Exclusive Planet-based Resources & Technologies Ideas

I originally posted this on the reddit page about 6 months ago, but I decided to post it here as well.

After reading a suggestion post about exclusive planet-based resources, I brainstormed about what kind of resources could be found and where. I came up with 5 new planetary ores, 5 space-based ores, and a minor change to 2 existing ores, a rebalance to weapon systems, and an end-game exclusive item. Each Planet gets 2 different types of ore and to get the end game power source, an astronaut or team will have to mine on at least 3 to 4 different planets. The suggested items are, In Real Life, either already existing, within the realm of possibilities, or theoretically possible (we already have efferent ion thrusters, artificial gravity generators, and theoretical jump drives in game).

Materials

Helium-3

Helium-3 is mostly found on barren Moons and planets with a thin atmosphere like Europa. Gram for gram, Helium-3 is the most energetic power source in the universe. It is combined with hydrogen in a Fusion Reactor producing lots of energy.

Coal

Coal is mostly found on Earth (in the high latitudes) and Alien Planets due to their eras of life long past. Coal can be used in a steam turbine or refined into strong yet light-weight carbon fiber that has a few uses like as an armor or the heat exchanger in a Fusion Reactor.

Rare Magnets

Rare Magnets is mostly found in the iron rich atmosphere of Mars and the high magnetosphere of an Alien planet. Rare Magnets are used in: Rail-Guns, Mass Drivers, and in producing the magnetic containment field for the Fusion Reactor.

Lithium

Lithium is mostly found in salt flats on water-based Earth (near the equator) and formerly water-based Mars. Lithium is used to create improved li-ion batteries, “oxygen candles”, and li-ion based capacitors are used for the plasma ignition process in the Fusion Reactor.

Methane Clathrate

Methane Clathrate is a frozen form of Methane, found on only the coldest of planets such as Europa and Titan. It is refined into methane gas that can be burned in a steam turbine to generate early-mid game power and in a chemical thruster replacing hydrogen as a fuel. Methane is a key ingredient in High Explosive missiles and rounds.

Alterations

Platinum

Platinum is altered to only be found in abundance on the barren Moon and Titan, with small percentage of space ores. It’s still used as a key material in ion thrusters and jump drives but it’s role in weapons would be altered to only be used as the core penetrator in Armor Piercing missiles and rounds. Platinum alloy plating is used in a Fusion Reactor’s containment shell.

Uranium

Uranium is altered to only be found in abundance in asteroid ore, but small amounts can be found on all types of planets. Ingots can also be further refined into Weapons-grade Uranium for Atomic Weapons. Refining Uranium Ore will also produce a good amount of Depleted Uranium that is used in Reinforced Heavy Armor with a higher overall health (+20%), but only available for large ships and is used for structural reinforcement for the Fusion Reactor.

Asteroids

Asteroids are made up of five types of ore:

Chondrite: Some Iron, Gold, Silver, and Uranium (both useable and depleted)

Achondrite: Mostly Cobalt with some Uranium (both useable and depleted) and a little Platinum

Iron-Rich: Mostly Iron, Nickle, and Cobalt

Stony-Iron: Mostly Iron and Gravel (Stone) but also some Silicon and Magnesium

Stony-Ice: Ice mixed with Gravel (Stone), refining will separate the two from each other

Each type will refine various amounts of the base materials depending on the ore. Small patches of ore are possible including a rare chance for platinum. There is also a game setup option for adding small patches of planetary ore to the Asteroids, but by default its turned off (useful for space only games).

Weapons

Standard

All current ammo becomes Standard ammunition, missiles do some armor piercing but still has a blast radius while all gatling and machine gun ammo are solid slugs that will have trouble with heavy and carbon-fiber armor.

High Explosive

High Explosive ammunition have a large blast radios but no penetration power. Missiles explosions will be blocked by any armor, but the damage will spread over a large area damaging any exposed components (note: damage is also applied to all missiles too, including friendly ones). Gatling and machine gun ammo however is slow firing and less accurate but also has proximity sensors acting more like FLAK, but still has trouble with heavy and carbon-fiber armor.

