I don't know if this has already been proposed but I had the idea a while back when I was looking at the description for light shards where it says they're "small pieces of luminite."
I was thinking immediately that there had to be some way to like... convert them to luminite, so I looked around but there isn't. I think it would be really nice for that because light shards are really common loot to find during missions, therefore easier to create the said minerals and be able to make things such pet food with more ease. (Not saying it's hard but it does take a bit to gather enough!)
There could be like a system where its like, for every 3 shards you get 1 mineral.
Just an idea.
To be fair, it does sound like a good idea, but you get more light and dark shards than you do red from as far as I can tell. Drakon users would feel a bit cheated. (Not that I don't like the idea, it'd be great for helping to level up my seraphynx since I have a ton of light shards.)