Meaningful ore deposits in SE2 - Extended

Yes. This is all great stuff, very interesting and thoughtful reccomendations. I do hope this topic gets traction with Keen. The current trajectory of the game is a real concern.

Here is a quote from my Steam post that talks more on your Part 2, and specially your Part 3. I think that Part 3 -is- the progression that every player will intuitively already use. A system that builds upon that, for block and tech availability, is imperative. The idea of points, can be rpg-ish, with drawbacks of intelligibility down the road. (Why I used a ore gathering system, simple, and how the ore deposits are seeded throughout the Algamest system, can direct progression routes and speed by devs). Anyways, here it is, it ties in pretty nicely with your Part 3:

"your progression is tied to resources, blocks, and how you use them for transportation:

1. Suit - suit has different thruster types(water, air, hydrogen, ion) and has a built-in Survival Kit. They showed off water thrusters, so it seems a real thing. Maybe suit has an RTG(radioisotope thermal-electric generator) to make a trickle charge? And starting food(?) Kelp krisps work anywhere. So, maybe a terrestrial start has air suit thrusters, space has ion, non atmo has hydrogen, and ocean worlds have water thrusters? Then...

2. Rover (or, the initial transportation)- and with resource scarcity being a thing, different biomes will probably have standard initial transportation builds types. Terrestrial probably will have a ground rover/electric flyer, space will need ion/hydrogen shuttles, non-atmo world some sort of a rover/flyer as well, and ocean worlds with boats/subs. Once new resources are accessed and the infrastructure built up and access to new blocks are available (i.e. hydrogen thrusters), then the move to off-world....

3. Spaceships - asteroids, space highways(lanes of transportation for your logistics and bases), and then eventually travel the other sectors or planets. Now you can work towards getting access to the locations of the rarest and the hardest to reach resources/locations to make...

4. Advanced Builds - jump-drives, suits or grids with extreme resistance to pressure, heat, radiation (and bullets). End game stuff, logistics development and protection, faction development, security system-wide, or whatever. Then...

5. Other Solar Systems? Can modders create other solar systems? Will Keen add a 'Stargate' type technology block unlock to tie in the rest of the Algamest system? Or travel to other entire new solar systems, as well? Would work pretty good as an end goal for the initial game, in that it lays the groundwork for future development for Keen and other modders."

The ore-as-research-currency idea is creative but I think it conflates two things that work better kept separate: resource acquisition as a natural gate, and research as a deliberate player choice. Mixing them risks making the research feel like a tax rather than a reward. And that is why they are better left separate. I could see myself being quite sad at having to give away my resources; on the other hand, xp is stress-free.

Yeah, I agree — converting resources directly into XP probably won’t work here. In games like Factorio, at least you have fully automated mining. Even there I never liked the idea that megatons of resources are consumed just to produce some arbitrary “science” resource. But that’s how that game works, and it’s probably the only way it can function.

In the current SE2 alpha there is also no real way to automate resource gathering in large quantities. You could still have small patches of pure ore, but I’d really like to see layers of lower-concentration ore around the rich core. That way you could build a long-lasting mining outpost, and it would actually make sense to set up some kind of automated mining rig.

Yes, you could still limit it by the number of drills or similar constraints, but the key point is that you could set it up and let it run while you focus on something else. That kind of emergent benefit from applying engineering solutions is something I really want back in SE2.

I’m pretty convinced that manually mining with ships should be, at best, a mid-game option. Eventually you should be able to find a rich megadeposit and set up automation around it.

You don’t necessarily need that for every resource, especially in multiplayer where PCU limits will apply. Instead, players could specialize — mine one thing in bulk and trade it for everything else.

Right now, though, it feels like you need to just fly around, dig thousands of holes, and bring everything back to your main base. Personally, I find that pretty boring, and I really hope it changes later in development.

The resource variety in SE2 is not sufficient to sustain a meaningful, lengthy tiered progression on its own. With what is currently in the game, you are realistically looking at around three tiers of natural resource-gating, which simply is not enough to carry the kind of deep, layered progression that would make the mid-game genuinely satisfying.

There is actually a game that demonstrates your approach working well, and examining why it works there helps illustrate why it would fall short here. The game called Avorion has no research system and lets you build freely once you have the required material, but the key to why that works is that each of its fantasy resources corresponds to an entire suite of blocks on its own.

