Resources are extracted from mines on a planet’s surface, or using mining stations, which are specific space station modules equipped with mining ships; however, to ease the process, the empire never manages these mining ships directly. They are considered a part of the station.

Different types of minerals can be found on both planets and asteroids. To find minerals on a planet, owning it is enough; special agents can also obtain this information from planets owned by other empires, and probes sent to investigate a planet may be able to discover it as well. Minerals in asteroid belts can be located using probes or a mining station’s scouting abilities. Note that, to spot minerals other than titanium and copper, some technologies may be required. Some resources can be extracted faster than others due to their nature.

All of the game’s planets and asteroid belts feature some of these resources. However, the less common an element is, the smaller the amount of it which can be found and the lower its regeneration rate.

Gases can only be found in nebulae; in order to first discover a source of some gas, a player has to first send ships or probes to that location, or use a mining station’s scouting abilities. None of the gases are visible by default, they require at least one of the nebulae extraction technologies.

All types of gases are present in a nebula, but the less common a gas is, the smaller the amount. The rate of regeneration depends on the nebula’s class – class 8 nebulae will regenerate more than class 1 nebulae. This is balanced in the end as, the higher the class, the less common the nebula type is.

The final type of resource is dark matter. Dark matter can be obtained from the Oort cloud of systems neighbouring a black hole, provided the player has the appropriate technologies. Dark matter can be detected either by probes or by the mining stations’ scouting ability.

The amounts of dark matter available are relatively high around natural black holes, and much smaller around black holes created through the space-time drilling technology. In both cases, the regeneration rate is low.

Do you think there are enough resources? Too many of them? What do you think of the few details included about extracting resources?