The Daily Grind

Part 9: Refinery - Materials

by CmdrBond

Refinery

Figure 92: Main Screen - Refinery section

Materials

Next up is the Materials tab under the Refinery section. You get to the Materials tab by clicking on the Refinery button in the upper left of the main screen (Figure 92). Keep in mind that all of the items in this tab require certain amounts of either Grade 2, 3, 4, or 5 raw Crystal, Gas, or Ore in order to be able to refine these materials in the appropriate claim boxes. The Grade level of the materials that you have the ability to refine will depend upon your Operations Level. You will need these materials on a regular, reoccurring basis. This means that you will need to mine, or steal, these materials in order to refine them in the appropriate claim boxes. While stealing can be an option, especially in the territories, a much more consistent option is to mine it yourself. Mining the materials will also meet one of the Daily Goals discussed in the Daily Goals section of this article.

As far as which chest option to choose when refining the materials, I have found that I have consistently received better rewards on average by selecting the two-chest option (Figure 94 thru Figure 102). Also, as you can see in Figure 103 and Figure 104, once you refine each of the materials the reset timer is 10 hours in duration. This makes it somewhat challenging to refine materials on a timely basis for optimal refining. With that in mind, I will refine when the option becomes available while I am logged into the game; but I do not make a special effort to log in every 10 hours. This follows a strategy of Resource Management which will be discussed in a future article.

One other item to note, is that on the Materials tab in the upper right of the screen (Figure 93) you will only see the quantities of the highest Grade of raw materials that you have in your inventory. In order to see the quantities of the lower Grades of raw materials that you have in your inventory, you have to go to the claim boxes for those lower Grade levels. Then the quantity of raw material that you have for that particular Grade will be displayed in the upper right of the screen. For example, look at Figure 94. I have clicked on the Grade 2 Crystal claim box to open this screen and the quantity of Grade 2 Raw Crystal that I have on hand is displayed in the upper right of the screen. Using this method to check the quantities of raw materials that you have in your inventory is quite tedious. The better option is to click on the Items button which is next to the Refinery button in the upper left of the main screen (Figure 92) and then navigate to the appropriate tab on the bottom of the next screen.