One material unlocks roughly a dozen block types, and when you advance to the next tier, you replace your entire ship with more efficient versions while also gaining access to larger builds. The progression feels real because each material represents a genuinely distinct era of capability. SE2 cannot replicate this structure because its blocks each draw from several different ores simultaneously, and the number of meaningfully distinct ore tiers you can extract from a periodic-table-grounded material system is, again, around three. The ceiling is low by design.

This is precisely why research matters. Having access to a material has never, in history, automatically conferred the ability to use it meaningfully. A caveman could hold an iron ore in his hand and be no closer to building a combustion engine. The knowledge of what to do with a resource is a distinct and separate achievement from the resource itself, and encoding that distinction into gameplay is what gives a tech tree its soul. It also gives the player something to look at and feel. Seeing a research tree, understanding how far you have come and how much still lies ahead, is a quietly powerful moment in any good game. It makes your progress legible, and legible progress is satisfying progress. Removing research in favour of pure resource access compresses that experience down to almost nothing, and the game is poorer for it.

There is a subtler problem with the pure resource-gating approach that is worth naming directly. Making resources scarcer and harder to find does increase challenge, but challenge and depth are not the same thing, and conflating them is where I think this line of reasoning goes wrong. A player who is struggling to find platinum is not having a richer experience than one who found it easily. They are just having a slower one. Depth comes from decision-making, from the player looking at a branching tree of possibilities and choosing a direction, committing to it, and feeling the consequences of that choice downstream. Scarcity alone does not create that. It creates friction, and friction without direction is just frustration. What a research tree provides, beyond its mechanical function, is a visible map of where you are and where you could go. That map is what keeps a player engaged across dozens of hours rather than a handful. Without it, even a well-designed resource system eventually starts to feel like wandering, because in a meaningful sense, that is exactly what it is.

@Inval

Thx for the deep analysis, I gave it a heart 🙂 I appreciate the thoughtful reply.

Let me share my perspective and explain how you can still achieve slow, meaningful progression without needing a traditional research system.

Looking back at SE1 progression

In SE1 I usually played with progression turned off and started on a planet. Space starts were always much easier and faster, which is something I think the new game should address as well.

At the beginning you could easily find small quantities of iron, silicon and nickel in surface boulders. That was enough to build your first rovers and small flyers.

The first real obstacle was cobalt. It was harder to find — not necessarily in an interesting way, but it did slow progression. Once you had cobalt though, suddenly a lot unlocked at once: storage, hydrogen thrusters, and many other blocks. It opened too much too quickly. I always felt that stage needed more gradual steps.

Then later you had:

• Magnesium → weapons
• Silver → more spawn points and reactors (even though you still couldn’t fuel them yet, so why?)
• Platinum → ion thrusters, worse than hydrogen that you already have, and elite tools, which were often less useful by that point because you already had large infrastructure
• Gold → jump drives, which felt surprisingly easy to reach
• Uranium → reactors and end-game weapons

Uranium especially ended up doing too many jobs.

And finally there were Factorum blocks, which were a nice idea for late-game progression because you needed combat to obtain them — but they still weren’t truly game-changing.

So yes, SE1 progression existed, but many parts weren’t very well tuned. Still, if you started on a planet it could take quite a while to advance, especially for new players.

And experienced players could extend that progression simply by adjusting starting conditions and mods.

How SE2 could do it better and more

SE2 already seems to have more resources than SE1, which gives room for a more gradual progression.

Instead of the old gameplay loop of scanning random black patches until you finally find cobalt, resources could be tied to specific environments and conditions.

For example:

• harsh weather
• radiation zones
• extreme heat
• deep underwater pressure
• explosive or toxic environments
• hostile fauna
• pirate and defenses
• alien lifeforms

And of course combinations of those.

So progression isn’t just finding the ore, but preparing properly to obtain it.

You might need to:

• build a strong base before attempting expeditions
• prepare spare materials because you may lose drones or vehicles
• stockpile food
• design specialized ships or machines for specific environments

Each new resource could unlock new tools, suit modules, blocks or consumables that make your life easier and allow you to tackle the next challenge.

Sometimes progression would be sequential.

For example you might need lead shielding before attempting to mine uranium in radioactive zones.

Other resources could be obtained in different orders depending on what the player wants to focus on first.

So progression relies now on preparation, engineering and skills.

Better ore detection systems could also help here — specialized scanners, detection setups, maybe different methods for different materials. But that’s its own topic.

The important idea is this:

Knowing where something is should not mean you can easily obtain it.

Blueprints as “research you actually play”

I also mentioned another progression layer earlier: unique, uncraftable items.

