Would you use this giant remote miner?

[Nocturnal]

I like to have as much of my resource production as I can come from asteroids - in the early-mid game I can have half my minerals coming in from remote miners and in the late game, about a third to a quarter. That way I can have all my planet real-estate devoted to research (and later, intelligence) as it should be.

I've found of course that since you can only have one ship mining a location each turn, and you have to pay upkeep on your ships, the bigger your mining ship is, the better - because you can cram more mining modules on it. You can't do this in limited resource games, because the profit you make is pathetic. Except for mining sattelites which don't require upkeep and can be tossed around at will (though I tend to mine moons with those before I colonize them.)
So anyway I took it a bit too far and designed this monstrosity Last night:

Starbase size
Master computer, 19 remote mineral mining modules, 5 remote radioactives extracting modules. And a massive lightning ray for decoration.

I called it a "resource raper" because it sucks the astroid field dry of all its resources. I haven't built one yet but it was carefully designed to cost no more than 40,000 minerals, so that a mobile construction ship can build it in exactly two whole years (I always assume maximum tech level, but you should see the way I play - everyone else's research in the "comparisons" looks flatlined and mine is a hyperbola.)
A quantum reactor drives the price up. You could use 17 miners and 7 extractors if you wanted to include a reactor. Or 21 miners and 3 extractors and let it take another turn... or another combination with a non-organic weapon.

Once built, it's supposed to give a profit of 5,200 minerals after deducting upkeep (that looks awfully small to me, maybe I got the upkeep wrong?) at 100%, and 20,400 at 200% which is the average mining-ship-worthy asteroid field. Plus several thousand radioactives which I was short of when I designed it.

I've already selected a tiny asteroid belt with over 250% minerals and radioactives to build mine on.

Self-destruct device not included; if you need to get rid of it you can just bring back the construction ship to scrap or mothball it when it picks the asteroid field clean. This is a very expensive piece of immobile hardware and needs to be heavily guarded with defense satellites and perhaps a minefield. You could have one satellite fleeted with it, with a quantum reactor (and ecm, cloaking device, scattering armor and combat sensor to support its stack) if you want the "resource raper" to be able to fire its weapon. Otherwise it doesn't need supplies.

So, should I be straightjacketed and tossed into a padded room?

[geoschmo]

Bigger is definetly better with remote mining, so if you are gonna do it at all your starbase design is the best way to go. There are those that will say even then it's not worth it, and long term the numbers are on their side of the argument because of the gradual reduction of value due to remote mining. But their is some short term value to your solution, and if it works for you that's really the only point.

Maintenance by default is 25% of the purchase cost, and bases get half that, so 12.5% in your case. If you take merchant culture and/or improve your maintenance characteristic you will increase the profit potential immensly.

Geoschmo

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Nocturnal:
Once built, it's supposed to give a profit of 5,200 minerals after deducting upkeep (that looks awfully small to me, maybe I got the upkeep wrong?) at 100%, and 20,400 at 200% which is the average mining-ship-worthy asteroid field. Plus several thousand radioactives which I was short of when I designed it.

I don't use remote mining much anymore but in one game on PBW that I am in I have a few miners out there. These are baseship designs with 14 extractors on them. (I design 3 different ones for the 3 different resource types to gain maximum benifit of each field) And on a field that is only 168% it brings in a net 19kt of minerals; I pay a maintenance fee of 3042M 100O and 466R for a grand profit of 16kt of minerals. (Numbers are roughly the same with my organic and rad miners) So going by that your base will bring in alot more then just a 5200kt that you mentioned.

Hold on and I will go run a test to see roughly how much your miner will bring in exactly.

[Suicide Junkie]

What a horrible, unthinkable idea! We must organize a crusade against these pillagers of planetary value!!! Come, let us gather in the Nature shrine!

I can see how that would be quite profitable, but my people would never stand for such a monstrosity. All stellar objects must progress towards becoming shining oxygen-atmosphere jewels with 999% value. Reducing value via remote mining is equivalent to high treason.

