NANITESThis is your money; every build requires nanites, and there are some trades that require you to export this resource. I cannot stress this point enough:
nanites are your single most important resource. You can grow your crops, collect your water, and produce your electricity... but you need nanites to build the farms, wells, and power stations. If you're low on a resource, you can always build another supplier...
unless you don't have enough nanites.
There are two ways to gain nanites: through mining copper or iron (and then converting those minerals at a nanite converter), or by some method I haven't learned yet involving growing some sort of plant and then converting it into a sludge. I've only learned about the sludge method last night when I was trying to find ways to get more nanites.
There is a third option available to you, and that is to recycle buildings. You can either recycle buildings and collect a portion of the nanites back that went into its construction, or you can cause the building to implode. Your call.
When the mines run out... and they will run out, believe me on this... your source of material stops. No material, no nanites. You will be unable to build or repair anything ever again until you get some more nanites. Some missions will reward you with nanites, but those are never enough. You may also come across a supply pod that has some nanites; they may keep troubles at bay for a little while, but that's it, they only delay the inevitable.
...
I was (and still am) operating on the first colony world. V-something. My first colony was fine, but the logistics and layout weren't to my liking, so I deleted it. My second colony was amazing. Built every mega structure, had a population of over 1200 colonists, happiness was at
levels, full employment, no crime... and then my initial copper mine stopped producing. My automated repairs on the colony due to shard storms stopped; some structures became nonfunctional. There was growing unemployment, limited power outages... though the colony's happiness never went below
. I was still able to take care of some things, as the iron mine was pr-
The iron mine stopped.
Happiness bordered between
and
. Unemployment continued to rise. And even though I couldn't do anything any more, I was still receiving (and having to turn away) immigrants. Started receiving messages stating that a building was about to collapse (so I recycled); then another one, and another. Man, those shard storms do some damage when you aren't able to do anything about them! Not only was unemployment continuing to rise, so to was crime. My utopia was falling before my eyes.
On a side note, I did win a fifth election at this point. I had massive amounts of food with a damn good variety; water was plentiful, air quality pretty good; but my city was on a steady decline, all for the lack of nanites. I eventually said fuck it and started to blow up the residential areas... colonists do
not like being killed off, let me tell you.
So let this be a less for you: build in moderation, take things slowly. I may have succeeded if it wasn't for the construction of the mega structures (we're talking 420-900 nanites apiece here). Build what's needed when you need it, follow the missions and don't jump ahead. CONSERVE NANITES.