Useless Robo-Miner component
 

I really find this component useless. Even putting it onto a large satellite you can only place one type of miner in an asteroid field. Considering the extremely small amout that these components generate and that they ruin the asteroid field I'd really like to see them changed.

I know I can change them myself but that doesn't change how the AI reacts to and uses them.

I'd like to see the amount of resource the generate multiplied by 10 and them become a higher priority for the AI to build/destroy.

Re: Useless Robo-Miner component
 

They 'ruin' the asteroids? Uh.. what ELSE are you going to do with them? I don't think the quality of the asteroid affects the quality of the planet made from them..

What I do: put the miner on a large satilite. Make a bunch, go find some asteroids, drop them and leave them there. If I think about it, I might go back and get them later. It does give a decent 'backup' resource pool that is more spread out than your planets though..

Phoenix-D

Re: Useless Robo-Miner component
 

The value of the field determines the value of the planet you create. This value is fixed so creating/destorying creates fields/planets with the same value. Being able to only drop 1 satelite on a field that generates 2000 resources while I have planets that are generating 50K+ a turn each makes the satellites a waste of time.

Re: Useless Robo-Miner component
 

yeah, its pretty wastefull. if you dont want to mod arround the problem, there is a setting in the settings.txt that will turn off asteroid depletion (a good thing imo, it would be pretty hard to mine out an entire asteroid field. about as hard as mining out a planet).

i would also be interested in seeing if you built a system value improvement facility (religious tech, i think) on a created planet in an asteroid system, if it would increase the value of the asteroid fields as well as the planets.

Re: Useless Robo-Miner component
 

I like robo miners. If you put them on sats

Then you can you planets for research, Intellagence

Re: Useless Robo-Miner component
 

Todd248, You stated you could only put one Sat on an asteroid. Are you sure about that? I haven't done it since the 1.19 mod, but I know before that you could. As many sats as you could launch from one ship in a turn are considered "one sat group" by the game. Maybe your sat deployer only has one sat bay and your real problem is you can only launch one sat per turn? That was part of the 1.19 mod I know. Try building a sat deployer with as many sat bays as it will hold. They don't hold as much cargo as a cargo bay, but you can launch more than one per turn that way.

Re: Useless Robo-Miner component
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Todd248, You stated you could only put one Sat on an asteroid. Are you sure about that? I haven't done it since the 1.19 mod, but I know before that you could.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Well, I am not Todd, but I remember reading about this limit somewhere in history.txt file for 1.19 Version. Haven't tried it myself, though.

Re: Useless Robo-Miner component
 

If the sector ONLY has asterroids what can you do??? You need a space port and you can't build that on a sat can you?

Thanks!

Re: Useless Robo-Miner component
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by garvoid:
If the sector ONLY has asterroids what can you do??? You need a space port and you can't build that on a sat can you?

Thanks!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You don't need a spaceport to ship materials from the remote mining ships and satellites, they do it automatically.

Re: Useless Robo-Miner component
 

You can put as many miner satellites on an asteroid as you want. Only 1 will actually produce resources. There is an icon next to the satellite that is currently actively mining. You can only place 1 satellite of any type. You can't place 1 of each type.

Re: Useless Robo-Miner component
 

Actually you are incorrect. I wasn't sure if it had been changed by 1.19 so I just tested it. I built a small transport with 5 sat bays and loaded it with 5 large sattelites; 2 miners, 2 farmers, and 1 extractor. Went to an asteroid field and dropped all five at once. As before all five were considered 1 "sat group" and I got the mining production from all five sats. Got all three resource types. The only limitation is how many sat bays you can put on one ship. That is the limit imposed by the 1.19 mod. Try it Todd249, you will see.

Re: Useless Robo-Miner component
 

From history.txt, under the "1.14" set of fixes:

4. Fixed - A satellite group cannot remote mine with all of the satellites present.

Sounds like they didn't completely fix this. (The intention was that ONLY ONE satellite could mine an asteroid field at the same time, since ONLY ONE ship can mine an asteroid field). BTW - anyone try putting multiple types of remote miners on a ship?

Re: Useless Robo-Miner component
 

I think you just found a way around the intended effect. If you transfer the satellites one by one you only get one working. Obviously something is wrong when using differment means of deploying produce different results. I bet if you use 'I' to remote deploy you'd be able to get unlimited sat's in the group all mining.

Re: Useless Robo-Miner component
 

Well, I think if they ever do "fix" that, then the robo-miner really will be a useless component. The piddling amout of resources produced by a single robo-miner sattelite in an asteroid field won't be worth the time and effort required to research the large sattlite. Usually by the time I get to large satellite, resources aren't much of a problem anyway. About the only use for it I could see would be a kind of low-tech "resource converter". You could put a robo-farmer or robo-extractor in a frigate and park it over a organic or radioactive rich asteroid or planet. You would be spending minerals in maint on the ship, but if you have an abundance of those and need the others, it could possibly be worth it. Not too likely though. Maybe change the miner component size so it fits in a small sattelite. Then it would be available early in the game when resources are scarce.

Re: Useless Robo-Miner component
 

Not "unlimited sat's" Todd, it would still be limited by the number of sat bay's in your ship that you are deploying them with. That's better than only 1 though.

Re: Useless Robo-Miner component
 

Actually if you launch the satellites remotely you can add more satellites to the same Sat group. (btw- this goes for mines and fighters too.)

Although the ability to remote mine with more than one satellite was supposed to be "changed" in v1.19, it doesnt appear to be changed after all.
Truth is As a tester I didnt like the change anyway and commented to Aaron on it.

I tend to agree that the remote mining components are a bit pointless if you cant use more than 1 satellite at a time to remote mine an asteroid or planet. But at the same time it is important to have the asteroid or planet run out of resources as you remote mine it. Especially for game balance- if you could stick lots of remote mining satellites in one sat group over an asteroid field or a very choice planet without consequences, such as the resource availability limit - then you could very easily abuse the system and put hundreds of remote miners around a single very nice asteroid field and any valuable planets you cant currently colonize and remote mine all your resources and never really have the need to build extraction facilities.

Re: Useless Robo-Miner component
 

AJC is correct. It works. I also launch my Sats in Groups of 100. Thats for Baseships with 25 sat launchers each. You only get two engines with the BS, so I do this:
1. Computer
2. 2 Engines
3. 25 Sat Launchers
4. Ship Yard component
5. Quatum Reactor
6. Balance filled up with Solor Sailes to add movements.

I then design 3 types of Resource Sats.
# 1
Mineral
1. Computer
2. Mineral Miner

I design one sat for each of the mineral types based upon # 1. Farmer, and Rad.

I then move my 4 BS's into location and construct 25 of the type of sat I need on each ship. I then remote deploy them. I have had up to 500 mineral Sats on one asteriod. I know that a tad excessive, but I wanted to see how many I could deploy.

I think they have a great use, and they do add up the minerals over time and in great enough numbers. They are worth the time and expense of producing and deploying.

------------------
"We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space and we fall back -- they assimilate entire worlds and we fall back! Not again! The line must be drawn here -- this far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!" -- Patric Stewart as Captain Picard

Re: Useless Robo-Miner component
 

I'd have to agree there. If you could deploy an unlimited number of satellites and have them all mine at the same time then having a planet or asteroid field lose value makes since. It also becomes worthwhile to create ships that can build and launch mining satellites. As a field/planet is depleted move onto the next one.

Re: Useless Robo-Miner component
 

I just tried deploying multiple sat's on the same field. I can get each type of satellite to generate resources from the same field if I use deploy to create a group. If I add more sats to that group I only get the resources from 1 satellite. Not useful for v1.19.