Dynamic Materials / Items
Build anything out of any material you find
In Celestial Frontier, in game items are represented by a combination of attributes and materials. Items are not represented simply by being an Iron Plate or an Oil Refinery. Instead, the classification of the item is just one of many parts of that item. An iron plate itself is a Metal Plate using the material Iron. A metal plate could be an Aluminium Plate, Steel Plate, Copper Plate, or Bronze Plate. The materials are dynamic, and so players may find new metals with new attributes. These new metals may create lighter, stronger, or more conductive plates. These new metal plates will dramatically alter the possibilities of what can be created in the universe, shaking up the entire crafting ecosystem. Oil Refineries built out of different metal plates will have different capabilities.
Items may be built to a certain size, such as an S4 Construction Tool. Items may be built with a different composition that has a smaller or larger cross sectional area, such as a CSA-8 Cable [Gold] [Thin] or a CSA1 Cable [Copper] [Thick]. Items that are gathered may have variations to them, such as a local variation of gold ore: Cahcee Gold Ore. Items may have a certain richness to them, such as an R10 X593 Power Cell. Items like Structural Components may have low or high density variations, such as a D-4 Structural Component [Steel] which provide trade offs between the volume and the strength of the structures built.