Alloy mechanic

[OverthinkingThis]

Friend and me discussing the issue of keeping lower tier material relevant later in the game. Answer we mutually agreed on is a way to incorporate different materials into the same block, and since each block has certain metrics (i.e. weight, HP, power consumption, volume towards upgrade slots, etc.) it would make sense that different materials push different metrics.

 

So as an example:

 

Iron - (HP+++) (Weight +++)

Titanium - (HP++) (Weight +)

Naonite - (Power Use---)

Trinium - (HP++) (Power Use-) (Weight++)

 

So if you'd like, in this rough example, an engine that uses very little power you can use a pure Naonite, but it would have paper thin HP. If you'd like a large armor plate with a lot of HP but not stone-level of weight you'd blend Iron and titanium.

 

Most of all you can have materials specialize in a metric or have an exclusive mechanic. The above rough example doesn't show it well but you could have Xanion require less crew (Engys and Mechs) or Iron regen significantly faster and so on.

 

And as for actually using it, a tool similar to the current transform tool could be used. Place a block of full Iron, for example, and use said hypothetical tool to bring up a slider menu where you can inject different materials.

 

I wouldn't be surprised at all if this or a similar idea hasn't already been discussed, but hey, it's a thought.