There are 3 options. Manage, development and storage.
Manage: This is where you enable or disable your equipment.
Develop: This is where you build your equipment. There are 8 types of equipment. Each piece of equipment has 5 levels. Each leaves has 5 qualities white, green, blue, purple and orange.
To develop a piece of equipment you need two things for level 1 and 3 things for level 2 to 5. You will need power ore and materials. When working with levels 2 to 5 you will also need 1 piece of equipment from the previous level. Remember that each level is restricted to the level of your city because each city level will only allow you to use so much power ore.
Example: To build a level 1 Reactor you will need 5,000 power ore, 1 console & 1 trititanium alloy. To build a level 2 reactor you will need 25,000 power ore, 1 console, 1 tritanium alloy, 1 ceramic fiber and 1 level 1 reactor. Each level you go will require additional power ore, materials and the level above it equipment.
Quality: each piece of equipment has a quality. Each quality offers better abilities. The quality is in this order: white, green, blue, purple and orange. To build better quality equipment you have to have better quality materials.
Example: whit to green you need 5 white materials to make 1 green material. To go from green to blue you need 5 green to make 1 blue. And so on with orange being max.
When developing equipment you can mix quality items. Remember when you do this it becomes a chance based off of a percentage. When you are in your equipment developing tab you will see a circle at the bottom indicating each color. Just below that you will see a percentage. That is the chance you will get that quality of item. To get a 100 percent chance of a item you will need all of one color including the piece of equipment from the previous level.
Example: if I want to make a level two reactor. I will use 3 blue items and 1 green level 1 reactor. This will give me a 50% chance of getting a green and a 50% chance of getting a blue. If I want a blue level 2 reactor then I will need all blue materials and a blue level 1 reactor. This is the only way to get a 100% chance of a blue level 2 reactor.
To use a piece of equipment to build the next level you will need to go into the management tab and deactivate the piece of equipment you want to upgrade. Then back in the develop tab you will go to level 2 or what ever level you want to upgrade to. You will have to push the Plus sign to add the piece of equipment. The materials will auto add the highest quality.
Storage: This is where you can manage your materials and equipment. You can combine your materials to make higher level materials. This is also where you can see what equipment you have built and what it offers. This is where you can also dismantle old equipment you are not using. Remember do not dismantle the piece of equipment you need to upgrade. If you do this can not be undone.
Power ore: There is only a few ways to get power ore. The main way is to harvest it. You can not harvest until your city is level 10. At the power ore mines you have to open each level. There are 5 levels. Each level only offers only a set amount of ore. You can only harvest once per day. You can get power ore buy completing quests or you can buy it with real money in the store.
Materials: you get materials buy killing monsters, completing quests or city ruins runs. You can also buy with real money in the store but it is still random. You can not pick what you buy.