Skip to content

Structural Materials

Bulk metals, ceramics, composites, and general construction mass extracted directly from solid stellar objects. The most widely used raw resource in the game — consumed in large quantities at every stage of expansion.

Tier

Tier 1 — Extraction. Produced directly from the stellar object's composition. Requires no external resource inputs to operate.

Source Objects

Structural Materials occur on dense solid bodies:

  • Rocky planets
  • Metallic asteroid belts
  • Shattered or barren moons
  • Dense debris fields

Occurrence rating varies per object. A metallic asteroid belt may have a very high occurrence rating but few slots overall. A large rocky planet offers more development breadth, but may have a lower occurrence rating for this specific resource.

Slot Class matters too. An object with one Prime extraction slot can outperform a larger object with more mediocre extraction sites.

Produced By

An Extraction Sector on any holding with a non-zero Structural Materials occurrence rating.

Output rate per cycle = base extraction rate × occurrence rating × sector level.

Consumed By

  • Industrial Alloys production (Tier 2) — Structural Materials are the primary raw input for refinery and processing sectors that produce alloys
  • Sector construction — building or upgrading sectors on any holding requires Structural Materials as a build cost
  • Holding tier upgrades — advancing a holding from Claim to Frontier or Frontier to Colony requires a stockpile of Structural Materials

Strategic Notes

Structural Materials are the entry point to the industrial production chain. A region with high-occurrence rocky planets and asteroid belts will attract early development and become a natural raw supply hub for alloy production elsewhere.

Because this resource is also consumed in construction, a holding developing quickly will consume a significant share of what it produces. Supply decisions — keep for local development or ship to processing holdings — emerge early.

Open Questions

  • Should Structural Materials be a single unified resource, or split into subtypes (e.g. raw metal vs. ceramics) at a later expansion stage?
  • Is the construction cost for sectors and holding upgrades paid from the holding's own resource pool, or sourced directly from the player's empire-wide inventory?