Research and Resources

The economy and tech engine: the three research trees, Familiarity, the basic and rare and -nite resources, and the scanners that find them all.

Research is the engine the whole game runs on, and resources are the fuel that drives it. Better towers, better mech weapons, better energy, environmental protection, and access to rare materials all come out of the research tree, and the research tree in turn is gated by the resources you can find and process. The two systems are inseparable: you scan and harvest a biome’s materials, spend research over time to unlock the next tier, build the production chains that tier enables, and use them to reach the next material. Understanding both halves together, what gates research and where the resources live, is what turns a stalled run into a moving one.

The three research trees

Research is split into three trees, each unlocked by a specific building, and you spend research over time at a Research Station.

Tree	Unlocked by	Covers
Base and Buildings	Communication Hub (built, powered)	Defenses, energy, resource and ammo production and storage, HQ upgrades
Weapons and Equipment	Communication Hub (built, powered)	Mech weapons and upgrades, consumables, movement skills, Armory upgrades
Alien Research	Laboratory (built, powered, clean water)	Environmental shielding, -nite handling, alien weapons, towers, equipment

A large amount of research is locked behind your Headquarters level (upgradeable through levels 3 to 7) and your Armory level (levels 2 to 5). Keeping them current is itself a progression task, because many Base and Weapon researches require a minimum HQ or Armory level. Let them lag and the tree silently stalls.

Familiarity, the Alien Research gate

Alien Research works differently from the other two trees. Most of its nodes require Familiarity with specific fauna, flora, or materials before you can research them. You gain Familiarity two ways: killing or destroying creatures and structures, which can drop DNA Fragments the mech collects, and using the Bioscanner on entities highlighted in green, which grants DNA Fragments more reliably.

Bioscan the green highlights. Scanning is the steady way to build Familiarity, and Familiarity is what unlocks the entire Alien Research tree, including shielding and the best late weapons and towers.

Some Alien Research nodes are also locked behind Campaign story missions, including environmental shieldings and certain special structures and floors.

The resources

The economy runs on a small set of basic materials plus tiered rare resources.

Class	Resources	Notes
Basic	Carbonium, Ironium	Core building materials. Harvested or synthesized. Feed nearly all construction and ammo.
Rare elements	Cobalt, Titanium, Palladium, Uranium	Mined with Rare Element Mines placed on ore veins and powered.
-nite materials	Hazenite, Rhodonite, Tanzanite, Ferdonite	Alien materials, each tied to a biome and unlocked via Familiarity. Feed Alien Research.
DLC and update	Morphium, Supercoolant	Morphium from Metal Terror’s Metallic Valley; Supercoolant from the Cryo Fields.

The community priority for rare elements is Cobalt first, then Titanium, then Uranium or Palladium, where the order between the last two does not matter much. Titanium, Palladium, and Uranium are used heavily, so mining them is faster than cultivating or synthesizing them. A Tier 3 Extractor is cited as effectively quadrupling the output of any Carbonium, Ironium, Palladium, Titanium, or Uranium deposit, which makes extractor upgrades a top research priority. Each of the four -nite materials has its own Handling research node.

Energy and ammo as economies

Two economies are easy to miss because they are not stockpiled items. Energy is a production axis: it must exceed draw at all times or buildings shut down, so you build a progression of sources from Solar and Wind through Biomass, Magma, Fusion, and Nuclear. Ammunition is the other. Towers consume it and go inert when it runs out, so Tower Ammo Factories fed with Carbonium and Ironium must scale with your tower count. Both are covered in depth in the base building guide, but they belong to the resource picture too, because both ultimately pull on the same materials and the same research.

Scanning and discovery

Three scanners drive the loop. The Orbital Scanner reveals rift travel locations so you can reach other biomes. The Bioscanner, unlocked with the Laboratory, scans creatures and flora for the DNA Fragments that feed Alien Research. The Geoscanner locates resource deposits so you know where to place mines and extractors. Together they turn an unexplored biome into a known set of targets: where to travel, what to scan, and where to dig.