Remote Mining

[Spyder]

I tried to do build remote mining stations Last night so that I could rely on them for my resources and put my planets to better use.

I quickly noticed that the asteroid/planet degradation caused by the Robo Miners quickly made the Mining Stations unproductive....costing more to maintain than what they were mining. Even the Farmers & Extractors weren't worth the Minerals they used for the Organics/Radioactives they acquired.

I was using Small Space Stations with 4 robo miners. Anyone have any input or comments?

Paul E. Mason
Senior VMS Systems Administrator

[Drake]

Unless you have an very low maintenance, I think remote mining is a waste in this game. I think this could be improved greatly by changing how quickly the planet degrades, making it dependant on how many resources are being mined from it that turn.

Even on a tiny planet, 5 Monolith IIIs and a robotoid facility III will generate more resources than a remote miner over the planet would, plus you don't have to mess around with building up the planet values again after you strip mine it.

Just my take on it, maybe someone else has actually found a use for them. *shrug*

-Drake

[alasyr]

Well RM cannot beat monoliths on terraformed tinies (well if there is one tiny at location, that is at least, and even than not forever because of value degradation), but in the begining when you don't have the atmospheric improvement techs it might be a good way of using resource reach tinnies, especialy if there are more than one at same place.Starbase present there will mine them all.First you have to forget about using space station for it as it doesn't pay off.The 2nd and 3rd starbase (14 or 24 miners respectively) as RM have much better mineral output and therefore life span.I did some calculation on this before and if I remember correctly 14 miners on battlestation would still make some profit (a tiny thought) on a 30% resource value world.

[raynor]

In a previous post on this same subject, Drake said he'd calculated it out, and RM lost out becuase they don't get the population or race bonuses, he thought.

Personally, I'm rather inclined to believe him.

[Triumvir Emphy]

the only cost effective way is sats which you ferry around once you deplete asteriods.

(there is a zero maintenance way, which is almost like cheating)

[alasyr]

Drake is right about max output.Once again made a mistake in reasoning that two RM tinies would outproduce maxed out colonizied ones.

[Drake]

Well, here's a couple more random thoughts related to mining (but not necessarily each other).

Sats may be mineral cost effective, but they aren't planet cost effective. You only get the benefit of one satellite (that's one UNIT, not one group), and the planet still goes down 1% each year. It doesn't cost you much in current resources, but it probably is bad if you plan on colonizing that planet later and building resource facilities on it.

I'm just guessing, but I think RM is more viable under finite minerals. Then it will probably work like Stars! did, where your planetary decrease is based on the number of miner components working on the planet each turn. I'll look into this later, if someone else hasn't already.

I might, MIGHT, (ok, I probably wouldn't, but someone else might), use RM if I was short on radioactives or organics and had a massive surplus of minerals. If you're in a bad shape that way though, you'd better start researching to get those resource converters...

One positive to RM is that you don't need a SP in the system - you can sneak around and ruin someone else's future planets instead of yours, heh. In my case, every planet is my future planet, so that isn't as appealing. Muhahahahahahah.

Generally I just find that I have enough stuff to worry about without messing around with RM. If you take a resource penalty, have low maintenance or don't need minerals specifically, or are in big trouble as far as colonizable planets go, maybe you can give RM a shot and have it work out for you. Otherwise, take a pass and work on building better ships so you can steal someone else's planets if you need more resources.

-Drake

[DirectorTsaarx]

I've had pretty good luck using RM on rich asteroid fields; load a Base Station with 14 miners/farmers/extractors and build it at a high-value asteroid sector. I have three of those operating at three different asteroid fields, and they're bringing in a net of 5k minerals and 1k of rads each turn (10 mineral miners, 4 rad extractors). I'm not worried about the organics this game. The bases have been operating for 10-20 turns already, and still making a profit. They paid for themselves after the first 3 turns (when I was getting 8k minerals per station per turn), since they cost about 22k minerals to build. Obviously, they take forever to build with a spaceyard ship, but it's a way to use asteroid fields. I just have to remember to keep checking on them every couple turns to make sure they're still profitable, and send a space yard ship over to scrap them when they are no longer profitable.