Some ideas

So i was thinking about adding a little complexity to the game

New Minerals: Carbon, copper, lead, thorium, plutonium (as examples)Why? Well if i go to the new advanced refinery (new block) and put raw iron (or refined, don't matter) and some carbon, i get steel ingots. This new alloy is required for high end blocks, like "ultra" armor blocks. Higher resistance to damage, less weight, maybe neat texture

Thorium and plutonium? well you've got your reactor, you put refined uranium in it and it produces power at X per unit of uranium. Well thorium is more readily available, but is less efficient (consumes more units for the same amount of power) while plutonium is much more rare but significantly more efficient. (for example 1 unit of Uranium produces 5MW of power, it takes 5 units of thorium to produce the same, but 1 unit of plutonium makes 15MW of power).

An advanced assembler will allow you to add materials when creating items. For example, i can make just regular missiles, but in the advanced assembler i have a optional box that i can insert another material. I put lead in the missiles and they do more penetrating damage but reduced range, i put plutonium in and it is a large explosive force (more shockwave, causing blocks to separate but doing less damage to them), likewise if i put copper into the missiles i get more range and speed but less damage.

the advanced refinery, advanced assembler, and new materials allow for a bit of creative engineering and experimentation. Got a lot of gold? use it when making radio parts and you get a range boost, platinum? even more! can't find a certain resource? substitute something similar and get something thats functional, albeit less efficient.

I'd also think it would be neat if there was a random chance when refining to find highly purified versions of materials, like crystallized iron for example. It could be used as a boost or traded/sold at a outpost, but that is a totally different idea.

Gogo