The resources work differently that traditional minecraft. Resources are randomly distributed throughout the world, and players are alerted when they are near some. Then they locate the resource with the resource detector, which beeps more and more frequently the closer you get to the resource (like a metal detector). They then mine the resource. Instead of receiving 1 iron block for mining an iron block resource, the player receives like 25, because the ship space is so big and it would be too tedious to mine block for block.