Resource

Behind every battle in From the Depths there is an intricate resource gathering and resource processing mechanism at play. This involves harvesting raw materials from hotly contested ‘Resource Zones’, processing them into ammunition, fuel and spare parts and supplying them to the front line war machines. A machine can be built to mine, process and fight but a jack of all trades is a master of none.

There is one type of raw resource called Material. Materials can be easily found in resource zones. In order to gather out of a resource zone, one must have an engine and a resource gatherer(s). As long as one has enough power, the gatherers will automatically collect resources from the zone.

Plans are in motion to implement a ‘tech tree’ where certain game modes (and the single player campaign) may involve processing rare elemental resource into research to unlock better equipment.

A skill tree and trait tree in the character sheet [Z] is in progress. Some skills and traits improve the efficiency of the resource gathering and processing.

Resources are gathered and stored using blocks in the Resources tab. Stored resources such as ammunition and fuel behave as expected, in that they explode violently when destroyed. Be mindful of this when designing your vessels.

Types

Resource Points (RP)

Resource Points (RP) is a measure of the overall value of resources. It is used to set limits in story missions and sets experience gain.

Raw resource

Type	RP per unit	Produced by
Material	1	Resource Gatherer or Oil Drill

Material

Found in resource zones and can be processed into other resources.

Processed resources

Ammo

Ammo is consumed by All weapon types except Laser and Particle Cannons

Battery

Battery energy is produced by fuel engines, steam engines and RTGs, and can be turned into power using an electric engine or used directly in Lasers, Railguns, and Particle Cannons.

Fuel

Fuel is consumed by fuel engines and Custom Jet Engines.

Power

Power is produced by fuel engines, and is consumed by various propulsion systems, lasers, and shields

Raw resource gathering

Resource zones

Raw resources are harvested from resource zones. Each resource zone has for each resource a growth rate $g$ and can "store" a maximum amount of resources $R$. The rate at which a resource zone generates resources depends on its current resources $r$ and these two parameters:

$\frac{0.1 g R}{\max \left(10, r \right)}$

Resource generation is therefore maximized when the current resources reaches 10. This maximum rate is

$\frac{g R}{100}$

Extraction

Extraction is performed by Resource Gatherers and Oil Drills.

	Resource Gatherer & Oil Drill
Resources	Material
Gathering rate per component	$0.05 \sqrt{r}$
Steady-state resource level	$\left(\frac{2 g R}{n}\right)^{2/3}$
Steady-state extraction rate (when below maximum)	$0.05 n^{2/3} \left(2 g R \right)^{1/3}$
Number of components needed for maximum extraction rate	$N = \frac{2 gR}{10^{1.5}}$

These formulas assume continuous gathering. Results in practice may be slightly different as the game operates on discrete updates.

Example: Neter starting zone

Resource	Maximum	Growth	Maximum rate
Material	?	?	?

Buffs

The Miner buff increases both the gathering rate and the amount of resources produced for a given amount of resources taken from the resource zone.

Storage

Standard resource storages come in the following sizes:

• 1x1x1 (1m³)
• 1x1x2 (2m³)
• 2x2x1 (4m³)
• 2x2x2 (8m³)

Each cubic meter stores 500 units of material.

Additionally, there are "Coal Piles". The standard coal-pile is 2x2x1 and stores 1750 material. The large coal pile is 3x2x2 and stores 5250 material. Both provide just 437,5 material per m³, but have higher health than standard material storage.

Transfer

Resources from wrecked ships can be picked up within 500 m.

Transfer range is 1 m per 100 total storage capacity (including both raw and processed resources), but no less than 100 m and no greater than 2000 m. Maximum transfer range is therefore reached at 200k storage, or 100 cubic metres of raw storage.

These can be increased to up to 300% by the Faction Logistics buff.

Resource processing

Ammunition

• An Ammo Processor converts 5 material to 20 ammo every 2 seconds.
• Each Ammo Barrel/Box regenerates 1 ammo per second.

Fuel refining

Material can be refined into fuel by using refineries.

Refineries cannot operate underwater and are more effective at low altitudes and kept vertical.

Refineries have a maximum part number of 100, excluding the refinery still itself.

Efficiency and process time

A fuel refinery converts material to fuel in a series of regular process cycles. Each unit of material consumed produces a number of units of fuel specified by the "efficiency". Each cycle consumes 10 units of material and takes an amount of time specified by the "process time".

Let $R$ be the number of cRackers, $O$ be the number of cOkers, $D$ be the number of Desalters, and $y$ be the altitude of the refinery.

The efficiency is:

$\frac{10 \left(0.5 R + 1\right) \left(0.3 O + 1 \right) }{\max \left(\frac{y}{5}, 1 \right)} 1.1^{\min \left( D, 1 \right)}$

The process time is:

$\left( 1.5 R + 1 \right) \left(0.6 O + 1 \right) 1.2^{\min \left( D, 1 \right)}$

Dangerous Gas

Refineries have a Dangerous Gas level. When the Dangerous Gas level is above 50, the refinery will take damage.

Over each period of about two seconds, Dangerous Gas increases by 0.4 times the efficiency. Tilting the Refinery induces extra Dangerous Gas---up to 20 per period at horizontal or worse.

Dangerous Gas is mitigated by the following:

Component	Reduction in Dangerous Gas per period
Base	$0.5 + 0.5 \sqrt{\text{Dangerous Gas}}$
Desalter	0.5
Flare	0.5
Flare with Desalter	1.5

Flares do not have to be adjacent to the Desalter to benefit; they merely need to be connected to the same Refinery.