<PAGENAME>Economy
<H>Metal Source

Metal is obtained from Metal Extractors on metal spots. Metal is the most important resource and it is limited by your captured territory.

Metal Extractors are the most efficient way to get metal, and can only be placed on metal spots. As such, you should expand quickly and rapidly get as many metal spots under your control as possible. Metal extractors are cheap, and pay themselves back quickly. Remember that any metal spot that doesn't have an extractor on it is just wasted metal. If you ever lose territory or get raided, quickly re-expand into the area with extractors again.

Reclamation can make up a significant portion of your metal income. For everything that dies, a corpse is left behind with up to 1/2 of the metal it took to produce the unit. Securing an area after an assault and getting the reclaim from both your units and the enemies ( an 80 percents payback on your investment ) can decide the outcome of a game. Since it takes a constructor to reclaim things, you can think of reclamation as a way of turning "build power" directly into metal - reclaiming is a very good use of an excess of buildpower.

<H>Energy Source
Energy can be made anywhere and there is no limit to the amount you can have. Energy is also required for some unit's abilities.

Generally, energy is built in your base, and having energy is required for a number of things, including making all units and structures and running some special units ( jammers, shields, etc ). Since it is such an investment, losing your energy can cripple your whole economy, so always try to protect your energy and hit the enemy's when possible. If you stall energy for any reason, get it back up again as quickly as possible by making small energy structures ( Solar / Wind Power Generators, but not Fusions ).

<h>Solar Power Generator
Solar Power Generator gives a fixed income and are well armored, closing up when under attack for a defensive bonus. They are the least efficient energy structure in terms of investment, but they are cheap, have good Hit Points and don't rely on the varying wind, tidal and geothermal sources of the map.

<h>Wind Power Generator
Wind Power Generators are fragile and have a variable output. Building wind generators on higher altitudes raises the minimum that they generate. A tall, flat mountain can be of great economic value. The wind Min / Max values and altitude bonus are shown in your console at the start of the game and when you build a wind generator it will show you the altitude bonus to its generation in the tooltip. Wind generators are very fragile, so its best to space it out rather than build it in tight blocks - it will chain explode. Even when wind is more efficient, you might wish to also have some solar generators as backup, due to the fragility and unpredictability of wind.

<h>Geothermal Powerplants
Geothermal Powerplants are almost always the most efficient source of energy ( even more than Fusions ), but they are not very cheap and can only be placed on geothermal vents. Moho geothermal powerplants are even more efficient, but are hazardous and explode like a nuke when destroyed. Still, it is almost always worthwhile to take the risk of building them - just keep other buildings and units away from it.

<h>Fusion Powerplants
Fusion Powerplants are efficient but expensive. They tend to explode in a small radius when killed, so don't put them directly right next to anything ( especially not each other ). Advanced Fuisions are even more expensive and efficient, but are hazardous and let off a nuclear blast when destroyed.

<H>Build Power
Build Power is the ability of your constructors to build at fixed rate. Having too much of the other resources just means you don't have enough constructors. Some excess buildpower is good, so that you can move it around or perform other tasks.

In order to build anything, you need all three resources in equal quantities. Constructors drain the same amount of resources at a fixed rate no matter what they are building. In your resource bars, income of each is shown in the small green number, and drain in red. Unlike some other RTS's, the goal is to balance your income vs your consumption - storages exist only to give you a buffer. If your storage is full and the green number is larger than the red, you're excessing. If your storage is empty and the red number is larger than the green, you're stalling.

Buildpower is mostly used for spending metal and energy, but it can also be used to reclaim, which gives you metal ( reclaiming for energy is usually inefficient but good in desperation ) and to repair, which costs energy equal to the constructors buildpower. You should always have extra buildpower around, as it regulates the rest of your economy. Metal gluts can quickly be turned into energy with buildpower, and metal stalls can be alleviated through reclaim or mex expansion with buildpower, but getting more buildpower requires a factory or a constructor, and all three resources. Remember though that you cannot spend more resources than you actually have. Build power is shown in the units tooltip.

<H>Set Priority
All constructors and partially built structures have a button called "Priority" that can be set to low, medium or high. Constructors that are currently building a non-normal priority structure inherit its priority. Constructors set to high priority will receive resources before those with normal priority and those with normal receive before those with low. Assuming you are stalling metal, high priority build projects will build faster than normal priority projects, and so on. This feature will save you the time of pausing all less important construction when you need to build something more quickly than others.