Armor Piercing

Armor Piercing will punch holes in armor, but they have a very small blast radios. Missiles will damage heavy armor but will only cause damage in an isolated location. Gatling and machine gun ammo however is the slowest firing but has higher accuracy, will easily chew though light armor, and causes damage to heavy, DU, and carbon-fiber armor.

Atomic

Atomic Weapons are super expensive, requiring uranium ingots to be refined a second time producing weapons-grade uranium (1kg to 1g). A large ship “Little Boy” Bomb require 10kg weapons-grade uranium while the small ship “Davy Crockett” only needs a 1kg. Both types can only be detonated by command (period!), any damage will disable the device rendering it useless until its repaired or salvaged. The amount of damage they do is devastating relative to their size with “Little Boy” able to wipe out a whole asteroid if detonated in the center and the “Davy Crockett” an eighth of that. (To those who think this would be overpowered, the main draw backs are its sheer cost in uranium and the time needed to collect the ore, the devices frailness to enemy fire, and need of a proper delivery method).

Technologies

Fusion Reactor: produces lots of energy (at least 3 times that of fission). However, Fusion Reactors isn’t perfect as it can’t be reduced in size (no small ships), it is quite bulky with the small reactor being a 3x3x3 and the large reactor a 5x5x5, it is expensive requiring a multitude of different materials from all over the known system, it is very weak to weapon fire with no armor, and it can be rather explosive upon a fast destruction while in use with the explosion scaling to current energy output (partial damage and grinding will only disable it as it has time to pull an emergency shutdown). The rare materials needed are as follows: Carbon Fiber refined from Coal, Rare Magnets, li-ion batteries from Lithium, Platinum, and Depleted Uranium.

Steam Turbine: will use any burnable fuel source such as, coal, methane, or hydrogen (burns very quickly, makes less energy than was used to produce it) to produce moderate amounts of energy relative to its size, the energy density sits between solar panels and the fission reactors.

Carbon Fiber: is used in astronaut body armor, cockpit armored lining, and small ship armor pieces with its hp is just below that of heavy armor but it has the overall mass of light armor.

Rail-Gun: a magnetically driven kinetic duel gun turret, befitting bases and capital ships. Railguns can only fire Standard Nickle-Iron Slugs and the magnets need to be saturated with energy before firing thus causing a half second delay between the trigger pulled and the weapon firing. It is ineffective vs small, fast, and maneuverable targets but can do some impressive damage vs. large, slow, and stationary targets.

Mass Driver: a magnetically driven linear motor that is suitable replacement for gravity guns, yet a Mass Driver will work in a naturally occurring gravity. Magnetically assisted rockets, artillery cannons, and rails for transport and gantries are some possible uses. Each linear motor must have its force power, thus energy used, and direction set manually (scripts can help), with smaller increments having a higher energy efficiency meaning a longer system is more energy efficient than a short one.

Li-Ion Batteries: have twice the energy storage capacity as compared to normal batteries. And can also be set to act like compactors, releasing large amounts of energy quickly however using it in this way depletes the usable battery over time, basically it damages the li-ion battery components needing new ones.

Oxygen Candles: Made from Lithium and oxygen, they will add oxygen to an oxygen system that has space for it, however they can be stored in a container like any other item.

High Explosive Weapons: missiles and rounds, large blast radius but no penetration power. Methane needs to be present in the system to build high explosive components.

Methane Rocket Fuel: Liquid Methane is used in place of hydrogen in a chemical thruster, it is more potent than hydrogen but also requires more oxygen needing 2-grams Oxygen for every gram of Methane.

Armor Piercing Weapons: missiles and rounds, high penetration power but no blast radius. Platinum is used as its core penetrator.

Atomic Weapons: requiring a good amount of Weapons-grade Uranium refined from a small percentage of normal Uranium ingots. “enemy base? What enemy base? Ho you mean that hole in the ground”.

Reinforced Heavy Armor: heavy armor that is reinforced with Depleted Uranium providing it a higher overall health (+20%) but quite a bit more mass, but only available for station/bases and large ships. Compared to normal heavy armor it has a buff against Railguns and a slightly better against AP rounds.