Minerals are the only resource everything wants. All sixty-four units in the demo cost minerals, and so do forty-seven of the fifty-nine buildings. Nothing else in the game comes close to that reach, which is why every other decision on this page is really a decision about what you are not spending minerals on.
Population is the second near-universal cost: sixty-one of the sixty-four units carry one, from a 3-point mutant swarm up to 60 for the heaviest vehicles. Unlike minerals it is not spent, it is occupied — and the supply that holds it comes from buildings. Ten buildings raise the ceiling, from the 20 of an Empire barn to the 90 of the large barn. That is the shape of the constraint: you do not run out of population, you run out of the buildings that allow it.
The building catalogue also records energy costs and production. Thirty-one buildings draw energy, from 5 for a barn to 500 for the Matter Fabricator, and the total draw of every building in the demo comes to 3 020. Ten buildings produce energy, from a 30-point mutant watch tower to the 300 of a renegade outpost, and their total output is 1 340 — well under half of what the full catalogue would ask for. These totals combine buildings from every faction; they are not the energy balance of a playable base.
Only two units draw energy at all, and both are static Empire pieces: the AK-30 turret and the repair site, at 50 each. Every other unit in the game is free of the grid once it exists. That single fact is why cutting an opponent’s power hurts their base and not their army.
Gears are the narrow one, and they are very nearly an Empire resource. Twelve entities in the whole demo cost gears: three units — the Bombarda, the Bronenosets and the Dreadnought, at 50 each — and nine buildings, from 20 for the large barn to 150 for the Matter Fabricator. Eleven of those twelve belong to the Empire; the single exception is the mutant tree crane at 50. Outside the Empire roster, gears are a rare cost in the demo data.
Storage is another limit rather than a currency: twelve buildings raise it, the biggest being the Empire and fourth-faction silos at 400 apiece. Hitting that ceiling does not stop your harvesters — it simply stops the income from counting, which is the quietest way to fall behind in this game.
Those values do not say how the minerals actually arrive, and that loop is where a lead is actually built. A mineral deposit holds 1 000, and the flat fact about deposits is that they are all the same: 7 of them are catalogued in the build and every one carries the same figure. ⛔ There is no rich patch and no poor patch — a deposit is never better than another, only better placed.
⭐ The carriers are not the same, and this is the sharpest economic asymmetry in the demo. The Combine hauls 200 per trip and takes ordinary minerals only. The Big collector hauls 460 — more than twice as much — and its files record no such restriction: it will take any mineral type. The refineries differ in the same direction: the Empire’s holds 250 and unloads 15 per cycle, the mutant one holds 300 and unloads 10. ⭐ Read together, the mutants move more matter per trip and buffer more of it at home, which is the quiet half of why their cheapest units cost 5 minerals and ours do not.
All of the above is read from build 23882143 of the demo. The developer’s 15 June 2026 announcement introduces the macro buildings that sit on top of this economy; the numbers themselves are ours, counted entity by entity.
Values read from game files · version 23882143