Carbon
Economic role
Carbon supports workforce recruitment, biological troop upkeep and many construction or manufacturing inputs. Swarm armies make the recurring supply particularly important: a large recruitment order is only the start of its economic cost.
Where it is spent
- Infrastructure examples: 🏛️ Main Building, 📦 Warehouse, ⚔️ Barracks, 🗺️ War Room.
- Recruitment examples: Larval Scuttler, Chitin Mauler, Spore Runner, Brood Titan. Compare per-unit costs with ongoing upkeep.
- Research examples: Capture Drone Protocols, Amplifier Engineering, Chitin Mauler Protocols, Spore Runner Protocols. Projects are paid through the 🔬 Research Hub.
Fields, storage and expansion
Develop 🌿 Carbon Grove for recurring supply. The table below is one field's base output, not the outpost's net income: labor, bonuses, power availability and spending can change the usable balance.
Field upgrades use increasingly expensive cost curves. Compare another field upgrade with the wider costs of founding and staffing another outpost when local capacity is constrained. Expansion requires settlers, a Colonization Hub and account-wide Exploration Data, rather than simply buying unlimited fields.
Plan 📦 Warehouse capacity and cargo deliveries alongside output. Saving for a major purchase is easier when storage and the destination's supply chain are ready before the next production increase.
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Category | Material element |
| Produced by | 🌿 Carbon Grove |
Production per field
Base output of one 🌿 Carbon Grove at each level, before research, Race or tile bonuses.
| Level | Per hour |
|---|---|
| 1 | 30 |
| 2 | 70 |
| 3 | 120 |
| 4 | 180 |
| 5 | 260 |
| 6 | 365 |
| 7 | 495 |
| 8 | 665 |
| 9 | 880 |
| 10 | 1160 |
| 11 | 1510 |
| 12 | 1965 |
| 13 | 2545 |
| 14 | 3290 |
| 15 | 4240 |
| 16 | 5455 |
| 17 | 7015 |
| 18 | 9010 |
| 19 | 11560 |
| 20 | 14825 |
Key: carbon_biomass