[Alneyan]

I think the AI cannot do any kind of remote-mining whatsoever, but could be wrong on this count. Forcing the AI to build bases with components generating resources might help, while making most of its economy as vulnerable as remote-miners (without supplies, they cannot even attempt to run away).

You cannot use already existing Empires because the Miner's Guild mod add new traits (the Space Monster trait namely), which makes the other Empire files incomptabible with this mod. Devnull itself should have some Empire files, and should be comptabible with the Miner's Guild as they share the same advanced traits.

Satellites aren't really a gamey tactic in this case. They do not cost any maintenance, but have a very low output, and will deplete asteroid values faster if you are using the three sorts of remote-miners on each asteroid (as in, three satellites with minerals, radioactives and organics mining). Even in the stock game, remote-mining can be very effective with Light Cruisers, and becomes very powerful as ships get bigger. You more or less have to play a game with a lot of asteroid fields though, which means FQM or a similar mod.