Living Metal/Dark Matter/Neutronium?

[Attitude Adjuster]

I've yet to reach past 2350 in the 2.2 cycle, but from what i i have been told, and seen in the tech tree myself, both living metal and dark matter don't seem to be required by any buildings?

Dark matter i think is involved in some ship components?

I know about the edicts, but most of the resources have those...

I've yet to see Neutronium deposits, so i'm guessing thats no longer in the game, which is a shame.

I really like the advanced resource system, but i feel like some of the rarer resources are really under utilised, and it detracts heavily from the whole experience of them being "rare". like yeah dark matter deposits and living metal are not common occurrences, but getting one just makes me shrug my shoulders, because i know 99% of what i mine is gonna get sold.

I miss the feeling of being excited when i captured a source of neutronium, dark matter, or living metal.

I would love to be misinformed on this one.

 

[Kami-sama]

Dark Matter is used for Dark Matter shields, reactor and thrusters components. There's no edict that uses Dark Matter yet.

Living Metal is used only for an edict that increases the build speed of megastructures. Personally I think the devs should add another use for it. I mean it's very useful if you're focusing on megastructures but if you don't have Utopia or MegaCorp all you can build are gateways.

Yeah, Neutronium is no longer in the game.

 

[Mastikator]

Dark Matter is used for Dark Matter shields, reactor and thrusters components. There's no edict that uses Dark Matter yet.

Living Metal is used only for an edict that increases the build speed of megastructures. Personally I think the devs should add another use for it. I mean it's very useful if you're focusing on megastructures but if you don't have Utopia or MegaCorp all you can build are gateways.

Yeah, Neutronium is no longer in the game.

IMO they should add a edicts for the exotic rare just like there are for rare resources. Living metal could give the armor/hull regen, dark matter could give a energy or tech boost, zro could give a ship disengage chance and ethics attraction edicts. Nanites? Build speed and cost reduction?
My point is it's not like it's hard to come up with ideas for more uses, it's just sad that they're useless except for very niche situations.

 

[Linusz]

Nanites already provide 10% research speed. These are covered

 

[glee8e]

Neutronium has to be removed, otherwise it make no sense to name T5 armor Neutronium Armor. It will be also outrageous if T5 armor require such a rare resource (neutron stars are rare on start, even fewer of them has that deposit pre 2.2).

Nevertheless, you could think of neutronium as an advanced form of alloy. Dev could probably add something else, but just not neutronium. The pain to implement the change must out weighted the gain when devs were thinking about these.

 

[Losttruppen]

Yeah I don't like how they have flip-flopped on strategic resources so many times since release. They said once they wanted them to be something you would consider going to war over but I'm just not seeing that unless there is a +5 crystal system right next door. Also strange how useless most of the rare ones are. Most of the old ones are a but redundant with things like planet modifiers granting the buffs from the old buildings but I think these would still be useful to further specialise planets if you have the SRs to spare. Did we really need to remove stuff like Satramene Gases though?

 

[Platoondas]

I think the in space deposits of rare resources need to be larger but not more common this would make the space worth fighting over. (As one system could save many buildings worth of refineries).

 

[AlanC9]

I've seen a report that Living Metal still auto-repairs ships, but the only way to see this is to look at the ships. Can't confirm since I haven't found any LM in any of my LeGuin games.

 

[Kami-sama]

Dark Matter is useful since upgrading or creating entire fleets with dark matter components will consume your dark matter stockpiles.

Living Metal should have another use. You can only use it for the edict I mentioned earlier, and if you manage to get a deposit (granted, this isn't easy) you'll end up with unused Living Metal since you gain it faster than you consume it each decade for the edict.

Zro is the worst because it has no use if you don't own Utopia. Its only use are the psionic shields components. While they're the strongest shields in the game, beating even dark matter shields, you can only unlock them from the Shroud so if you don't follow the psionic ascension path or don't own the DLC you have no use for them. Except for selling or gifting them to machine empires since they never realize they'll never use it.

Nanites are done the best if you ask me. They're restricted to a single area outside the galaxy and they have various uses (edict that gives 10% research speed, regenerating components that heal ships faster than the tissue one and buildings that convert excess nanites into other resources).

 

[Attitude Adjuster]

I think leguin is the best handling of "rare" resources so far, but i also think the execution has curbed some of the enthusiasm i felt at finally being able to utilise the late game resources.

I think there needs to be a distinction.

"rare" resources, (such as motes/crystals/gas) which are used in the early, mid and late game, primarily for economy.

then "Strategic" resources

that are more used in late game ship components and perhaps buildings, and cant be fabricated like the three "rare" ones, forcing you to actually take the systems containing them.

Dark matter/Zro currently act this way and have a use.

Would like to see components for Living metal - such as a tier 6 armour that has some regen component on each segment, or perhaps as a high lexel Aux slot that combines the regenerating armour and crystal benefits to give regen & hull. "Living Metal Superstructure" or something. %Regen %hull boost.

I also would personally like to see neutronium back in the game. i dunno, i really like the icon.

As i said i think the resource system is as close to perfect as it's ever been, but would just like to have some of the feeling that the late game ones are special again, and make it exciting to find them.

 

[glee8e]

I also would personally like to see neutronium back in the game. i dunno, i really like the icon.

Well it could be anything but neutronium. The concept is used elsewhere. Something like Adamantium could do.

 

[Roddo]

They don't really matter, you can buy them from the market, and when you have them it's in abundance so you just sell them on the market.
I won't go to war over 3 "rare" cristals, it nets me nothing.

Well, to be fair I wouldn't even go to war in the current state of the game. To win I just do what I do always, being a badass at research and that's it.. SCORE!

Why would I even want more planets when I can barely administer my own.

 

[CrowScape]

Well it could be anything but neutronium. The concept is used elsewhere. Something like Adamantium could do.

Call it by what it is: degenerate matter.

 

[methegrate]

They're all still pretty unnecessary and likely to stay that way.

The dev's keep trying to have their cake and eat it to with strategic resources (and a few other areas of the game). They want these resources to be a big deal, so that finding a deposit defines your strategy and empires will go to war over them. They also want to keep the game balanced for multiplayer, so that no one complains about how his friend got an unfair advantage by starting a few systems away from a deposit of dark matter.

The two visions are fundamentally incompatible. These resources should open up all sorts of strategic options. Not just the occasional high-level component or niche edict, having an advanced resource should let you grow your empire in unique ways. They should be asymmetrical in their abilities, and important enough that an empire with dark matter looks significantly different from one without.

But... all that would piss off the MP balance crowd. Almost by definition, if advanced resources were interesting and exciting then there'd be a risk that the map generator could give one player an advantage. So, like most of Stellaris, advanced resources are likely to remain boring little stat bumps. It's forgettable and disappointing, which is unfortunately kind of the point.