lets take a very simple scenario, im making a rubix cube, which has 7 different colours, but they all have the same material. can i link all the values except the colour, so that i can change the material on all of them at will, and also change their colours individually?
Create a node group for the material, and then only add the color to the input of the node group. You can then use multiple copies of the node group in different materials, each of which can have it’s own color, and changes made inside the node group (e.g. changing the gloss factor) will be updated on all of them simultaneously.
photox you are a lifesaver, cheers mate.
In some geometries, vertex coloring can also be used for a single material. 