Supply ships and Mining Stations

[Texfire]

Greetings all. I have been playing the SE4 demo the Last couple of days while home sick and just ordered the full game. I have some reservations about doing so as I remember back when I first got MOO2 and the amount of time I spent on it. Space Empires looks like it has the same potential to dominate my free time. Please don't tell my wife, she'll take a long time to forgive me.

I did have been lurking in the forums to try to find out the answer to two questions the demo raised. I figured out a way to solve both problems but there is probably a better way, so here goes.

Pretty quickly I ran into the limited ship supply problem. It was really limiting my attack ship ranges. Reading a thread here in the forum I found out about the sharing of stores within a fleet. I made a LC chassis with a bunch of support stores and added one of these to my fleet. I also used one of these to retrieve a mining ship that I had mistakenly stranded far away. Is this the best way to handle supply or is there another technology in the full game to help this situation?

I also started playing around with remote mining ships to feed my empire's voracious appetite for minerals. I quickly found out that my Remote Mining Destroyers were costing me more than they brought in. I wasn't able to try out the large mining satellite trick as you can't build them in the demo. So I was limited into waiting for LC so I could put enough Robominers in them to make a profit. I did try making a Cruiser Shipyard after I had the chassis so I could build Mining Stations at asteriod belts. I'll use this Mobile Shipyard to build stations at pivotal warp points anyway. My question is which way is most efficent to remotely mine? With LC Miners, Mining Stations or Mining Satellites?

Thanks for your time and your responses. I hope that I can keep the obsession under control this time.

Texfire

[Cylapse]

Hey Texfire... Cool name BTW.
I cant help ya much with remote mining, as I havent ventured down that path, but rest easy that in the full Version there exists a Quantum reactor, the same size as the supply storage and it generates an infinite (more or less) amount of supplies... Problem solved... I cant bear leaving my home system without one

[Texfire]

Thanks Cynapse, I've been going by Texfire for a couple of years now.

That Quantum Reactor sounds like just what the doctor ordered, thought I imagine that it comes later in the game.

I forgot to mention in my first post, I looked for a FAQ but couldn't find one, so forgive me if my questions are answered elsewhere. And if there is a FAQ and someone could point me in the right direction I would appreciate it.

Texfire

[geoschmo]

Texfire, check out This thread. It has a lot of good tips for making remote mining work.

Basically for the demo, you are on the right track. Bigger ships, or bases and you should start breaking even soon.

It also helps to play race with better maintenance.

Geoschmo

[wr8th]

Which is worse...
1) a wife who won't let you play because there're things to be done around the house or
2) a wife who won't let you play because there're things to be done around the house and she's also trying to get in time to play SE4G and constantly interrupts Spongebob Squarepants to ask questions such as "how come when I build a ship and send it somewhere it doesn't leave the planet it was built on?" "Did you try adding engines to it....dear?"

Thankfully the kids are not old enough to find SE4G interesting yet.

[Cylapse]

*LOL* I got it easy, when I am playing SE4, da girl is sitting next to me, playing GTA3 on the ps2, and she can handle herself, so I rarely get interuptions that arent...worthwhile *smiles*