Some of these could be blueprints required to produce certain advanced components. The blueprint itself isn’t consumed, but without it you simply can’t manufacture the component.

So you might have plenty of gold but still be unable to build superconductors needed for a jump drive until you obtain the blueprint.

In that sense, finding the blueprint is your research, but instead of waiting for a progress bar you obtain it through gameplay.

Possible sources:

• exploration and random encounters
• faction rewards or buying from NPC factions with high reputation
• piracy or salvage of cargo ships

Unlike prototech frames, once you have the blueprint you can produce the block reliably and repeatedly, making it extremely valuable.

Faction specific components

Faction-specific components could add another layer.

For example certain weapon variants might require unique components only sold by a faction. Maintaining good reputation would allow you to keep buying them.

Stock availability could scale with reputation, so large-scale production requires either strong faction ties or travel between multiple stations.

Those components would also become valuable loot for you or your enemies. If you somehow get access to all unique weapons you can build warships and entire fleets with no weaknesses.

Unique production modules

Another idea is unique production modules that specialize refineries.

For example a module that allows extremely efficient gold refining:

• lower energy cost
• higher yield
• lower PCU cost per output

Players could specialize in certain resources and trade the surplus.

If everyone can refine everything equally, there’s very little incentive to trade.

One particularly interesting idea I saw on the forum was making refinery modules permanent once installed. That forces players to commit to production choices and creates real economic diversity.

Trade as progression

Trade itself becomes progression:

• finding rare modules
• setting up production chains
• building cargo ships
• negotiating with other players
• establishing long-term trade routes

If you produce something efficiently, you can afford selling in bulk for low price and buy other things you need.

Bringing it all together

Combining these systems could create progression that is:

• slow
• meaningful
• driven by gameplay

Instead of research timers, progression comes from:

• preparation to obtain new resources
• discovering blueprints
• interacting with factions
• finding unique production modules
• exploration, combat, or trade

Players who prefer traditional mining can still progress that way, but they’ll naturally slow down because each step requires preparation and technology suited for the next environment.

That’s the kind of survival gameplay I’d love to see SE2 explore. 🚀

I think there's a core tension in your proposal that hasn't been resolved.

Your blueprint system is, functionally, a tech tree. It still gates certain capabilities behind an unlock. The difference is that instead of being visible and player-directed, the unlock is hidden in the world somewhere, gated behind RNG or faction standing. You've kept the lock but thrown away the map. That seems like a strictly worse design. The thing that makes a research tree valuable isn't just that it gates things. It's that the player can look at it, understand where they are, see where they want to go, and make a choice about which direction to pursue. A blueprint system buried in random encounters or faction stores removes that entirely.

On the environmental hazard gating: I agree that knowing where something is shouldn't mean you can easily obtain it. That's a good instinct. But preparation and engineering requirements are still primarily friction. They add challenge, they slow you down, and that's worthwhile, but they don't replace the function of a research tree any more than a harder enemy replaces a skill tree in an RPG. You can increase difficulty without increasing depth.

Your SE1 retrospective also struck me, because your critique of it, cobalt unlocking too much at once, uranium doing too many jobs, the pacing being uneven, is an argument that SE1 needed a better-designed research tree, not that it needed no tree at all. The answer to a poorly tuned progression system is to tune it properly, not to dissolve it into a collection of haphazard environmental hazards and hope the emergent result is satisfying and amazing.

And on the point about research timers specifically: those are not a necessary part of the system at all. Research could be instant. You accumulate XP through natural gameplay, mining ores, constructing blocks, exploring, defeating creatures, discovering new areas, all things said in the main body of my post, and when you have enough, you press a button and unlock what you want. No waiting. The timer concern is a non-issue since you progress naturally through gametime/gameplay.

I want to be clear that I don't think your ideas are bad. Faction-specific components, unique production modules, environment-specific preparation: these are all good additions to the game, and several of them would pair well alongside a research tree. But none of them replace what a research tree actually does, which is give the player a legible map of their own progress and a meaningful role in directing it.

The “visible” tech tree is not necessarily an engaging game mechanic. And we both agree that the traditional mining/production loop has to be slowed down.

Personally, I find it much more interesting if you actually need to know something in order to progress.

For example: Where do I find cobalt?

Maybe I check some YouTube tutorials, or ask around in a Discord community. That kind of knowledge sharing is part of the fun in sandbox games.

Now imagine cobalt being found more often in a specific biome.

So what do you do?

