Resource attrition
Every natural-resource station (Gathering Camp, Hunting Camp, Fishing Camp, Mining Station, Carbon Station, Botany Station, Polymer Station) tracks its own 0 to 100 Wear gauge. The gauge drops each time workers use the station and refills overnight if the station is left idle. When the gauge falls below certain thresholds, the station produces less of whatever it produces.
Threshold tiers
The same four tiers apply to every natural-resource station. Falling into a lower tier applies a yield penalty to that station specifically; it does not affect the other stations.
| Gauge range | In-game label | Yield penalty |
|---|---|---|
| 76 to 100 | Abundance | 0% (no penalty) |
| 51 to 75 | Declining | -10% yield |
| 26 to 50 | Scarcity | -25% yield |
| 0 to 25 | Overexploitation | -50% yield |
Drain and refill on Normal difficulty
Food stations and material stations use two different base rates.
| Station category | Drain per use | Refill per unused night |
|---|---|---|
| Food (Gathering, Hunting, Fishing) | -5 gauge points | +25 gauge points |
| Materials (Mining, Carbon, Botany, Polymer) | -3 gauge points | +15 gauge points |
The refill only fires if the station was not used at all that day. Work the station during the day and the nightly refill is skipped; rest it for a day and it gets the full refill at night.
On Normal the ratios work out to about 5 uses worth of drain per 1 rested night of refill. In practice a food station can take 5 uses in a row before a single rest night brings it back to full, and a material station can take the same number because its drain is also 5x its refill per day (-3 per use, +15 per rest).
How difficulty and Guardian level change these numbers
Difficulty mode shifts the per-use drain and the nightly refill by a few points in each direction. See the Difficulty page for the exact Easy / Hard / Very Hard values.
Guardian's Influence adds a second per-use drain on top of the difficulty deltas: roughly one extra gauge point drained per Guardian level on food stations and half that on material stations. At max Guardian level on Very Hard this is the harshest possible attrition pressure.
What you can do about it
The two practical levers are:
- Rotate workers across stations so each one gets enough rest nights to refill. Stopping before a station drops below 75 keeps it at zero yield penalty.
- Build more stations of the same category so you have more options to rotate between. Two Food stations at Abundance beat one Food station at Scarcity.