Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

I've been in a few pbw games and it seems that I am the only one who takes advantage of remote mining. Doing so has turned into a mineral gold mine as in most games I can easily acquire more than 500k worth of minerals alone, not to mention the other 2-400k of organic or rads if higher. All it takes is a good systems and patience. Any one else have an luck?

Does the remote mining amount get calculated in the Traded percent to your allies? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

I do it against the AI. It can ba a micro managment nightmare. With the extra moons of Fyrons Quadrant Mod it is somewhat easy to load them over colonized planets.
I create a 1 Sat bay escort and trying to "program" its Load and Launch sequance. With one sat bay it can only pic up one sat so you don't end up with multble sats in one sector.

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">IMO, the costs of setting up remote mining, usually outweigh the benefits. I think the RM components are a bit large, and/or a bit costly, for the gains.

Basically -- for every remote mining ship, base, or satellite I could build ... I've always a more-pressing need for OTHER satellites, bases, or ships. If the "profit margin" were larger, I might place remote mining higher in priority than other ships ... but IMO, it's always better to colonise a world, than remote mine it ... even if I can only build one facility, a single Monolith 3 is going to be superior to a similar cost base in terms of production, ESPECIALLY over time (the monolith doesn't degrade the planet's value) ....

[ November 22, 2002, 18:01: Message edited by: Pax ]

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

I've occasionally used rad miners as an early game substitute for Resource ConVersion, but most of the time I simply don't need them. I'm more likely to be faced with deciding whether to build resource storage facilities or to ramp up production to use up my surplus production. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

I know for a fact that a little investment can turn into a huge gain. If you build a ship with a Construction Yard, move it to an astroid with %200+% in minerals, build a Space Yard Construction base, then a Battle Station with 14 mineral miners, that a 25k a turn mineral surplus. Do that in an asteroid field you can easily produce more than your planets. Granted this will take a 20+ turns to deploy but if you start small the gains will outweigh the investment. Not to mention other tricks that could enhance the mining field.

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

The biggest problem with that is that to build a construction ship requires a cruiser hull or larger. And by the time I have researched cruiser tech, not to mention battle station tech, my empire has expanded to the point where it's much easir to just pump out a half dozen colony ships and plant some more colonies.

Unfortuntly, when you really need remote mining to work, early in the game, there is no practical method of employing it. By the time you have the tech to make it worthwhile, it's no longer needed.

Geoschmo

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

Remote mining is profitable. But the game gets so huge so fast that the player time involved gets high compared to the advantage you get in the game. Also remote mining uses up the asteroids and turning a 200% plus asteroid into a planet is the gift that keeps on giving. But remote mining does have other advantages.
It can be used as a means of economic warfare. By Reducing asteroids and planets(yes virgina remote mining works on planets too) then giving the worthless husks away is a nice touch.
If you get to a system and put some miners out (really nice with sensors)when the badguy destroys them they can be used as a pretext for declaring war. Not that anyone in SEIV needs a pretext.

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

Here -->is a link to when this was discussed before. Hope it helps clarify.

EDIT -> In a PBW game I am in now I have 9 remote mineral mining bases (producing approx. 6500 mins per turn each) and 3 remote rad bases (roughly the same output) and would be severely hampered in production without them. BTW it is turn number 97.

[ November 23, 2002, 03:20: Message edited by: Gandalph ]

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You could fix this by reducing both the size and output of Remote Extraction components in the same proportions. The 'efficiency' needs to be carefully balanced to keep it from being too easy to do, but I agree that the components are too large at present. Slash the size and output in half and they're much more usable.

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

The Star Trek TNG mod makes exactly the change that MB suggested. Half the components, half of the output - expect for rads - which are cut in half for the whole mod.

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

That's BM, not MB. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

In highly competitive PBW games with smaller maps, the game doesn't often Last long enough to get too much use out of them, given their long build time.

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

I never use remote mining in normal SE4. But in Proportions Mod it is absolutely essential to keep my empire running.

Rollo

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

Lately, I'm using remote mining a little bit more, but I still don't base my economy on it.

Here's something fun to do: Build a battle station, with weapons, shields and other combat components -- and just enough mineral miners and rad extrators to cover maintenance -- at an asteroid field. Somewhere deep in AI territory. Free listening post. If you give it enough teeth, it's something to waste their time on when war comes. Notice, I'm not baseing my economy on it.

If the extrator was smaller and cheaper, I might put it on more ships. Just a little pause here and there to send some rare elements back home.

If the AI could be programed to put a mineral miner on it's shipyard spacestations, it could be useful to it, say when you're playing Fyron's mod.

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

Remote Mining is very cost effective if you have a construction ship with one satellite launcher. Build a Large Sat with the desired mining component. You can make good use of Asteroid systems.

Remote Mining is very important in games where you can only colonize the right gas type (e.g. O2) or only the right Planet type (e.g. Gas giant). It allows you to get something out of all the other planet types. In these games you can make user of Base Miners where there are moons and planets in the same square. You colonists build a base to mine the uninhabitable moons or planet.

If you have very low maintenance, mining ships are more cost effective. Bases even more so.

