Since you only need two Uranium/Plutonium/Solarium Ore to craft a fuel rod, which grants more than the sum of its parts, it seems pointless to have the raw ore be able to fuel the ship. So I have a suggestion to make the Ore vs Rod decision a little bit more dynamic: Add 1 Gold Ore to the Uranium rod recipe, and buff it to 15 fuel. Add 1 Platinum Ore to the Plutonium Rod recipe, and buff it to 20 fuel. Add 1 Diamond to the Solarium Star recipe, and buff it to 25 fuel. (Exact numbers subject to tweaking.) This gives the player a choice: Either use these valuable resources to augment your fuel supply, or use raw fuel and save the other resources for refining or crafting. Just to add a little versatility.
this is good but noone has that much gold ore end game it would be barely used and people would just use coal and ignore the fuel rods.
Liquid Erchius already works as a better fuel, and is easy to aqquire. Those fuel rods should have a special use, other than fuel. It could be for making special weapons such as staves.