You build a flyer capable of long journeys, equip it with a scanner, and start flying around the planet exploring different biomes. When you enter a new one you might get a message like:

"You have discovered X biome."

Or even better, there could be a map block that gradually fills out information about the planet and its biomes.

So now exploration becomes intersting and a progression mechanic in itself.

Once you are in that biome you know there is a higher chance to find cobalt. Then you start looking for specific types of terrain that might be associated with cobalt deposits underground (instead of the old boring black patches). You scan the area and eventually locate it.

Now you know exactly where the resource is.

At that point you go back and plan how to extract it.

Your mining ship probably shouldn’t be capable of flying that far efficiently, especially when it’s full on the way back. Flying and batteries should be balanced for that reason.

So now you have options:

• Build a transport rover if the route is accessible
• Build a cargo ship, mine ore by hand and bring it back
• Bring cargo ship and miner with you, plus some components necessary to build small recharging station on site. This way you can operate and recharge your miner many times and leave it there for later use.

As you can see, with the right balance even something simple like distance can make survival and engineering gameplay meaningful. It slows things down naturally and rewards players for their skills and knowledge.

At the same time, mechanics like exploration, scavenging and trade suddenly become much more valuable and provide real alternatives.

And just to clarify — I’m not saying everything needs blueprints.

They could apply mainly to high-end tech, like jump drives or powerful fusion reactors. There would still be multiple ways to obtain them, so players can choose the approach they prefer.

The same idea applies to unique production modules. If you don’t enjoy exploration or NPCs you can perfectly live without them — or simply buy them from other players.

These kinds of special items are actually perfect for trade, and we need more things like that if we want multiplayer to feel like actual multiplayer.

Otherwise it just becomes a collection of “single players” quietly mining a few asteroids 10,000 km away from each other 🙂

The thing that makes a research tree valuable isn't just that it gates things. It's that the player can look at it, understand where they are, see where they want to go, and make a choice about which direction to pursue.

The biome exploration scenario you described is actually great and I want that in the game too. But notice what you did there: you assumed the player already knows cobalt leads to hydrogen thrusters and that hydrogen thrusters are what they want next. That knowledge has to come from somewhere. A research tree is exactly what provides it cleanly, inside the game, without the player having to tab out to YouTube or ask a Discord server. Outsourcing your progression map to the community is not a feature, it's a gap. An annoying gap for normal players.

The production lines point doesn't hold up either. That system tells you what materials a specific block needs. It doesn't help you decide which block to pursue, or give you any sense of where you are in the broader arc of the game. It's reactive. A research tree is strategic. Those are different things.

Your blueprint idea is also just a tech tree with the map torn off. The lock is still there, you've just made it harder to see and given the player less control over which direction they go. I genuinely don't see how that's better.

Essentially you are trying to avoid a research tree at all costs and the alternatives you're reaching for keep creating more problems than they solve. All that stuff would actually be really annoying ingame/ gameplay-wise.

I think there's an underlying instinct here that explicit progression systems feel like the game holding your hand, but that logic is backwards. Removing it doesn't make the game more freeform, it just makes it more opaque.

All of your ideas would pair really well alongside a research tree. They aren't in competition with it.

Starting out, I think your visual references are great and I will be doing the same for my upcoming post on Faction Identity and Lore.

I agree with much of what you've said - the takeaway being that SE2 has the potential and should push beyond what SE1 has delivered. It is important for the team to balance the new with the familiar: an issue they have had with iteration 1 of completely reworking the production pipeline..

I think that a game with mining as a CORE of it's identity must invest more into these gameplay loops to create a fun immersive experiences with more depth

We really need VALUABLE loot in the game. Ore as loot is kinda meh — you can mine it way easier yourself. It’s just not worth clearing encounters for random chunks of ore.

Components, even advanced ones, are a bit better, but since there are so many types, it’s rarely what you actually need at that moment. I think most people can already guess what kind of loot would actually feel good here… and yeah, it’s currently missing.

Then there are unique or uncraftable items. Those are cool, but more for mid/late game and not basic or universal. If you want a real alternative to the traditional mining loop in early–mid game, then encounters, trade ships, unknown signals etc. need to give you something that actually helps you progress — maybe even faster than mining if you know what you’re doing. For that, you need valuable, flexible loot that lets you skip steps.

Right now, if you get a lot of ore as loot — sure, it’s universal, but you still need the full infrastructure: refineries, smelters, power, cargo ships… basically the same setup as mining. At that point, it’s just more efficient to go mining instead of doing missions, piracy, or encounters.

