Resources, What Exactly is Going on?

[TheLastRonin]

What does 78% lead mean? Does it mean I extract 78 points of led per month? Does it mean I extract lead from all planets but a 78% greater amount from this one? Is this how much Lead I can extract before it runs out? Is it the rate of replenishment? [&:]

Help?

[Spacecadet]

My understanding of it is that a resource with a 78% rating can be extracted at 78% of your Extractor rating.
So in short, it's how rich or pure the resource is at this location.

There are several different capacity Extractors (improvements through Tech advances), so as you capacity increases so does your resource recovery.

[lordxorn]

I just measured these percentages at my colony, which automatically mine resources. So I don't know how extractor bonus apply if any.

Resources were extracted at varying rates and times.

A 38% resource was extracted at 1k per 3 to 5 days.

While a 80% resource was gained at 2k per 3 to 5 days.

The 1k bonus was for 60% or above.

So take it for what it's worth, I never worry this much about my resources.

The main thing you should be concerned about is located 10 different types of luxuries and in good quantity, all the other resources come easily.

[Aures]

As Elliot explained in http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2654763 colonies have a fixed extraction rate (that is lowered for populations under 1 billion). If you are talking about resource extraction not at a colony then yes, resource extraction equals extraction rate per component times number of components times resource percentage per "day". So if you have 1 mining engine at starting mining tech (extraction rate 5) it will extract 5x1x0.78=3.9 units of lead per day. The way extraction is calculated this is the average value you will get per day.

There can be some confusion between individual units and a "k' of units, if you want to satisfy yourself the equations refer to individual units try building a mining base/colony and then deleting any incoming freighters using the game editor to check what the actual extraction rate is. When the resource is not actually used at the mining base/colony this provides an accurate view of how much is being extracted and is the method I use in my tests. It take several months for a colony to extract "k's" (ie values measued in 1000's in the cargo tab) of a resource, not days.