This was a mechanic from ME3 MP.
It makes sense from both a game design perspective and realism perspective.
In real life, resource management is key to winning wars - most often in the past when armies got beaten out, it's because their supplied ran out or were cut off. It's a key war tactic if you want to disable your enemy you have to stop their resource flow, and likewise, you have to preserve and conserve your own. That can be applied to both games;
ME3 the Reapers were hitting everywhere, resources had to be rationed. We're in Andromeda now, supplies are low, workforce and manufacturing is still low (presumably), we don't have infinite resources to fight wars, we were barely prepared for combat as it is.