[Ragnarok]

Ok, I did a test real quick and here are the results: I made a Starbase and filled it with your design of 19 mineral miners, and 5 rad miners. (I didn't use the massive lightning ray though)

The maintenance that will be charged to your empire each month will be 3000-M 75-O and 453-R.
I built the base on top of a field with the values of 189%-M 93%-O and 136%-R.
Your base will net 29kt-M 0kt-O and 5440kt-R.
Leaving you with a profit of +26kt-M -75-O and +4987-R.
It cost roughly 52kt-M 12kt-O and 7kt-R to build both the base and the space yard ship (striped down Version with only MC, Engines, and Space Yard III and Solar Sail)
So it would take 2 months to cover the minerals and rads invested to build both the base and ship used to construct it, and of course it wouldn't cover the orgs invested due to it having no organic miner componants.

[geoschmo]

The other point to consider is that for maximum efficency you should keep your designs to having all the same type of miner components. Instead of some mineral and some rad, you should have all mineral. The field still only reduces in value by 1% a turn and you get more minerals back for that one percent. Once the asteroids are depleted to the point where you aren't getting enough to cover the maintenance you can retorfit the starbase to collect all rads.

Geoschmo

[Loser]

Originally posted by Ragnarok:
Ok, I did a test real quick and here are the results: I made a Starbase and filled it with your design of 19 mineral miners, and 5 rad miners. (I didn't use the massive lightning ray though)

The maintenance that will be charged to your empire each month will be 3000-M 75-O and 453-R.
I built the base on top of a field with the values of 189%-M 93%-O and 136%-R.
Your base will net 29kt-M 0kt-O and 5440kt-R.
Leaving you with a profit of +26kt-M -75-O and +4987-R.
It cost roughly 52kt-M 12kt-O and 7kt-R to build both the base and the space yard ship (striped down Version with only MC, Engines, and Space Yard III and Solar Sail)
So it would take 2 months to cover the minerals and rads invested to build both the base and ship used to construct it, and of course it wouldn't cover the orgs invested due to it having no organic miner componants.

Don't forget to budget for the maintenance cost of the Space Yard Ship while it moved to the field and built the monstrosity,

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Loser:
Don't forget to budget for the maintenance cost of the Space Yard Ship while it moved to the field and built the monstrosity,

Here's an idea. It reduces the total amount of rescources havested a bit, but it cuts down on the time getting the thing setup. Build the starbase with a space yard comp and no miners. Your ship can build that in a few turns and be on it's way. Then your starbase can retrofit itself and add miners every turn. This has the advantage of not needing a return trip form the space yard ship when it's time to switch to rads or orgs. You just have to decide if the loss of four miner comps is worth not having a dedicated space yard ship to service all your remote mining bases.

As long as you don't retrofit to a design without a yard comp. Doh!

And when all the resources are bled dry from the asteroid field the starbase can scrap itself.

Geoschmo

[Slick]

To me, turning that asteroid field into a planet is by far the better choice over remote mining even though it takes longer to set up. No resource depletion. More defendable. Asteroids usually have very high resource percentages and those become the planet's percentages, you can really rake in the resources - also a great place to build monoliths. I am not really a monolith fan, but on planets made from asteroids, they usually are a winner. Even if you haven't researched the Matter Gravity Sphere to level III yet, you can use it on the smaller asteroid fields. Even in a large quadrant, just 2 planetmaker ships can keep you busy colonizing for quite a while. I usually put the MGS on a Battleship hull so that I can add an emergency propulsion pod (which requires a spaceyard to repair). That way, I can usually zoom to 1 asteroid field per turn per ship, I can have the planetmaker ship retrofit itself as better tech becomes available - especially MSG III; and in a pinch, I can use it to construct defenses over a new planet.

edit: spelling

Slick.

[ July 21, 2003, 16:30: Message edited by: Slick ]

[Q]

Slick I agree with you. In standard SE IV creating a planet seems the better choice for me too. If you change however in the settings.txt file the line as follows:

Remote Mining Decreases Asteroid Value := False

then at least for tiny asteroid fields remote mining becomes interesting.