In the trade screen you can buy different minerals.

can anyone tell me what they are for and do please

Sure thing you can use minerals to build different items for your ship once your research is up to the right level. They are also used to build planetary buildings as well. The more advanced you get the better minerals you will need.

You can also sell minerals to make money. Later in the game, once you've researched a few levels, new ship items and planet structures will be increasingly expensive. Once you've researched around level 6 onwards, things will start to be mega expensive to buy. Selling your minerals will eventually provide you with enough money to upgrade to those better items. I currently have 2.7 BILLION credits, and I could spend it all very easily. There are people with plenty more credits than me, but they still complain about how expensive the items are. Trust me, you'll need them in future.

True to all that Matress of evil said. Small example is even with repairs or upkeep. I have a weapon down that will cost me 2.7B just to repair. Not only that but my daily upkeep is up to 2.5B a day. So save as many creds as you can and you will be fine when you get higher.

As I've been levelling (lvl 40 now) it's starting to look like the top of the bell curve for my mineral draw is starting to shift to the more valuable ones. Is that an accurate observation, or just wishfil thinking?

As you rank up the more and more valuable your minerals will become. For a rank 40 getting any of the top four resources would be very rare while for some one my rank it is more common.

W.
O.
W.
...

2.7 billion? I am lvl 72 and I can barely keep up with my upkeep... My things keep breaking...
What's your secret, buddy?

Thanks

lol you want to up your mineral production if thats the case. My daily upkeep is now up to 3B. I have 8.7B right now and I'm hoping to get that higher by the end of the night. If you need help with upkeep or getting better worlds ask some of your high ranking in game friends or your legion for some help. I'm sure they would help you gladly.

if your having problems with upkeep then that means your research rate is too high compared to your mineral production.. when your ship modules are too expensive for your mineral production then your credits will fall sharply.. try increasing your mineral production

There's no secret to my amount of credits. Most people would actually consider that I have a low mineral production rate. My minerals only make up 17% of my output. Compared to the guys above, I also have a very low maintenance cost. It's only 11.3 million a day at the moment, compared to their billions. I now have 3.6 billion and it's slowly creeping up, but I definitely need to get more mining planets. I'm overflowing with Phase Cutter Chassis anyways.

Now is the time to get some nice Volcanic planets with all of the bonuses we have for them now (+2/150 pop, 50 attack, etc). I 'picked' up a nice one yesterday, made me happy and added a lot to my mining.

Per hour %
Minerals 774 21,05
Artifacts 1469 39,95
Research 1434 39,00


im not far from you in the %-area of the minerals, yet (at my rate) i get hundreds of millions each day, and i have no plans in near future to upgrade mining planets.

I don't know what your rank is but you should keep getting your minerals higher up. With your research that much higher than your minerals it will only be a matter of time till your tech becomes to much to handle. Not saying you need to do it right now but over time throw in a nice mineral world from time to time just to keep things balanced. Not saying you need to match it with your research but just a little higher than where its at. It will make a huge difference over time.