Deep Space Mining
 

Yesterday SEIVG hits my letter box and now i started a brand new game, Ha!
Right now i have several mining ships operating and additionaly a tanker to supply them.
Question: do the mining ships still gather resources from remote mining when they ran out of supplies?

Re: Deep Space Mining
 

Well i tried it on my own.
They still produce resources; so why says the component description that the robo-extractors use supplies? Is it a bug?

Re: Deep Space Mining
 

I'm not sure. You might find that they do use supplies, but that they just don't stop working when you run out. Perhaps more of a "feature" than a bug http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Are you finding the remote minig economical? Most people find that by the time you've paid maintenence on the mining ship, it's hard to generate a worthwhile amount of resources. A good trick is to find an empty planet with a few moons and send your miner there. It will mine every uncolonised planet, moon and asteroid field in that sector at once, which can double (triple, quadruple) the miner's output.

Or are you playing Devnullmod or something, which has modded various parts of the game to make the remote miners more worthwhile?

Re: Deep Space Mining
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by dogscoff:
Are you finding the remote minig economical? Most people find that by the time you've paid maintenence on the mining ship, it's hard to generate a worthwhile amount of resources. A good trick is to find an empty planet with a few moons and send your miner there. It will mine every uncolonised planet, moon and asteroid field in that sector at once, which can double (triple, quadruple) the miner's output. <hr></blockquote>

That's a good trick - I find remote mining quite rewarding but then, I put my remote mining units in large satellites, no maintenance and you just deploy then a la desiree

Re: Deep Space Mining
 

It really does seem the only economical way to use remote mining is with large sats. Unless you perhaps put remote mining equipment on an outpost starbase to help defray maintenance costs, there doesn't seem to be any reason to use remote mining modules on any ship chassis.

Even if you put a remote miner on an escort chassis without any engines or other components, and then build the ship on the spot, it just doesn't make up for the maintenance cost.

Re: Deep Space Mining
 

I have found I can make a decent profit using destroyers and light cruisers. You can get 2 or 3 mining components on them. If you use them for rad's and ogranics, you can replace those facilities on your homeworld with research fac's or additional mineral mine facilities. In effect they are low tech resource converters.

I haven't tried a light cruiser with 3 mineral miners yet to see if it is cost effective. The robo mimeral comp is more expensive than the other two for some reason. That might make them still inefficent. Unless you play a race with low mainenance. Then it can be a good source of mineral income.

Usually though unless planets are sparse, as in a colonize own type/aptmosphere, the figures don't add up though.

Re: Deep Space Mining
 

I may have to use them. The game I'm playing restricts colony planets to home type and atmosphere.

At a single location:
1. If I put two remote mineral miners on a base, will it mine twice the amount?
2. If I mix miner types on a base will it mine all three resources?
3. Will two remote mineral miners SATs mine twice the amount.
4. If I mix SAT miner types will they mine all three resources?


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So many ugly women, so much time. Got Beer?

Re: Deep Space Mining
 

true,the figures dont add up unless you build a few large satellites with robo-miners on and ship these little darlings out to the asteriods/planets you want to mine

I tried the escort chassis concept but then found a great problem when you run through the resources

the irganic/rad extractor/converter concept is a sneaky one I like and will have to try out

Re: Deep Space Mining
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Wardad:
At a single location:
1. If I put two remote mineral miners on a base, will it mine twice the amount?
2. If I mix miner types on a base will it mine all three resources?
3. Will two remote mineral miners SATs mine twice the amount.
4. If I mix SAT miner types will they mine all three resources?
<hr></blockquote>

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. No. You only get the mining from one vehicle of each type.
4. Yes. Since they are different types.

Re: Deep Space Mining
 

Do the system scanners work with robot mining, I think it should. A system robotoid facility could just be placed in a system with planets of course.

Re: Deep Space Mining
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by geoschmo:


1. Yes
2. Yes
3. No. You only get the mining from one vehicle of each type.
4. Yes. Since they are different types.<hr></blockquote>

Whoa! You can have one sat of EACH miner type on a location and each of the produces? That's a change from past behavior if it works. It used to be only ONE vehicle could mine at a time, period.

And, btw dogscoff, the best way to use remote extraction is on a large base. Remember, bases get 50 percent maintenance reduction. So even mineral extraction is worthwhile with a base, and you can cram many of them into a base but only one into a satellite. It's often possible to get more resources out of a small or tiny planet with a hostile atmosphere by using a remote mining base than by landing a (domed) colony!

Re: Deep Space Mining
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Whoa! You can have one sat of EACH miner type on a location and each of the produces? That's a change from past behavior if it works. It used to be only ONE vehicle could mine at a time, period.
<hr></blockquote>

You can have one vehicle of each type mining in the same sector and they all get their resources. You can't have more than one sat with the same type component though. AFAIK it's been that way since they made the change to only allow one vehicle of each type.

Geoschmo

Re: Deep Space Mining
 

However, there is apparently a restriction against having more than one ship with mining components working in the same sector, even if they have different kinds of comps.

To sum up:

Three large sats each with different comps can mine the same sector. Additional sats of any type get nothing.

One ship (and I am assuming base here too, it would take too long to test that) only can mine per sector, regardless of types of mining components onboard. But you can put as many mining comps as will fit on that one ship and get all the resources from them.

Geoschmo

Re: Deep Space Mining
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> Unless you perhaps put remote mining equipment on an outpost starbase to help defray maintenance costs, there doesn't seem to be any reason to use remote mining modules on any ship chassis. <hr></blockquote> Early in a low tech start, it's the only option. Satellites Level 3 is a lot of research points that might be put to better use elsewhere.

Though the rare times I've used remote miners in that situation, it's usually for the minerals to radioactives conVersion.

Re: Deep Space Mining
 

No, i do not use any mods right now. In the new game i started in a system surrounded by nebulas and asteroid systems and no good planets nearby. So i just tried remote mining and tried to do something usefull with those 200+% mineral asteroids. Right now it is not so bad, the mining ships gather ca. 1500 minerals and use 750 for maintenance (robo extractors level I); that's quite fair in this early stage of the game (30 turns played).
Anyway, that's really good ideas: to use satellites on planets with moons. I will try.

Re: Deep Space Mining
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by wolfen64:
that's really good ideas: to use satellites on planets with moons. I will try.<hr></blockquote>

Wolfen64, dont just restrict the use of satellite based robo-miner platforms to planets with moons -like american express, the satellite miners are acceptable anywhere http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Deep Space Mining
 

Just goes to show my newbie-ness:

I thought that only ONE miner module could operate in a system at a time.

That blows my whole remote mining policy out the window!~ http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Re: Deep Space Mining
 

Here are the stats for a mining base I made (just for references):

Mining Base: Starbase hull
Components: Master computer II, 15 mineral miners III, 9 rad miners III

Cost: mineral-38000, nut-1000, rad-6250
Maintenance: min-3989, nut-104, rad-656

Mining Income: min-6480, rad-5328

Net Income: min-2491, rad-4672

With total cost of the base, it will take approximately 5.4 turns to reclaim expenses through mining. However, this doesn't take account of the construction vehicle's maintenance cost, which can also be substantial.

Also which can be seen, mining for nutrients and rad materials is way more cost effective, since the inherent costs for hull and mining components require more minerals than the other resource types.

I suggest inluding a self destruct device or keep a construction/war vessel at the ready (for when the mining base has outlived its usefulness).

[ 22 March 2002: Message edited by: Arak Koba ]</p>