¶ Resources
Ferion runs on two parallel resource systems:
- Ores — physical materials you extract from planets, refine through a chain, and consume to build advanced things.
Credits — the empire's cash. Generated by planets and taxes, spent on ship upkeep, ministers, spies, and large fleets.
The dedicated Resources view (top menu) shows every layer: ore extraction, storage, refineries, factories, terraforming, megastructures, nebula harvesting, and ore trade.
¶ Ore tiers
There are 24 ores in a five‑level refining chain:
| Level | What it is | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 — Primary | Extracted directly from planets. Each planet type produces two of them. | 12 |
| Level 2 — Refined | Made by combining two specific Level 1 ores in a refinery. | 6 |
| Level 3 — Advanced | Made from two Level 2 ores. Required for megastructures (Dyson Swarm, Ringworld, Portals). | 3 |
| Level 4 — Exotic | Made from Level 3 ores. Late‑game high‑tier components. | 2 |
| Level 5 — Apex | Dropium, the rarest ore. Top of the chain. | 1 |
¶ Level 1 — by planet type
| Planet type | Primary ore | Secondary ore |
|---|---|---|
 Lava |
 Bezantium |
 Radiusant |
 Desert |
 Nucloid |
 Verrotan |
 Temperate |
 Boturkoec |
 Nagazal |
 Oceanic |
 Formets |
 Grindazine |
 Gas Giant |
 Perunga |
 Veronium |
 Ice Giant |
 Blazanter |
 Terrilliod |
A given planet generates a primary and a secondary ore drawn from its type's pair. To get the other type's ores, you need to colonise that other type of world — or trade for it.
¶ Level 2 → 5 — refined
| Level | Ore | Built from |
|---|---|---|
| 2 |  Karmasas |
Bezantium + Radiusant |
| 2 |  Nadzerbat |
Nucloid + Verrotan |
| 2 |  Galagores |
Boturkoec + Nagazal |
| 2 |  Miout |
Formets + Grindazine |
| 2 |  Ldwarts |
Perunga + Veronium |
| 2 |  Mankazor |
Blazanter + Terrilliod |
| 3 |  Ferros Nr.6 |
Karmasas + Nadzerbat |
| 3 |  Sjampoo |
Galagores + Miout |
| 3 |  Texorrium |
Ldwarts + Mankazor |
| 4 |  Kroketite |
Ferros Nr.6 + Sjampoo |
| 4 |  Rabogen |
Sjampoo + Texorrium |
| 5 |  Dropium |
(top of the chain) |
Refining is done by ore refinery buildings on your planets — research the matching tech to unlock the higher tiers.
¶ Where ore comes from
Three sources:
- Planets — every planet has a primary and secondary ore. Build extractors and harvesters to pull more per week.
- Refineries on planets — turn lower‑tier ore into higher‑tier ore on a fixed conversion rate.
- Nebulae — ships with a Nebular Harvester park inside a nebula and pull Level 3 ore (Ferros Nr.6, Sjampoo, or Texorrium, depending on the nebula) weekly.
¶ What ore is for
Ore is consumed — once spent, it's gone. The main sinks:
- Buildings. Many buildings require a stock of a specific ore to start construction.
- Ringworld megastructures. Building a Ringworld consumes large quantities of Level 3 ore over time.
- Dyson Swarm. Same — a long‑running Level 3 ore drain.
- Portals. Building and maintaining a Portal Gate consumes ore on an ongoing basis. If a portal can't be maintained, it is destroyed.
- Terraforming. Changing a planet's type costs ore.
¶ Storage and overflow
- Storage is empire-wide. All ore from every planet pools into one inventory.
- Capacity is the sum of every planet's ore storage (base 500 per planet, plus Resource Silos and similar buildings).
- Overflow is destroyed. Once storage is full, surplus is shaved off the most abundant ore type first — there is no warehouse outside the empire.
Plan storage capacity before big extraction campaigns or you'll lose yields you've already paid for.
¶ Your three megastructure ores
When you start a game, each player is randomly assigned a dedicated Level 3 ore for each of the three megastructure projects:
- One ore for your Dyson Swarm
- One ore for your Ringworld
- One ore for your Portals
These three are deliberately different per player, which is why two players' megastructure builds can demand wildly different ore mixes. Check the Resources view early to find out which Level 3 ore each of your three projects wants — that's what your refineries should be pointed at long‑term.
¶ Trading ore
Ferion's "trade" is automated ore‑to‑ore conversion, not player‑to‑player. From the Trade layer in Resources you set up rules like "convert N units of Ore A into Ore B per week"; the conversion runs each week against your stockpile, at a cost in credits proportional to the rarity of the ore.
There is no marketplace, tribute, or direct exchange between players — alliances aside, every empire converts its own ores.
¶ Credits
Credits are the empire's cash float. They tick up or down every week based on:
Income
- Taxes from each planet's population.
- Buildings that generate credits (Financial Hubs, AI Economic Hub, etc.).
- Bonuses on Ferion‑type planets and Ringworlds.
Expenses
- Ship maintenance — each ship costs credits per week.
- Fleet overhead — once a fleet exceeds 250 ships, an exponential per‑ship cost kicks in. Massive single fleets get very expensive.
- Ministers — every active minister has a salary (see Government).
- Spies — every active spy on a mission costs credits per week.
- Portal upkeep — 100 credits/week per gate.
- Ore trades — credits are spent on the conversion (higher cost for higher tiers).
¶ Going negative
If your credit balance drops to −100 or below, bankruptcy penalties kick in. Every full 100 credits of debt rolls a penalty — picked at random — that:
- destroys a random building,
- destroys a random ship, or
- removes a chunk of population from a planet.
The "salvage value" from each penalty is credited back to your balance, so eventually the empire claws its way out — but you'll have lost real assets in the process. Watch the credits column.
¶ Tips
- Plan for ore storage before extraction. It's painful to watch a week's harvest evaporate because your silos are full.
- Refine your three megastructure ores first. Long before you start the megastructures themselves, line up refineries so you're stockpiling the right Level 3 ores.
- Don't over‑fleet. Above 250 ships in one fleet the maintenance cost explodes. Multiple smaller fleets are cheaper and harder to wipe.
- Tax carefully. Going above 10% tax shaves production and science. Up the tax only if you need to climb out of negative credits — don't leave it high.
- Build Resource Silos on busy ore worlds. They directly add to your empire‑wide storage cap.
¶ Related
- Buildings — refineries, silos, financial hubs, planetary economy.
- Production — the queue that consumes ore on each build.
- Nebulae — ship‑based ore harvesting.
- Portals — Portal Gates and their upkeep.
- Stats reference — what credits, food, energy, and other planet stats represent.