Down with coal and its futuristic magical properties

There is better fuel later in the top tiers of the game. 3 other choices to be exact.

 

technically six, but currently refining the 3 fuels do absolutely nothing last time I checked.

 

I'm not stating that they help with armor and weapons he was asking about spaceship fuel, so i replied

 

Ah! Excellent.

 

Yep Things to look forward to as you progress

 

Oh no, I know that . Just it's odd you can refine them, and still use them as fuel with absolutely no bonus. Since it's even stranger for your spaceship to run on (well at least far more dangerous) raw uranium ore etc.

Edit: It's even a deduction, you seem to only get as much as you would get with the raw product.

 

Oh i see. yeah it's beta i suppose!

 

One thing to watch out for is that Solarium looks a lot like crystallized gold, many people pass it up thinking it's gold. Also it seems plutonium and uranium are more viable for fuel, landing on the sweet-spot of fuel amount + rarity. I think (correct me if I'm wrong coexist. From uranium to each higher tier it's literally only one more fuel point.

 

The difference between fuels is by 2 points but your right about everything else.

 

Because carbon alloys of fictional materials is just unthinkable.

I wouldn't personally use radioactive materials (Uranium, Plutonium and presumably Solarium) in alloy production. Sounds unhealthy to use that for personal armor, tools and weaponry.

Something needs to be the utility resource, a resource that's easy to find and remains useful throughout the entire game. Might as well be coal.

 

Why must there be only a single utility resource? Last I checked, every planet has every type of base metal type. Can't there be ways to use all of them?

 

To reduce clutter and excessive inventory management, prevent depletion of harder to find ores (That is also currently found on entirely separate planets or sectors) and as to not render previous resources redundant.

I'm not saying coal should be the only utility resource, but that it functions just fine as one.

I could do with it being less efficient as fuel though, but the problem with that is that it would make the very start of the game too tedious.

But yeah, all materials really need to be made more more useful and have greater availability throughout.

 

I think what should happen is when you upgrade your ship it gets more futuristic and therefore needs more coal, OR a more futuristic fuel like solar

 

Carbon alloys are alright, but there's no way carbon alloys would provide the sole form of technological progression in materials. I mean come on, even in Star Trek they proposed alloys of heavy metals for ship exteriors and bulkheads, such as Duranium plating.

The uranium/plutonium doesn't necessarily have to be alloyed with the metals in question. It could, instead, be used as a catalyst, or perhaps used to power the devices needed to place these fictional metals under high pressure or heat or other stresses, in order to change its crystalline structure to something more durable. Kinda like how if you compress and heat raw carbon, you eventually get diamond.

Coal still has a use throughout the game as fuel, and is easy to get given that you can 'smelt' unrefined wood to get it, even on coal-poor worlds. Right now, Uranium, Plutonium, and Solarium have no uses except as fuel - this would give them more use and reduce dependency on coal as the resource for crafting armor & weapon bars on even-tiers.

 

I see wat u did thar, OP.

In any case, I agree that coal is drastically overused at the moment... to the point that I suspect it's being used as a placeholder, and something else is already in the works.

I vote for coal to be used where realistic, such as combining iron and coal (carbon) to get steel, but to be replaced anywhere else... for example, aegisalt is not a real substance to begin with, and currently we add coal to it to make impervium - another non-existent substance - so, why not make up another new fake substance to be mixed with the fake ore to get the fake alloy?

...also if carbon is so valuable, why not use use diamond for some of the mid+ tier stuff instead of coal? (or would that be laughably impractical to use diamond as a carbon source in smelting? If yes, then scratch that last bit)

 

Diamonds used to cut hard metals into shape maybe...
After durasteel, we could go Into metal sheet creation as a material, with diamonds as cutters.
You aren't smithing armors past durasteel, but piecing it onto fabrics, like light but strong metal suits.

If the new fictional armors at tougher than durasteel, you can't shape them as they become less malleable hence a different armor crafting is used.
I mean, not even machines can bend metals past durasteel if they are twice as strong.

 

Even so, I think coal makes sense up to at least the level of Durasteel. That's to say, 2 carbon alloys (Steel and Durasteel).

I suppose we could mix up the final materials by combining earlier metals with them. Such as:

Ferozium = Aegisalt + Iron - That is, if Iron is made more common throughout, which I believe it will be what with steel being common in recipes (e,g, Spawners, Capture Pods) .
Violium = Cerulium + Titanium
Impervium = Rubium + Cerulium: Being end-game (Presumably), perhaps it's requirements should be a bit higher.

I personally prefer having the radioactive materials as fuel or only a component of fairly special items. Power generators, atmosphere generators, vehicle components, energy shields, spaceship hulls (Depleted Uranium) and nukes, those sorts of things.

 

Radioactive materials can become energy source of weapons. Mainly guns and epecially energy weapons like beam/plasma/laser guns.

 

Well, for another point, Uranium and Plutonium are very heavy elements. Plutonium has never been found on Earth due to it's shorter half-life, but evidently there are planets out there that still have it in starbound (not unreasonable, as it has a half-life of 83 million years). Likely there'd even be some Curium (15.6 million years).

Using them as a "utility" resource does seem misguided, but they could well be useful by being built into super heavy elements in the proposed "island of stability" past the current end of our periodic table.

 

My suggestions of some of the better fuels for alloys were just ideas. The whole point of this topic is that coal is overused. It's something you get quite easily thanks to wood and it is being used to make a sword go up by 1000 dps and it's one-handed. Maybe not use uranium although in a futuristic setting that could happen