What resources make sense in the SMAC universe?

[Maniac]

(This is no C4AC thread)
IF (big if) Civ4 runs on my laptop, I might try to mod SMAniaC into Civ4. Unlike C4AC which wants to create a clone of SMAC, I'd like to use the improvements of Civ4 though, such as unit promotions, culture etc... Another one of those improvements are resources. I'm having trouble imagining though what resources fit in a futuristic world as SMAC with synthetic materials, genetics, advanced physics etc... Uranium for fission reactors seems obvious. Planet pearls and some other fungus-specific stuff might also work. But that's about all I can think of.

So my question is: can you think of resources that are necessary in a world with SMAC's technology level?

[GeoModder]

There are the usual resources to construct stuff (and for having better/stronger alloys). To give an example uranium can be incorporated in the alloys of a shell/bomb/missile for better structural penetration. Kobalt, bauxiet...

There are obviously the new medications obtainable from Planets' flora, rare and valuable (for elitist people) looking substances.

You could, for the early game, native critters be a necessity for for instance let recycling tanks do their job better.

Fusion Power would need certain isotopes, lithium comes to mind for that.

The help texts on singularity -and quantum power also mentions a sort of 'fuel'.

The substitutes which leads to synthetic fossil fuels.

A gene-combination found in a certain plant which stores cellular information better, for organic AI's. Same for the longevity vaccine perhaps. A preq for being able to build that project. Could explain in that case the uniqueness of it.

A substance ideal as the carrier for nano's, or their 'food' source.

[Blake]

I'd be inclined to not use the resource system. There is no basis in SMAC and Civ4's resources are inappropriate so we'd basically be making the entire thing up.

I can think of a few ideas for luxury resources...
Fungal Gin, Alien Artifacts (like little trinkets)... hmmm

but you have to remember planet is human-unfriendly, colonizing planet is meant to more like carving out a habitable niche than exploiting the abundant natural resources.

With strategic resources, it'd be a stretch to make realistic ones.
ALL stable elements are known to man upon landing, there might be a few plausible resources - fungus and alien technology based ones, but on the whole Planet is very "samey" due to the way the fungus and planetmind works, the fungus resources would tend to be everywhere, and as far as the alien tech resources goes I don't see a problem with how SMAC does it; Monoliths are a good tile and have repair/upgrade benefits, Manifold Nexus gives a planet bonus, the borehole cluster - well act as boreholes.

So in short I think a resource system would feel too contrived.

[GeoModder]

Well, there's an idea, boreholes can be used to mine a 'heavier' sort of minerals more in abundance, since it goes deeper into Planets' crust.

[Maniac]

Some good ideas.

Something else I read about Civ4: IIRC the Broadway wonder can give you 'musicals' as luxury resources to sell. The same with rock 'n roll IIRC. I'm wondering then, as it seems to be possible that buildings give resources instead of only getting them from the map, would it be possible to extent on that principle to create a whole bunch of base facilities that provide you a resource? Eg hovertank factories, nano factories, longevity vaccine labs... Using the resource system to represent industrial products instead of natural resources would make more sense I guess.

To elaborate even further on that idea, if it would be possible to:
1) quantify the resource system (ie one resource is not enough to fulfill all your needs - you'd need eg 3 hovertanks to build a unit with that chassis)
2) require those 'factory' base facilities to have a certain number of 'factory worker' specialists to produce their resource.
then we'd have a factory mod that would be great for all kinds of scenarios and mods from the industrial revolution right up to Alpha Centauri.

[Blake]

I'd be more inclined to go for a full resource system than a half-arsed Civ-style one, but since it'd involve inventing an entirely new system it's very low priority.

One little modification to the existing system I'd love would be to make Secret Projects require research points to build - basically every mineral devoted to the project also requires some research points, thus a SP becomes a much more serious investment, basically killing research while building the SP. This would help reduce runaway victories by making techers "stop" to build SP's allowing others to overtake them and get a headstart on later SP's. It'd also prevent "plopping" (without removing ploppers) by limiting construction rate to research rate.
(SP's would have varying minerals:labs ratios, some SP's like CDF or CBA would be mineral heavy, others like HSA or HGP would be research heavy, something like WP or ME would be in between.)

[Mark123jansen]

Carbon, remember its rare on planet, and can be used in nano tech (carbonetubes)

[wgabrie]

Anything in the Merchant Exchange "Stock Quotes" you could use?

[GeoModder]

[wgabrie]

From the merchant exchange:
Morgan Financial Network Current Quotes

Rubidium +1.2
Cesium -0.7
Iridium -3.9
Titanium +37.1
Scandium -12.0
Chromium +1.1
Manganese -72.7
Iron +3.3
Cobalt -12.8
Nickel +7.0
Vanadium -19.9
Palladium +0.0

MorganQuote of the Day "Greed ensures the transfer of power from the weak to the strong."

[Junuxx]

I'm thinking that some crucial supplies from the Unity could've been scattered over Planet's surface. So that one could find the 21st century computer game datapod (quite a luxury, I'd say) or Earth plant seeds.