Tier 1-2 Resources: Processed Materials & Components
Tier 1-2 resources represent the first transformation: raw scrap becomes something useful. This is where salvage stops being garbage and starts being potential. Every piece of scrap alloy was once e-waste. Every logic board started as circuit fragments. The Sprawl's economy runs on these conversions.
Tier 1: Processed Materials
The transition from garbage to goods. These five materials are what you get when you know what you're doing with raw salvage.
Scrap Alloy
What It Is
Reprocessed metal sheets. E-Waste and Power Cells enter the Scrap Smelter and emerge as standardized alloy stock—not pure, but consistent. Good enough for construction, good enough for commerce.
The Process
The smelter doesn't just melt—it separates. Heavy metals sink. Light metals float. Impurities burn off or get skimmed. What remains is an alloy that nobody designed but everybody uses. Post-Cascade metallurgy isn't about perfection. It's about function.
"First thing anyone learns in the salvage business: raw scrap is worthless. Nobody wants e-waste by the kilogram. But scrap alloy? That's building material. That's currency. The Smelter is where trash becomes trade."
"ORACLE had perfect metallurgy. Alloys designed atom by atom, properties calculated before casting. We don't have that anymore. We have 'close enough.' Scrap alloy varies batch to batch—but it works. Dregs engineering isn't elegant, but it builds things."
Conductive Film
What It Is
Thin metal substrate for electrical current. Circuit Scrap gets processed into layers of conductive material—copper mostly, but also salvaged gold traces and silver contacts. Flexible, cuttable, the foundation of electronics.
The Process
Chemical baths dissolve the circuit boards, leaving metal in solution. Electroplating deposits it in thin sheets on carrier substrates. The result isn't as pure as pre-Cascade film, but it carries current. That's all it needs to do.
"Conductive film is what makes electricity go where you want it to. Without film, you're back to wires—heavy, rigid, ancient. With film, you can print circuits. Flexibility is freedom."
"The old tech used copper so pure you could see through it. Our film is cloudier—more alloys, more impurities. But electrons don't care about aesthetics. They just need a path."
Composite Panel
What It Is
Reinforced building material. Rubble gets crushed, sorted, and pressed with bonding agents into standardized panels. Stronger than the individual materials, easier to work with than raw debris.
The Process
Sorting separates concrete from metal from plastic. Each goes to different processing streams. The concrete gets re-aggregate with new binding agents. Metal reinforcement gets positioned. Pressing and curing produce panels that stack, bolt, and interlock.
"Every Composite Panel used to be a building. Think about that. The school, the apartment block, the hospital—crushed down and reformed. You're building the future from the bones of the past."
"Panel quality depends on the rubble source. Pre-Cascade construction had better materials—those panels are preem. Post-Cascade knock-up buildings make garbage panels. Know your source."
What It Contains
- Recycled concrete aggregate
- Salvaged rebar and mesh
- Binding polymers (often Helix-derived)
- Compressed structural memory of what it used to be
Clean Data
What It Is
Filtered, usable information. Data Fragments enter the Data Cleaner and emerge organized, validated, useful. The difference between noise and signal.
The Process
Data cleaning is digital archaeology. Fragment by fragment, the system reconstructs file structures, validates checksums, identifies corruption. Recoverable data gets extracted. Patterns get catalogued. What emerges is smaller than what went in—but it's real.
"Raw fragments are chaos. Bits that could be anything—or nothing. Clean Data is verified. It's information you can use, build on, trust. The cleaning process loses a lot, but what survives is true."
"Some fragments clean easily—complete files, intact databases. Others are puzzles that take days to solve. The best data cleaners develop intuition for which fragments are worth the effort. Most aren't."
The Economics
Clean Data has immediate market value. Research teams buy it for pattern analysis. Historians want pre-Cascade records. Corps pay for technical documentation. Even seemingly mundane data—supply chain records, maintenance logs—has buyers.
