What Is Resource Extraction?
This just refers to the process by which players extract raw resources from the environment. If you've read the economy page you know that raw resources are used to make everything else.
In Starmourn MUD, raw resources are obtained from one of two sources: asteroids or interstellar clouds of gas or very small particles.
Raw Resources
The resources in Starmourn at launch are:
- Diamene - A mineral that conveys multi-dimensional info well.
- Isotropic Duramine - A mineral that makes some substances much harder when bathed in super-heated gas drawn from this.
- Astrium - The base for HDS (High-Density Stabilized) Astrium.
- Stesium - A mineral that becomes extremely rigid under pressure. Used in ballistic ammo and in linear drives.
- Titanium - The core resource used to make paristeel and transteel, which are used in everything from buildings to ship superstructures.
- Magnaril - A mineral capable of holding other materials together almost as if they were highly-magnetic.
- Helium-11 - A form of helium that's capable of super-fluidity at reasonable temperatures.
- Elessium - A gas that stabilizes things like antimatter and dark matter, and can be used to increase the power output of certain things.
- Tritium - A gas used in tritium cores, R-glass, and shield generators.
- Dark Matter - A substance used solely in dark matter matrices for gravitic drives.
- Ultarine - A gas that's the explosive of choice for many kinds of explosives, including starship missiles and grenades.
- Antimatter - Used primarily in antimatter cores for antimatter drives.
- Iriil - A material closely tied to kith, and used for most objects that interact with kith.
Asteroids
Asteroids are where Diamene, Isotropic Duramine, Astrium, Stesium, Titanium, and Magnaril come from.
In order to acquire them, you'll blast off in your starship and locate an asteroid. They'll regularly spawn around Starmourn with different minerals in them.
If you're looking for a particular mineral, you'll then launch a probe to determine what's in the asteroid.
If what's in it is useful to you, you'll then fire a pair of tethers at the asteroid, which will embed themselves in it, attaching it to you.
Now, you'll need to fly that asteroid to a refinery. However, while towing around the asteroid, its mass is added to the effective mass of your ship, making acceleration, deceleration, and turning more sluggish. Not good if pirates are about!
Once you've towed it to a refinery, you'll then pay the refinery (more accurately, its owner) to refine the asteroid into resources for you.
Interstellar Clouds
Clouds are where the other resources come from: Helium-11, Elessium, Tritium, Dark Matter, Ultarine, Antimatter, and Iriil.
Similar to with asteroids, you'll take your ship out and locate a cloud, which will spawn regularly around Starmourn. You'll know what kind of cloud it is, because different clouds are colored differently and because your ship can tell you.
Unlike asteroids though, clouds are large, spanning potentially dozens of rooms. You'll deploy 'scoops' from your ship, which are basically a pair of giant (really large...much bigger than your ship) parachutes that can gather up the cloud material room by room as you fly through the cloud.
Once you have your scoops full, you'll head back to a refinery and pay the refinery to refine it into usable resource for you. Towing scoops isn't as damaging to your ship's performance as towing an asteroid, since they weigh far less, but they will still make turning slower than normal.
Refineries
Refineries are kind of like autofactories (which you can read about here), with the chief difference being that they're available for anyone to use, unlike autofactories, where only the owner produces things with them.
As a refinery owner, the game charges you a certain amount for every resource you produce, differing by resource. You then set the price others pay to refine at your refinery, and the difference between the two is money in your pocket.
As with autofactories, tax rates will come into play, with more successful economies charging higher taxes on autofactories and refineries.
If you haven't read the Economy page, you should definitely do so now.
Ready to sign up for the newsletter?
Get concept art, news before anyone else, and access to beta signups when it's time!