Same with components — it feels bad to clear a hard encounter (spending time and resources) and get another batch of stuff you already have tons of (another batch of motherboards). Yeah, you can sell it, but still an extra step that make alternative gameplay loops less appealing.

Scavenging is also kinda underwhelming. Using grinders for large grids is just not practical unless you spam hundreds of them. It really doesn’t feel like a great system. And we still don’t even have proper recycling.

Honestly, the easiest solution might be:

• make it easier to sell captured grids,
• and simplify ownership / hacking mechanics.

For example, if you bring a captured ship into your safe zone, you could just hack it fully in one go.

So yeah, there are several core systems that need to be done right to make “natural progression” actually work and to support alternative playstyles beyond just mining.

There are two significant problems I see with tech trees in any game.

1. You don't know what you don't know. In real life, there was no "roadmap" for the technologies we would develop. People working hundreds of years ago on the innovation of optical lenses that focus light weren't thinking to themselves, "The better we make these lenses, the closer we get to having lasers." The point is, new technologies were developed out of research, experimentation, trial-and-error, prototyping, refining and improving existing technologies, and new advances in knowledge from delving into the unknown - not from unlocking steps in some cosmic tech tree.

2. If you already know it exists but don't know how to make it, that's not a tech tree. I don't need to know how to make a door to know how to make a window - so the progression tree in SE1 feels contrived and arbitrary. Why does crafting a landing gear teach me how to make a cockpit?

I find the whole progression system in SE1 completely ridiculous, and absolutely do not want anything like that in SE2. I prefer Stationeers' style of crafting progression, where the player already has the knowledge or blueprints of how to make everything, but requires specialist manufacturing equipment, different tiers of that equipment, and specific resources to generate those items. This allows you to plan more fully what you're going to invest your resources in.

The nice thing about that is the player is able to progress smoothly and logically through tiers of capability development and equipment production, and each progression feels like a step towards whatever the ultimate goal is. It also forms a logical and more compelling production chain. Is it more difficult and time consuming? Yes, but that's the point. More advanced things should be more difficult to produce - not just unlock a blueprint, manufacture the same components that everything else is made from, and whack it together.

The downside to Stationeers is that all the different ores are just around the place, so there's no real challenge in obtaining them (even the rarer ones); however, that is offset by a couple of factors:

a. Initially not having any kind of subsurface ore scanning at all, and initially having to explore and 'stumble on' surface ore deposits,

b. Ore detectors (glasses, tablet) having limited range and still requiring you to move around and explore to locate ore.

Aside from the progression model, the other thing I think Stationeers does better in this area is alloys and superalloys. Part of the progression isn't just about finding ores to refine, but being able to alloy metals, with higher "tiers" of alloys requiring more specialised equipment and more finicky conditions to achieve. It's still not overly difficult in most cases, but it gives a challenge to the player that you are always working towards the materials you need for that thing you're trying to build. It also forms a natural progress bottleneck, not an arbitrary or contrived gatekeeping method of regulating progression. Simple things that need simple materials can be achieved quickly, but the challenge curve doesn't ease off once those things are achieved.

That's the kind of progression model I would prefer, and it fits into the OP's ideas of having to work to get off planet. Consider the exotic alloys and materials required in real life to build rocket engines and other precision aerospace components - inconel and titanium alloys, rare earth elements and other things. Compare that to the materials needed to produce a rover for a planet - basically a glorified truck - or an atmospheric aircraft. Compare that to the exotic materials you would need for a jump drive.

What about non-metallic resources - yes, silicon is non metallic (well, a metalloid at least), but plastics? Rubber? Carbon fibre and Kevlar? Ceramics? What about refining of fuels? Biofuels? The ice-->O2/H2 mechanic in SE1 is so boringly simple, as is the uranium mechanic: find ore, chuck it in a refinery, and you have nuclear fuel...

There is so much scope for such a rich and satisfyingly progressive system here that would leave the old "dump your ore in a refinery, dump the ingots in an assembler, and build yourself a spacehip" mechanic of SE1 in the dust, but if nobody takes advantage of it, then that potential is wasted.

The problem with the Stationeers style progression model is that it works well if you're looking for a progression-based survival sandbox / role playing game (which Stationeers is more of), but not so much for a ship building simulator or virtual lego playground. The question that needs to be answered is this: what kind of game is SE2 trying to be? Because that is what is going to determine how progression and resource management is going to be handled.

Just my thoughts.