Forage
Many raw materials can be foraged directly from the environment. Not all resources are available in every environment though.
Foraging is most commonly used to quickly get a few materials for handcrafting. This includes the foraging to make an empire's first flag.
Locating Natural Resources
Using the top-down view it is possible to find almost any resource in the environment.
Locating plants
Plants can easily be found using the Plants overlay.
Plants are hard to describe, because plants are procedurally generated and are therefore unique to each planet. Some plant types can be foraged from both trees and bushes.
Locating Rocks
Rocks can easily be found using the Rocks overlay.
Rocks while having multiple possible shapes, always have the same look.
| Icon | Rock | Name | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Stone | The most common rock. |
|
|
Ore | No handcrafting uses. |
|
|
Ore | No handcrafting uses. |
|
|
Minerals | |
|
|
Oil | Only forages oil, cannot forage natural gas. |
|
|
Gems | No handcrafting uses. |
|
|
Radioactives | No handcrafting uses. |
|
|
Coal | No handcrafting uses. |
|
|
Ice | |
|
|
Eludium | Commonly only on moons. No handcrafting uses. |
|
|
Lumenite | Commonly only on moons and cold planets. Can be used for manual spacecraft repairs. |
Inspect Natural Resources
It is possible to inspect a resource before foraging it. Look at the ground at the base of the resource, whether it is a rock or a tree or a shrub. Use the spotting key, default `, to get a spot description of the terrain at that location. The description will include the type and quality of the resource.
Picking Up Natural Resources
Natural resources are picked up from the ground using the hand cursor.
Click on the rock or shrub to forage from it. Some times other plants may get in the way, when trying to harvest, in that case try from another angle or another source.
It is also possible to forage water by clicking on the surface of visible water.
If there is room in the inventory, an item foraged from the environment will be added to the inventory. Otherwise, it will be dropped on the ground.
Seeds
When foraging plants, a seed will also be acquired. Seeds are largely useless for anything other than flower pots. This means that if inventory space is limited, it is best to just drop them.