Talk: Material

Convert Page to Consumable

I am proposing that we convert this page to be the primary page regarding consumables (Consumable), as we now know that materials are defined as in the Codex. This is proposed to be done in conjunction with the converting of the Resources page to Resource Guide, which will serve as a general guide on the categories of, and use of various resources, including Consumables and Materials. See Builder Guide for an example.

Should create new Redirects to the Consumable page from:

• Materials
• Raw Material
• Refined Material
• Component

(Leave Fuel as a separate page)

Any thoughts/opinions on this? RightBigToe (talk) 01:37, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

I like this idea --John6739 (talk) 12:41, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Elildar's long answer

First of all, I like the idea to have a primary page for consumables. But I think we should first agree on the following terms :

• Consumable
• Resource
• Material
• Part
• Component
• Element
• Alloy

First, about Consumable, the definition from the Codex is :
"Consumables are the components utilized by Tools. Consumables are typical objects in the game world, so might consist of a mass of material (Voxels), or an object like a spaceship part (Elements), they are typically consumed when used. Other examples of Consumables that will be added in future releases are things like bullets and blueprints."

Also, in the first tutorial video, JC say :

• 0:15 to 0:42 : that most of the Tools require Resources
• 2:15 to 2:29 : that Raw Materials are Resources for Mining Tools
• 6:05 to 6:22 : that Pure Materials are Resources for Voxel Building Tools
• 8:33 to 8:39 : that Elements are Resources for Element Building Tools

And since, I didn't find any source saying that Resources are only the Raw Materials, my conclusion was : Consumable=Resource

Next, about Materials, the definition from the codex is :
Raw Materials
"These are the building blocks of the universe, the compound materials that are found in nature, the ores, organic materials and precious metals and stones. They can be extracted and mined from planets and asteroids with the Nanoformer, later more specialized equipment may be required. Some materials are common and some areas are abundant with particular raw materials, while other materials are much rarer and you have to travel further and look harder to find them.
Raw materials in their current state have little use and must first be refined to be pure materials before they are useful. See the Crafting section on how to do this."
Refined Material
"By purifying and mixing raw materials you can make Refined Materials and Alloys. These are far superior in quality and can be used to build advanced voxel structures. Refined materials can also be used to craft component parts."

In the videos from the game, we can see in the inventory a category Material that contain Pure Material and Mine-able Material categories.
When a mine-able material is selected, it is called as Raw Material in his description.

So I think that :

• Raw Material=Mine-able Material
• Raw Material have subcategories like Ore, Stone...
• Refined Material=Pure Material
• Refined Material have subcategories like Alloy, Metal...

And then about Components, the definition from the codex is :
Components
"By using different materials (and sometimes other parts) the player can craft specialized parts like circuit-boards, fans, gears and chassis that in turn can be used to make Elements."

These are half way between Materials and Elements, they have to be crafted and their only use is for crafting.
In the inventory, they are under the category called Part. So we can say that : Part=Component

As said in the codex, all Materials, Elements and Components are Consumables in DU. They are used consumed in the way that they disappear from your inventory when used with a tool.

So, I would prefer to keep this Material page like this, but add the ores to the Raw Materials section. Or have separated pages for Raw Material and Refined Material because we will have very long lists later.
Then, use the Resource page as primary page for consumables. If you want to rename it, I would agree.

BTW, I add already prepared a table for this kind of primary page :

Elildar (talk) 21:51, 10 November 2017 (UTC)