Why is it if I build a ship or a base and save the blueprint, extra materials are needed that I don't and never had? For instance, I can build a small base or ship and save the blueprint at level 15, but the blueprint requires Zascosium Ingots and Erestrum Ingots, which neither have I ever had!
Show us a screenshot to be sure. If it is greyed out it means you don't need it for the blueprint BUT you put something into the factory that had those materials. For example, If it says something like- Zascosium 10/0 and is greyed out that means you have 10 zascosium already in the factory but 0 are required for the blueprint. This happens when dumping devices and blocks into the factory. It remembers the materials even if they aren't needed for that specific blueprint, that way they can be saved in the factory for the next blueprint. Can't help more without a screenshot showing what you are talking about.
@Billy chaos ... if you mean your own design that you built from scratch it may be that you added rare ingots inadvertently based on components you harvested from drones or loot containers. Occasionally a drone will drop a power coil (8 Z, 8E required to construct) and if you subsequently put it into the intake of your constructor you would be able to craft a small shield without having any of the rare ingots. Once placed on your SV the raw materials list would show them as refined ingots even though you had never seen either.
I had this happen just today. I built a small vessel in creative using parts I had already built in my survival game. When I tried to build that blueprint in survival, the blueprint lists 57 Erestrium ingots and 57 Zascosium ingots required. The only part I can think of that needs Zascosium is the mining laser, and I already have 2 of those I found. I put all the parts in, and the same still wants 13 more each of Zascosium and Erestrium. I'm guessing the factory breaks parts down imperfectly--does not give you full value for parts added. But that still doesn't explain why I need equal amounts of Erestrium and Zascosium when the only parts I have using them are a Drill Module T2 and a Hull Shield. The Erestrium is all needed for power coils, and those are 8 Erestrium and 8 Zascosium each, but the drill requires an additional 22 Zascosium. So the numbers make no sense. I removed the Hull Shield and it still wants 49 of each. The Drill module would be 24 Erestrium and 46 Zascosium. Why 49 and 49?
Sometimes the factory does and sometimes it does not yield the full value. This happens especially if you using parts of devices to be fed into the Factory instead of full Devices. CPU Extenders use Zascosium in Components, also larger Thrusters, Warp Engines and Generators, Turrets and Shield/Gravity Generators as well.
It's because it requires zascosium alloy, not zascosium ingots. Zascosium alloy is made in batches of 5, and requires 5 zascosium + 5 erestrum as ingredients. To make the 22 zascosium alloy requires 5 batches to be made, with 3 alloy as waste (if you built it manually you'd have 3 alloy left over, but the factory is wasteful if the numbers don't add up evenly). So that's 25 Z + 25 E on top of the 24 of each ingot required for the 3 power coils. Hence, 49 of each. Edit: Just checked this, and yes dropping the completed drill into the factory only credits you for the 46 Z&E required to actually construct the device. Those extra 3 of each ingot are required for the blueprint because you would still need those ingots to actually make the required zascosium alloy for the drill, so the factory doesn't let you cheat around the original recipe.
