Remote miming question.

[Elowan]

What are the best (reccomended) vehicles for remote mining? Ship, base, or satellite?

I tried a ship but it ran out of supplies quickly. I didn't try putting it on Sentry. Will it still mine if that's done? If not - will a Solar Sail provide sufficient supplies to keep it on station?

I assume that un-colonizable planets can still be remote mined? A good use for tiny/small gas/ice methinks.

[ July 23, 2002, 06:13: Message edited by: Elowan ]

[Gandalph]

Best is to use a base because it does not need supplies and has reduced maintenance costs making it more profitable to mine with. The obvious drawback is that a base cannot move, so once the mining has depleted the resources beyond being profitable, you have to go back to it with a SY ship and scrap or retro it to something else. Uncolonized planets can be remotely mined.

[mac5732]

If you use ships, by all means make sure you have a solor panel for additional supplies, this will keep it supplied, small amt tho it may be, and they have maintenance costs, or either run it back to a resupply depot before it runs out, or run a supply ship out to it at least until quantum reactors. Also remember to keep and eye on them as your mining will deplete the resources and then you will have to balance the ships cost vs what your mining, this could cause you to move them more frequently.

Sats are good, problem with them is, you will eventually have to pick them up and relocate them once they have completed mining, they have no maintenance costs. In addition you don't have to worry about balancing their cost vs what your taking in in regards to what is being mined.

Bases are good, but like stated by Gandalph, will eventally have to be scraped

Basically it comes down to what is best for your empire, can you afford maintenance costs? Can you afford re-supply ships, is a re-supply base close, do you want a base over a planet your going to strip the resources from, can you afford sat pick up ships to transport them from place to place? The answers will dictate the type or kind you use. All of them work, and all of them have pros and cons, everyone has their own ideas so, see which will work best with what you are trying to accomplish and work with what you have available. As your empire expands, your resources should increase in regards to supporting maintenance, It comes down to what works best for you. good luck

just some ideas mac

[ July 22, 2002, 17:36: Message edited by: mac5732 ]

[jimbob]

For starters, I think remote miming would be a great addition to the game... consider it an intelligence attack; thousands of elite attack-mimes decend from invisible staircases into the midst of an unsuspecting population, and begin their soundless campaign of 'mind-numbing' against the hapless citizens. Uncertain as to what to make of the chalk-faced denizens of uber-droldom, the population stares in stunned silence as the mimes unexpectedly run into invisible walls, get trapped in invisible shrinking boxes, and rise and fall on invisible escalators (Edit - and in Mexico city, direct traffic). The population, utterly mesmerized by these feats of incredible irrelevance cease to tend to their lives, resulting in production loss, maintenance failures, research blunders and eventually mass die-offs as untended crops are left unharvested (Edit - and car accidents in Mexico city)...
... perhaps Remote Miming should be it's own racial tech tree

Anyway, for remote mining, I personally like to use level two bases (or higher). This is because the satelites do indeed have no maintenance costs, but you can only shoe-horn on a few remote miners/farmers/radioactive thingies per satelite (1 or 2 I can't remember). The level 2 base can fit 13 mimes... er, mines. This gives a very good short term return on investment, but is even better for long term investment - here's why. Every turn the value of the planet or asteroid decreases due to remote mining, but it doesn't matter how many actual mining components are present!. So a single component on a single vessel will degrade the celestial object 1% each turn, as will 13 components on a single vessel. So to get the most from a celestial object - go big! Oh, and the most fun I've had with this to date is in the P&N mod, playing the nomads because they have recycling units that decrease the maintenance on ships/bases even more.

(IMHO only)

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by jimbob:
This is because the satelites do indeed have no maintenance costs, but you can only shoe-horn on a few remote miners/farmers/radioactive thingies per satelite (1 or 2 I can't remember).

It's one per sector. You can put as many as you want in the sector of course, but you will only get the resources from one of each type.

[Baron Munchausen]

Nope. You only get the resources from one vehicle, period. No matter what 'type' of extraction each is using. I tried this myself recently. Built a base containing all radioactives extractors, and then built one containing all mineral extractors. When the mineral base went Online the radioactives base stopped producing.