It's how you know you've reached the deep.
Lava
It pools on the floors of the deep caverns, and it glows.
Water
Lakes and seas you can swim in, fish in, boat across and carry home in a bucket. Not something you can breathe in.
Wood and plants
Wood
Logs from trees, in plain, pale and dark. The first thing you gather and the first thing you build with.
Trees
Where wood and leaves come from. They fall when you cut them, and saplings grow new ones.
Wild Plants
Grass tufts, flowers, shrubs, bushes, fronds and pods. The ground cover of every world, and some of it bears berries.
Aurora Bloom
A glowing crystal that grows out of open ground while an aurora is overhead, and is gone by morning.