Basic Code
What It Is
Functional software modules. Trash Code gets analyzed, repaired, and compiled into programs that actually run. Not sophisticated—but operational.
The Process
The Code Compiler doesn't write code. It recovers code. Trash Code contains broken programs, abandoned projects, half-finished utilities. The compiler identifies salvageable logic, patches gaps, tests functionality. What compiles correctly becomes Basic Code.
"Trash Code is like a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces. Basic Code is what you get when you figure out which pieces still fit together. It won't be the original picture, but it's a picture."
"The best Basic Code comes from enterprise systems. Corporate software was over-engineered—error handling, redundancy, fail-safes. Even broken, there's more to recover. Consumer code? That was built cheap and breaks completely."
What It Contains
- Recovered algorithms
- Repaired utility functions
- Salvaged libraries
- Patterns from programmers who died forty years ago
Tier 2: Components
The jump from materials to components. These seven resources are the building blocks of automation and intelligence.
Servo Motor
What It Is
Compact motors for automation. Electric power becomes physical motion. The muscles of machines.
Where It Comes From
Servo Motor Factories wind copper coils, magnetize cores, and assemble precision mechanisms from Scrap Alloy. Each motor is tested for response time, torque, and durability before leaving the line.
"Everything that moves, moves because of servos. The arm that sorts scrap. The conveyor that feeds the smelter. The drone that scouts the Wastes. Servos are where electricity becomes action."
"Good servos are art. The winding pattern affects efficiency. The bearing fit affects lifespan. The calibration affects precision. Two servos from the same line can perform differently if the assembler wasn't paying attention."
The ORACLE Legacy
Pre-Cascade servos were standardized, interchangeable, perfect. ORACLE coordinated a global supply chain that produced identical motors by the billion. Post-Cascade, every fabricator has their own design. Parts don't interchange. Repairs require matching sources.
Data Cable
What It Is
Shielded wiring for signals. The nervous system of any networked operation.
Where It Comes From
Cable Labs process Conductive Film into insulated, shielded data transmission lines. The shielding matters as much as the conductor—unshielded cables pick up interference, drop packets, fail at critical moments.
"Wireless is convenient but compromised. Every signal broadcasts to anyone listening. Cables are private. Physical. Harder to intercept without physical access. When security matters, you run cable."
"The Lattice is built on fiber optics—light pulses that don't generate electromagnetic fields. Our cables use electrons, which means they can be detected. But they're also cheaper, repairable, and don't need Nexus's specialty glass."
The Security Trade-off
Cables can be physically tapped, but require physical access. Wireless can be intercepted from distance. Most operations use both—cables for sensitive data, wireless for convenience. The paranoid use only cables.
Hardened Alloy
What It Is
Military-grade metal. Scrap Alloy and Power Cells processed through heat treatment and alloying to achieve strength that regular salvage can't match.
Where It Comes From
Alloy Forges take basic metals and transform them. Heat cycling. Pressure treatment. Careful addition of trace elements. The result is material that Ironclad would approve of—if they knew where it came from.
"Regular alloy dents. Hardened alloy deforms an impactor. The difference is in the crystalline structure—how the atoms arrange when you cool them. Do it right and metal becomes nearly unbreakable."
"Ironclad controls most hardened alloy production. Their forges are bigger, their processes more refined. But they don't have a monopoly. A good street forge can match corporate quality—batch by batch, if the operator knows what they're doing."
The Military Connection
Hardened Alloy is controlled material in corporate territories. Armor plating, weapon frames, structural reinforcement—all require material that can take punishment. The Corps don't like independent production of things that resist their bullets.
Support Strut
What It Is
Structural framing. Standardized metal beams that form the skeleton of buildings, machines, and installations.
Where It Comes From
Strut Fabricators extrude Scrap Alloy into standardized shapes—I-beams, tubes, angles. The value isn't in the material; it's in the consistency. Struts that match, connect, and bear predictable loads.
