Hello! So I thought it might be useful to go a little into how ore upgrading works in ASTRALODE. It's a major part of playing like a pro in Arcade mode, and anyone who wants to maximize their score is going to want to upgrade as much ore as they can :)
There are 4 grades of standard ore:
Green (worth 10 $core)
Pale (worth 20 $core)
Golden (worth 30 $core)
Burnt (worth 5 $core)
Ore that gets hit by an explosion will be pushed into it's next grade, starting from Green and ending in Burnt. As you can see by the point totals shown above, there's a sweet spot at the Golden ore grade that you don't want to overshoot if it can be at all avoided!
It's not all hopeless if an ore gets a lil' toasty, though. One of the starter power-ups, the Restorenizer, refreshes all Burnt ore in the asteroid you're currently mining back to Green.
In order to actually realize the value of an ore, it must be harvested by a grabber. The frequency by which grabbers appear in your randomly generated tool clusters depends on how much mining progress you've made on the current asteroid, with the likelihood of grabbers increasing as more chunks are mined away and as the ratio of ore-to-chunks rises. Any ore hit by a grabber is harvested, and both the ore and the grabber are removed from play when that happens.
Rare ores, which as their name suggests will only rarely be amongst a given asteroid's ore allotment, start at their maximum value grade (worth a hefty 50 $core) and will be pushed into Burnt state after only a single hit by an explosion. Burnt Rares (worth a mere 5 $core, like their non-Rare brethren) can be refreshed back to their full value through the use of a Restorenizer. Also, Rare ore collectors need not worry if they harvest a Burnt Rare - that particular Rare's harvest record will still enter into the Atlas Mineralis just the same as if it were harvested uncooked.
That's all for now! I think a rundown of chain scoring and the power-up unlock cycle would be a good candidate for the next post. Until then, cheers for taking a look at ASTRALODE :)
- Drixxel