Not All Resources Are Created Equal

Every resource has a set of attributes that defines it. These attributes consist of things like cold resistance, heat resistance, overall quality, or malleability. Each attribute has a value that ranges from 1 to 1000, with 1000 indicating a particularly excellent specimen. As an example, here's a bit of Carbonate Ore that I sampled:

As you can see, the Carbonate Ore has the following Attributes:

Cold Resistance: 888
Decay Resistance: 619
Heat Resistance: 953
Malleability: 941
Overall Quality: 846
Shock Resistance: 614
Unit Toughness: 900

Those are pretty good, especially in Heat Resistance, Malleability, and Unit Toughness, where they almost reach the max value (1000).

So what does all this mean? Well, let's take a look at crafting an object and find out, shall we?

I'll take the generic crafting tool and try to craft an object. After I click on the object I want to make I'm taken to the screen where I choose what resources I want to use to make it. On the left are the resources in my inventory, with a description box underneath them; in the middle is where I mark which resources I'm using for which parts of the item; on the right is the item itself, with a picture, and underneath that picture is the information we want.

This image is from the lower right-hand corner of the crafting screen. It's the description of the object we're making. If you scroll all the way down to the bottom you'll see a section with Experimental Durability and Experimental Effectiveness. This is what we're interested in.

As you can see, the object I'm making is affected by both Decay Resistance and Conductivity. If you recall the Decay Resistance for the Carbonate Ore I sampled was 619. That's not a bad number, though it could be higher. Perhaps I could sample some more and find a resource that had a Decay Resistance in the 900's. That would be a much better resource for building this object.

The other attribute that affects this item is Conductivity. Now you've probably noticed that the Carbonate Ore I sampled doesn't have an attribute called Conductivity. That means, the effective Conductivity of the resource I sampled is 0. That's bad. That's really bad. It means that for the item attribute that needs Conductivity, I'll gain nothing for making this object with the resource I have.

Overall, the resource I have probably isn't the best one for making this object. My resource has a lot of high numbers in resource attributes that aren't used by this particular object, so the 953 in Heat Resistance that my ore has is being ignored, because I'm making an object that doesn't require it.