Copper/Iron Balance

[golden mural]

The copper/iron balance seems off. By the time I reached the end of my playthrough (roughly 50 hours) I had 2 large crates of copper but was always needing iron. I think the main source of this demand is the alloy frames using iron but I am not certain.

I think it would be nice to break metal scraps into two versions: steel scrap and copper scrap. This way you can harvest what you need and control your inventory better.

Another option might be to increase the copper sinks by moving some of the iron demand in recipes to copper.

[pliant portal]

I've been playing for about 50 hours.
I have:

• 3 crates of iron
• 3 crates of copper
• 2 crates of plastic
• 1 crate each of cloth, rubber, gold, etc.
• 1 crate of rare materials (20-30 of each).
  And I've only visited 5 locations so far!

[edgy narwhal]

I think it is worth bearing the roadmap in mind, there is more content on the way and that may require different levels of everything.

[vestal sail]

Same as Daywalker, have so many resources towards the end that I stopped salvaging, also not including story locations, about same 5 or 6 other POIs, other than memories there are little reason to visit the others.
Also a fair point on the roadmap, there is still lots more to come so hopefully we will be given quests and goals that put the resource abundance to good use.

[mystic pier]

I had to throw away hundreds of units of copper one day I had so much of it. Disbalance comes from simple fact - copper comes from metal scraps and wire scraps, potentially doubling the output of copper relative to iron. This next bit needs more research, but it might be the case that copper isn't used in crafting recipes as much as iron exacerbating the imbalance even further.

[fair hound]

I have a muuuuch bigger surplus of copper than iron. Honestly, I'm surprised something called "alloy frame" only takes iron and... plastic. Not sure what's being alloyed there, but I think copper should be included in the recipe.

[formal ridge]

Yep, steel beams are shredded to copper! Don't make sense. Copper and aluminum should be swapped, and items like alloy frames consume more resource.

[golden mural]

I think their intention was that we would use power cables more than we do now, or at least how much I used them. Plastic gates that rather than copper. They could easily be changed to 2 copper per 5m cable and that might also fix the issue.

A tad better balance in copper consumption would mean that you just harvest more steel scrap to get the copper and iron both. Or, like I said, make scrap come in two forms: Iron only and Copper only.

[formal ridge]

Maybe, but if they want less copper than the flood currently, just change the source.

Iron comes from steel and metal scrap.
Aluminium from the same, dependent on type of metal.

Copper comes from tech stuff, scrap wires and the like. Then copper will be reduced, whilst still being quite plentiful.