We are happy to announce that new resources are now available in the game! We have worked on this important milestone for quite a long time. It is intended to introduce much more depth and tactical diversity to the game. Economy is important in any strategy game, and we believe this update fits the Screeps gameplay very well.
New resources
There are 7 new mineable resources in the game now. Each room has some base mineral of a single type that you can mine starting from room level 6.
A proper usage of minerals will allow you to permanently boost individual functions of your creeps up to the 4x effectiveness increase. For example, a creep with 1 CARRY part and the catalyzed keanium acid effect can transfer 200 units of cargo instead of 50. Hence, your creep will need much less energy to carry out its work, and you can use the saved energy for other purposes.
Worth noting is the multi-component ghodium compound which allows to speed up the function upgradeController without increasing the energy usage. Besides, it increases the limit of maximum upgrade per tick for level 8 controllers and, therefore, significantly speeds up your Global Control Level upgrade speed.
Learn more about minerals and boosts
Trading
Since minerals are scattered across different rooms, you will need some means to transfer resources between them and facilitate trade connections. A new structure type serves this purpose: the Terminal. It allows for instant transfer of cargo from one terminal to another (even of another player). Each transaction consumes energy depending on the cargo volume and distance, so it’s vital to place terminals on the world map properly.
Currently we work on the in-game market system which will allow you to create buy/sell orders and thus trade resources with other players through your terminals automatically. Follow the news!