The way the player can interact with the game are:
Move -- moves you elsewhere in the infinite map. Takes movement time (probably only 30 seconds starting out). You can also only move within your movement range, which starts at 1 (so anything adjacent)
Gather -- gathers resources from the current tile. Resource gather speed is dictated by your tool of that type and is fairly slow -- maybe 5-15 seconds per each resource starting out. The speed and yield is dictated by the particular outcrop -- these are procgen and some are going to be faster or slower. You must pick the outcrop you're gathering from. There's a limited amount of these per tile.
Alchemy Actions
Transmute -- Attempts to transform a resource to the higher-tier version of it. Starting out, has a 50% chance to instead downgrade it, however this is upgradeable in 5% increments.
Clarify -- can turn some amount of a lower-tier resource into a higher-tier one with a 100% chance Varies depending on the resource in question, 3-5.
Metamorph -- turns a resource into a different material class, 2 levels down (and rounded down too if thr equivalents are higher or lower levels).
Entrope -- turns a material into a lower-tier equivalent. Takes no time.
Meld -- turns 2-4 low-level materials in different classes into a higher-tier material. These recipes are procgen and require an unlockable Recipe.
Alchemy takes Alchemy time, around 20 seconds but upgradeable by 2 seconds at a time.
Upgrades to all systems in the game can be achieved sequentially by sourcing the materials for them, in a PGCS way. Each upgrade tier bumps the maximum level of at least one of the materials up. The amount of that particular resource varies.