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

I;ve no experience in PBW but i'd have to say that remote mining is rather useful, especially when coupled with Crystalline Restructuring Plant (-10%, -20% and -30% to ALL maintenance in system, accordingly to levels) and -5% to maintenance.
I have developed a neat system for remote mining. Here it is:

It requies a single (probably dedicated) planet in the system on which you will build Ressuply Depot and, if available, the Crystalline Restructurer. It can be a way to use those systems where you only have 2 tiny unbreathable planets and no chance of colonizin anything else.
Now the way it works: i build a ship (preferably LC as they have the best output for cost) with ion3 engines and self-destruct device (useful).
Now i order them to go to the (mining field), sentry and go to ressuply planet. Repeat orders. Now untill an enemy invades the system i would absolutely forget about their existance as with -30% maintenance it would take a while for their cost to overcome the income.
Example:
Spade class LC mining a 144%-121%-61% asteroid field with 2 robo-miners and 1 farmer.
Income: 2016,672,0
Upkeep: 915,28,121

And thats with crystalline restructurer 2 only.
Useful. And i never have to worry about the ships again. They also occassionaly appear up in the Next Ship list so i can monitor their income vs upkeep.

Same system (go,sentry,go back) works with asteroid fields too, given you can place the ressuply planet about three turns from the mining field.

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

Note: Ship will continue to mine at full speed even when they are completely out of supply.

You never actually need to send them back to a resupply planet.

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

yes i know, but if i ever would need to send them back thats the answer. Also they would always appear on ship list, and if the AI takes over he sure would just send them back, thing he couldnt do with sentry and repeat orders.

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

ok i'll have to fix my strategy posted below.
To actually remove the ship from your eyes you have to bring it to the mining field, press sentry. Then order goto-nearest ressuply and then tell it to go back. Check in orders list to ensure its correct. And then press 'K' (Repeat Orders)

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

i have a game going at work where i must remote mine just to survive. i made a small map using FQM dense midlife. i chose the wrong atmosphere and so have limited # of planets with room for miners. i have a -47,000 mins each turn and +150,000 rads and orgs. good thing for resource converters.

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

heh, in this case i'd say you pray nobody of the players is reading this topic because if i was a player i would send cloaked hunters after your miners...

EDIT: hmm.. for some reason i thought its a PBW game you have... nm

[ November 24, 2002, 06:52: Message edited by: Taera ]

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

reason it is so bad is i only have 1 star system the other 3 next to me are taken by the enemies. i have to many bases at the wormholes keeping the enemy at bay. i have finally put a large enough fleet togeter and am going to start "aggressive negotiations" with the enemy.

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

yeah, sometimes you dont need political savy to express your thoughts to aliens...

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

talk about remote mining. (with crystallurgy)
I have 6k/678/3624 resources from five ships.
Only thirdth of it, not counting organics, goes for maintenance. And im just playing around with asteroids.

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

i decided to play without crystalurgy this time. boy was it a mistake. i miss the discount on maintenance.

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Why are you mixing miners?
If you made the ships with all one type of miner, you would save a lot more resources.

If the ship is mining only minerals, then only the mineral value goes down by 1%.
Once the value gets too low, you can then swap the mineral mining ship for an organics or radioactives mining ship, and keep mining effectively for up to 3x longer.

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

SJ: in my latest game planets with organics and especially rads are rare, and mineral planets are common. I build those miners to have extra income for anytime i might need it. Standard ship is a LC with 2 miners and 1 radminer, and it gives me the income of about twice its maintenance.

EDIT: spelling

[ November 24, 2002, 18:29: Message edited by: Taera ]

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">i am still trying to get a feel for the game and the different mods. once i feel comfortable i will try PBW.

Edit: and once my work schedule settles down. right now each week is a different tour. 8a-5p, 4p-midnight, midnight-8a. lots of people out for vacations at end of year. plus i am greedy and the off tours are extra pay so i fill in where needed.

[ November 24, 2002, 19:38: Message edited by: desdinova ]

Re: Doesn\'t Anyone Remote Mine?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That is the most important consideration. I have built multiple remote mining bases in dead end asteroid systems. (I like to play spiral arm, looks more "natural" to me. And I like the dead end systems over the spider web of warp points -- I get confused, but the AI doesn't)

Building the first one actually hurts me on resources, the second not so much, the third is a breeze, the fourth, well I'm so rich by then it pure gravy. That's when I came up with the attack base that only mines to pay it's own maintenance. I did it against TDM Modpak races a couple of times.

AI's you're at war with put these out of the way systems on a low priority, even if they send a scout into the system.

But a human player knows exactly what's on the cloaked scanner jammer battlestation in the asteroid field. A few weapons, SDD, etc are a good idea, but if you base your economy on it, you could be sorry.

So many options for the human player.

Thay could examine all asteroid sysytem for cloaked bases and sats, and destroy anything. Can you fight back without resources?

They could destroy the small planet your crystaline restructuring facility is likely on. Or hammer the base with null space to 90% damage. Or convert the asteroids to a planet and colonize it. Now you pay all the maintenance with no benefit.

They insurrect/subvert/board it. Now, they get a few turns of resources, but can you still afford ships to get it back?

Activate it's SDD with a small boarding ship. (if that tactic still works) Where'd all your resources go?

I can't prove that your economy is much more secure based on planets. I just think it is -- that's all.

[ November 24, 2002, 12:22: Message edited by: Arkcon ]