[Suicide Junkie]

One example: What if you wanted to create a maintenance free component that had a high initial cost? Or an almost-free component that had a very high maintenance cost?

Ancient technology would probably fall under the first Category, and anything done primarily by people would probably fall under the second.

Think of a psychic weapon: Spend 10 minerals to build the room, and then maintain a crew at 500 organics per turn to use their powers to attack the enemy.