Strategic and luxury resources in Endless Space 2 Endless Space 2 Guide
Last update: 19 May 2017
Strategic resources are an important part of the game if you want to have a well-developed and strong fleet. Additionally, you can use them while building Wonders or very advanced projects in systems. In every match you can get all 6 types of strategic resources although having systems with the last two types is very difficult. You must explore systems and search various signals, ruins or other findings if you want to discover deposits or a part of them that was scattered. You can also seize a system that belongs to other civilization that has a resource that you need. The same goes for the second group of resources that you can mine. Luxury resources gives bonuses to the citizens in your systems. Their function can be divided into local (in a system) or as a part of System Development project, a special upgrade that is based on a luxury resource. Besides that you can use them in trade, improve Approval in a system or use it to increase a population of a particular race in your system. Strategic resources can be divided into three groups:
- Titanium and Hyperium. You can find them easily whether as ready to be mined deposits or as a loot during exploration. The first few technologies allow to use them in creating better modules and ships.
- Adamantian and Antimatter. They are hard to come across and they are used in the development of technologies that are in farther, middle tech trees. Modules that are based on them are more powerful the preceding ones.
- Orichalcix and Quadrinix. Very rare minerals. They are hard to mine, even finding a system that has their deposits is difficult to find. They are used in production of the strongest ships and modules.
Resource deposits may vary - in one system you can only get one unit while in other system you can get a few during one turn. You only have to own a given system and colonize a planet on which you can find a resource deposit. You must develop a technology from Economy and Trade that allows you to mine those resources. Only then you can get them moved into your warehouse.
In each turn you get resources delivered to your warehouses. They are not kept on planets or systems but they are gathered in the overall pool of your empire and are taken from it when you begin a construction of a ship or an upgrade. In the upper left corner, in the status screen (1), you can see the amount of your resources. If the resource icon and the number is underlined it means that a given resource is mined. On the screen you can see the places where known resources are but they are not currently mined (2) and systems in which the resources are currently mined (3). In the first case the resource icon above a planet is slightly translucent and in the second case the icon is fully colored. Remember that you can trade those minerals in the Galactic Trade Center but only if came across a given resource. You can't buy unknown minerals. Because of that it is important to explore the galaxy as much as possible. Thanks to that you can discover new places that can be mined in the already known systems.
On the economy screen you can see the amount of luxury resources (4). They are assigned to columns corresponding to a given group of bonuses to which they are connected to. They can be used in System Development (5), a special upgrade for your systems. Some of them give you a fixed value, e.g. +50 Dust in a system, other can give you +10 Dust per citizen in a system. You can assign only one resource to one level of the System Development (you can't assign two or three of the same ones) but one type can be assigned to each level to combine effects. As presented in the picture, in order to upgrade the System Development to level 2 I used RedSang (+50 Food) and I did the same with the level 3. The effects of both levels combine in a system which means that I'll get +100 Food in that system. A proper use of luxury resources can fill in the gaps in your empire or make it even stronger in a given filed.
These resources can also be traded but only when you discovered or acquired them. Besides that you can use them when the citizens are revolting (the Approval is very low). When this happens a random resource is selected. Each race has its own favorite resource (6) which can be used to encourage them to increase the population. You can see it in the Population Overview which can be accessed by selecting the Senate Screen or system overview. The greater population in your empire the more resources you must use to encourage them. A question mark next to a race means that you don't have the access or you didn't found their favorite resource.