Resources (SEIV)

From SEWiki

Resources are the currency units and construction materials used in Space Empires 4.

There are three main resources:

• Minerals
• Radioactives
• Organics

Sometimes intel points, research points and even population are referred to as additional resources, or pseudo-resources. In general use though, the term 'resources' in se4 refers exclusively to minerals, radioactives and organics.

Resource management is the key to any succesful empire. If you run out of resources, you will be unable to run some or all of your construction projects. If, after halting construction, the game finds your resource balance is still in defecit, it will stop paying maintenance on some of your ships, causing them to be destroyed.

Contents 1 Acquiring Resources 1.1 Planetary Mining 1.1.1 Production Modifiers 1.1.2 Space Ports 1.2 Remote Mining 1.3 Resource generation from components 1.4 Scrapping ships and facilities 1.5 Converting Resources 1.6 Transferring Resources between Empires 1.7 Acquiring Resources via a Treaty 2 Storing Resources 3 Denying Resources to the Enemy

Acquiring Resources

There are numerous ways to acquire resources in SE4. They are listed below.

Planetary Mining

The most common way to get resources in the stock game is by use of planetary Facilities which harvest resources from the planet. These are numerous, even in the unmodded game, and mods introduce even more resource-gathering facilities.

• Mineral Miner Facility
• Organics Farm Facility
• Radioactives Extraction Facility
• Monolith Facility
• Solar Generator

Production Modifiers

The output of these facilities is modified by several factors:

• The value of the planet.
• The racial characteristics and culture chosen by the player at game startup.
• The amount of population present on the planet (more workers=more output)
• Planet-wide and system-wide production modifiers, introduced by the special facilities below:
  • Mineral Scanner
  • Hybrid Eco - Farms
  • Radioactives Collider
  • Robotoid Factory
  • System Mineral Scanner
  • System Eco - Farms
  • System Radioactives Collider
  • System Robotoid Factory
  • Time Shrine

Space Ports

Planetary resource production, as outlined above, requires access to a Space port. Any resources produced on a planet in a system without a spaceport are lost to the empire. Enemy and allied space ports don't count, you must own the space port yourself.

This restriction does not apply to players who have taken the natural merchant trait.

Remote Mining

It is also possible to harvest resources from planets and asteroids without building facilities on them. This is known as remote mining, and is dealt with in detail in its own article: Remote Mining (SEIV).

Resource generation from components

Although this does not appear in the unmodded game, it is possible to mod components that generate resources from nothing.

Scrapping ships and facilities

The resources invested in ships and facilities can be partially reclaimed by using the scrap/retrofit/mothball menu for ships, or the "scrap facility" icon for facilities. This is especially useful if someone else has done the investing (ie, captured ship/ planet) A higher yield can be obtained on scrapped ships if you scrap them in the same sector as an ultra-recycler facility.

Units cannot be scrapped.

Converting Resources

If you have a surplus of one type of resource, and a deficit of another, use a Resource Converter to convert one resource into another (ie transform unwanted radioactives into much-needed minerals.)

This transformation is not 100% efficient- some resources are lost in the conversion- but higher levels of converter give increasing levels of efficiency.

Transferring Resources between Empires

Another way to obtain resources is to buy or demand them from other empires through diplomatic channels. Use the "Demand Gift", "Demand tribute" or "Propose Trade" function to instigate such a transfer. Note that trading resources in this manner is not the same as acquiring resources via a trade treaty.

Acquiring Resources via a Treaty

Certain treaties between empires generate resources for both parties. Every turn, a percentage of each empire's resources will be generated and given to the other empire, so the richer the empire, the more you will get. This percentage starts at 1%, and increases by 1 every turn up to 20%. Note that these are new resources, generated from nowhere: You are not 'giving' your resources to another empire, you are generating new ones and sharing them. This is to represent the economic growth and benefits that come from inter-imperial trade.

The most simple treaty with this function is the Trade Alliance. A Trade & Research Alliance is the next step, which includes everything the Trade alliance does, and research points A Partnership treaty trades all the above and intelligence points too.

It is also possible to acquire resources from another empire using the protectorate and subjugation treaties.

Storing Resources

Any resources coming into your empire that aren't immediately spent on maintenence or construction are put into your resource storage. If your resource storage is already full, any surplus will be wasted, so it is sometimes worthwhile to build extra resource storage facilities.

Many players would argue that if you have a resource surplus, you aren't building enough ships.

Denying Resources to the Enemy

Intel, blockading, targeting spaceports.

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