Resources

Basic resources
Basic resources are organics, fuel, metals, synthetics, explosives, exotics, credits and fate points. They (except data and fate points) are stored in containers with limited capacity - containers can be crafted, bought or looted from enemies after battles.

Organics management

 * Make sure you identify individuals who have unusually high food requirements. -5 is the norm, but this number can easily go to -15 or more. Crew like this should either be in cryosleep, or producing organics.
 * Gardens/shroomeries don't just make food, they also automatically zero the assigned crew's organics needs! This makes them far more useful than they initially seem. Note, however, that a max tier farm module only allows 6 crew, while cryosleep can go up to 8. In general, if you have to pick between farming and cryosleeps where they cater to equal numbers of crew, you should always prefer farming, as they are net positive as opposed to net zero.
 * Try to ensure that you have a very low organics burn rate when travelling around the system map. A slightly positive number would be even better, if possible.
 * If you have a decent or positive organics rate, using weapons which consume organics can be a great idea.
 * Try to keep a spare cryosleep module in storage, in case your main one takes a hit and gets destroyed. Few things sink a ship faster than having another -60 organics consumption all of a sudden.
 * Organics will be the main limiting factor to your number of crew, and the crew in turn, will limit the number of modules you can use which require (or really need) an operator. Of course, this is in addition to the number of slots on the ship in the first place. As an example, however, if you have 6 main weapons, you will certainly need 6 crew manning them. You will definitely have at least 1 bridge and 1 shield crew. Some repair, fire, and security crew, as well as operators for 2+ PDs will be required, which means that you have at least 10 operators which need some form of cryo sleep, or meaningful work during cruise. Plan ahead in terms of cryo sleep and gardens.

Fuel




Fuel management

 * Fuel can be problematic to source, so it is generally better to have a terrible engine which has good fuel efficiency, than to have a top tier engine which requires 50 fuel to move.

Metals management

 * Metals are fairly important for repairing your ship, and also critical for upgrading slots. Depending on your strategy, you may want to have two or three extra weapons slots, which would each need at least 1000 metal. Depending on your ship and storage options, it might be difficult to even amass this much metal, so plan ahead. Straight after such an upgrade, you probably also want to have a little bit of metal on hand for emergency repairs, in case you have a bad fight.
 * As the tutorial points out, repairing hull is actually cheaper at stations, so do so when you can. It might be worthwhile to switch off the auto repair feature, and micro this manually, when necessary.
 * Towards the late game, if you are doing well, metal might also be in a massive surplus. Some weapons use metals to fire, and they can be good alternatives to explosives based weapons.

Synthetics management

 * Synthetics are used when repairing the ship manually (not at space stations) and when healing drones in drone repair modules - it takes 10-11 synthetics per health point. So try to have at least 200 synthetics when entering a battle.

Explosives management

 * If your weapons use lots of explosives, make sure to hoard them in big amounts and have proper containers to do so. The game also has converter modules, for example explosives combinator, which turns resources into explosives. Used and produced resources are not 1:1 ratio, but the converter might help you out of a difficult battle situation. Look for information about converter modules here. (LINK)
 * If you have energy weapons (lasers), turn off the weapons which use explosives when battle is about to end, to save resources.

Exotics management

 * Exotics are essentially alternate currency. They can generally be sold in mass to stations for decent money, and upgrading to weapons slots also requires 10.
 * Keep 3-4 on hand for traders who you don't wish to buy their wares from. They typically will give you 50+ credits for the exotic, plus 15 or so of some resource, making it a great deal.
 * Tips from players: 1. Buy a backup bridge, then scrap it :) - it will give you 10 exotics.  2. The mining lasers when scraped can give you a ton of exotics for trade (20-30 exotic for dual/triple mining laser IIRC). If you see them sold in space stations, buy them all for ~150-250 xenodata each and scrap them for exotics.

Credits management

 * Your main source of income will probably be / should be selling of resources you've won through events and fights.
 * If you happen to have several low-organics-needs crew members with high research capability, it can be easily worthwhile to have a research module for when you're moving around on the map.
 * Cryosleep modules which generate income don't tell you how much they make (it can be seen on the log messages bar), but it can be pretty decent, equalling the output of research modules.

What to do with excess materials?
Excess resources must be used before your ship can travel.


 * 1) Check cargo for extra containers! → Don't have any? Craft some DIY containers.
 * 2) Check for craftables. (Hover the mouse over Craftables.png and get some ideas.)
 * 3) Use converter modules to convert excess into essential resources.
 * 4) Craft resource packs. (It is often more useful to craft an extra DIY container rather than craft resource packs.)
 * 5) Dump or convert into fuel. (Converting excess into fuel is not very-cost effective and not always possible.)

10 organics = 1 fuel

8 synthethics = 1 fuel

1 exotics = 10 fuel

1 explosives = 1 fuel

Metal can not be converted into fuel.

Excess organics → heal the crew (medbay needed)

Excess metal → upgrade slots; repair the ship

Excess synthetics → heal drones (drone repair module needed)

How to save resources?



 * Switch off weapons that use a large amount of resources if you see that the battle is coming to an end and you can finish off the enemy with lasers.

Resource management

 * Try to keep a nice empty buffer in your stores for most resource types (with some exceptions). This is because you should be visiting basically every point of interest on the system map, and taking every fight (unless your ship is unusually weak in combat). Your spoils should then fill up your stores very quickly. You do NOT want to have to dump resources, and the convert to fuel option is only marginally better than dumping (it converts at a horrible 10:1 ratio).
 * Whenever you visit a station, make sure you sell off some of your resources, if they are above some threshold. Preferences differ, but try to keep metal and synthetics at around 50-60% full, fuel at around 80-85% full, organics at 60% (or less if your ship creates a lot of organics), explosives close to 90% (if you’re running a build that is heavy on projectile weapons). If the station you're in happens to have lots of capacity to buy your resources, consider scrapping unused modules you may have forgotten about.
 * Conversely, do not scrap modules before you start to have a storage problem. Some modules can contain 3-4x as much resources as a single resource pack can store (quite aside from the fuel costs to make a resource pack), so they are very effective resource containers, too. When scrapping to free up space, always scrap in the order that makes most sense - starting with modules which only give you resources you have a lot of storage for, and/or modules which yield fewer resources (a slot is a slot, etc).
 * If you happen to have modules which convert from one resource to another, they can be a good option to use, if you find yourself with excess materials.  What to do with excess materials? Scroll up a bit and get some ideas.
 * It's rare, but keep an eye out for stations which are willing to buy a resource from you for the full price. It can be worth it to sell a bit extra in these cases. Check for good prices here. (LINK)