"Scrap alloy is material. Support struts are architecture. The difference is standardization. When every strut is the same dimensions, you can plan, design, build things that work on the first try."
"The Dregs are full of improvised construction—scrap welded to scrap, nothing quite fitting. Operations that can afford it use struts. The difference shows in how long buildings stand."
The Engineering Truth
Pre-Cascade construction used mathematical precision. Every beam calculated for its exact load. Post-Cascade, we over-engineer—use more struts than needed, because we're not sure exactly how strong each one is. Wasteful, but it works.
Logic Board
What It Is
Basic processing chip. Not smart—not yet—but capable of running programs, making decisions within parameters. The first step toward artificial thought.
Where It Comes From
Logic Fabricators etch circuits onto substrate, mount components, program basic operating systems. Each board is a small computer—limited, but functional.
"A Logic Board isn't intelligent. It's more like... aware. It can sense inputs, evaluate conditions, trigger outputs. It follows rules. It doesn't question them. The jump from logic to intelligence is bigger than most people realize."
"Every Logic Board we make is worse than ORACLE's processors. We know that. But we make them anyway, because worse is better than nothing. The Sprawl runs on 'good enough.'"
The Computation Bonus
Logic Boards provide +30 Computation when integrated into systems. Not much—but it adds up. A hundred boards is a respectable processor array.
The Ethics
Logic Boards don't think. They're not conscious. But they're close enough that some people treat them carefully. The line between automation and awareness is philosophical—and nobody agrees where it is.
Data Packet
What It Is
Structured information bundle. Clean Data and Basic Code organized into standardized formats that systems can read, process, and exchange.
Where It Comes From
Data Packagers take raw information and structure it—headers, checksums, formatting. The content might be anything: research results, system specifications, intelligence reports. The packet format makes it usable.
"Clean Data is information. Data Packets are communication. The difference is structure—knowing where the message starts, what it contains, whether it arrived intact. Without packets, data is just noise that might mean something."
"The old Internet ran on packets. Every message broken into pieces, routed independently, reassembled at the destination. We use the same principle. It works even when networks are unreliable—which they always are."
The Trading Value
Data Packets have standardized value because they have standardized format. Buyers know exactly what they're getting—size, type, integrity verification. Raw data requires inspection. Packets can be traded on reputation.
Script
What It Is
Executable program. Basic Code compiled and packaged into something that runs independently—a tool that does a specific job.
Where It Comes From
Script Writers combine Basic Code modules into functional programs. Not applications—scripts are simpler. They automate tasks, process data, control systems. One job, done reliably.
"A script is a captured intention. Someone wanted something to happen automatically—sorting, calculating, monitoring. They wrote the logic. The script does what they described, forever, without getting bored or making mistakes."
"The best scripts came from the pre-Cascade era. Decades of refinement. Error handling that anticipates problems we haven't seen yet. Modern scripts work, but they lack... elegance. We're still learning what the old programmers knew."
The Automation Economy
Scripts are the basic unit of automation. Buy a script that monitors pressure; your coolant system won't fail overnight. Buy a script that tracks inventory; you won't run out of materials unexpectedly. Automation isn't about intelligence—it's about reliability.
The Progression Story
From Raw to Useful
The journey from Tier 0 to Tier 2 represents a fundamental transformation:
Tier 0 (Raw)
You're collecting garbage. E-waste, scrap, fragments of the old world. Nothing usable in its current form.
Tier 1 (Processed)
You're refining garbage into material. Scrap becomes alloy. Fragments become data. The past becomes raw material for the future.
Tier 2 (Components)
You're building with that material. Motors that move. Cables that connect. Boards that compute. For the first time, you're creating things that didn't exist before.
What It Feels Like
This is where the player's journey truly begins. Not in scavenging garbage, but in transforming it. Every transcendent entity started here—processing scrap alloy, wiring logic boards, writing their first scripts. The fundamentals don't change; only the scale.