Forage
Many raw materials can be foraged directly from the environment. Not all resources are available in every environment.
Foraging involves two basic steps:
- Locate the resource you want to forage.
- Pick it up.
Locating Natural Resources
Top-down view is the easiest way to locate natural resources in your area. Press the Backspace key to switch between top-down view and the first-person view of your character.
Top-down view shows several categories of information, overlayed as icons or words on the terrain. Cycle between six different categories of information displayed using the \ and Shift+\ keys.
| Category | Information Provided |
| Rocks | Shows presense of mineral resources. |
| Plants | Shows plant resources. Green indicates only shrubbery. Brown indicates trees and possibly shrubbery. Purple indicates dense trees and possibly shrubbery. |
| Buildings | Shows types and tech level of buildings. |
| Roads | Shows roads and road slabs. |
| Cities | Shows city ownership of each building and road. |
| None | Shows no information, just a clean top-down view. |
Walk to the natural resource you want to forage. Look at the ground at the base of the resource, whether it is a rock or a tree or a shrub. Press the ` key to get a spot description of the terrain at that location. The description will include the type and quality of natural resource that is present.
Picking Up Natural Resources
Natural resources are picked up from the ground using the hand cursor. Press Enter or hold the Ctrl key to use the hand cursor.
Click on the ground at the center of where the rock or shrub touches the ground to forage from it; click on the trunk of trees to forage from them; click on the surface of visible water to forage water. You cannot forage from branches of a plant. Some shrubs spread in a broad area around the center of their location, which may make the click location look like open empty ground. Even so, you must click on the ground at the center of where the rock or shrub touches the ground to forage from it.
If there is room in your inventory, an item foraged from the environment will be added to your inventory. Otherwise, it will be foraged and then dropped on the ground at your feet.