In plexum, resources go through an extensive production process before they land in your inventory. The journey starts with you, the player, exploring planets to find those resources. With the help of your trusty scanner, you're able to permanently mark ores on your map, allowing for an exploration-first, work-later mentality.
When you finally do get to work, and the ship hasn't dragged you off to the next planet before you even did, you'll start by manually gathering some tin ore and putting it in a furnace. Once you've gathered enough ore to make a few ingots, you're able to — if you've got the other required items — place your first miner tool.
A miner tool is your gateway to automation. Feed it some fuel (coal or wood will do) and it will take over the tedious bit you just had to do yourself.
From there, you'll soon have a tin chain empire standing in front of you (or... next to you, depending on how you're turned). It is advised to process tin ore into something more workable, however. Crusher tools will aid you in this endeavor. They will take the ore, turn it into crushed ore and tin powder, which you can then feed into the stone furnace with. Swinger arms will be your friend in this empire: they put resources from one tool into another.
The stone furnace can make two types of products: a tin ingot and a tin bar, each opening up their own recipes. Feed a tin bar to a roller tool, and you're making tin wires. Feed an ingot to a stamper, and it'll provide you with 2 tin plates.
Further down the line, you'll have a precision tool, control unit tool, precision unit tool, and my personal favorite: the heating precision unit tool, which will each make their own products out of previously made tin products, ranging from connectors to hinges, thick plates, shock plates, sheets, blades, tubes, and more.
And this is only the start: these items are required to make more tools, which in turn make more items. But don't worry: it's all pretty self-explanatory. For the most part.
That's all for this plexum 101. See you in the next one.
Stay plexum!