I am kinda a nooob, I just started playing again after several years exploring the outer rim. The thing that has always confused me the most about this game is the raw materials/refined materials/maintenance points relationship. In theory it is easy to understand. But it doesn't behave in a way that I can get any sense of what the "rules" are that guide this facet of the game. Looking at the materials monitors at the top of the galatic map, I assume the first number is the raw materials, the amount of materials that have yet to be mined. Then the next number would be the amount of mined materials that have yet to be refined into usable maintenance points. The last number is easy to monitor, it is the usable maintenance points. If you build something the number goes down. Pretty obvious there. That all seems pretty logical unless I am missing something. So... that brings me to my current game. First number, raw materials = 0 Second number, is up over 8000, and my maintenance points is low as 200, after rebounding from a negative number. I get it that uprisings, blockades, and even shaky loyalty can all affect the efficency of taking raw materials through to maintence pts. But I have way more refineries than mines 192 vs 161, something like that. Which brings me to my question, finally... How is it possible to have such a backlog of raw materials waiting to be refined, when I have plenty of refineries on systems of 100% loyalty, no blockades or uprisings??? Maybe I am reading the monitors wrong? Maybe I need more mines than refineries? I was really careful to keep my building fairly conservative, keeping my maintenence pts around 1000 for most of the game. I'm so confused about this. Most facets of the game are easy to test and find the best way to do things, but this doesn't seem to respond to increased refineries v mine ratio. Very strange, I must be missing something, I must be.... any light that you Masters can shed upon this lowly padawan, is very much appreciated.