Would you use this giant remote miner?

[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.

[Narrew]

I am in some PBW games that have Stellar Man disabled so no planets for me, so I have been exploting them metals, but I use a Battle Station with 10 mineral, 2 Org and 2 Rad. but I will change them to all Mineral till its all gone then I can work on Org/Rad, by that time I should have Resource converter.

[Arkcon]

Remote mining isn't very economical in standard SE4. I don't normally make mining bases, but I dunno they're kinda fun. Kinda scifi. I like the idea of ships prospecting for minerals, or rads, and shipping the stuff back home.

Sometimes I just put 2-3 miners and 1 rad extract or 2 on a battle station, with shields and weapons. Then, the base pays for it's own maintenance, with some bonus early on. Think -- the Bespin Cloud City.

The only problem is essentially wasting research on base construction, I don't really have another use for battle station or starbase. I do it most often if ruins give Base Construction.

[ July 21, 2003, 19:44: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

[Fyron]

Bases have infinite supplies. Think of them having a built-in quantum reactor. Adding one (or any supply bays or solar collectors) is a waste of resources and space.

[geoschmo]

Remote mining isn't an uber strategy by any means, but it does have some nice points and can be useful even in stock games. Assuming you take a low maintenance. And by low I mean LOW. 115% maint and merchant culture is as low as you can go. That will cost you 1500 racial points. Of course low maint has other more obvious military advantages, but for the purposes of this argument it makes early remote mining much more of an option. Even a simnlge mining comp on a frigate with that low of maintenance can have a decent return on investment. About the same as a single mining facility will produce. Enough to make it worth the effort. But you should replace them at your first opportunity with larger ships or even bases.

Advantages:

Planets can be totally dedicated to research and construction.

Don't have to wait for space ports to be built before to expolit a new system.

J.I.T. resource production. Running a surplus? move the ships off their asteroids, resources stop and you don't deplete the asteroids unneccesarily. Move them back when your construction queses catch up to your production. (of course this only applies to ships, not bases. )

Resource production is not hampered by rioting populations if a few battles go the wrong way.

While it's true that long term efficency is greater leaving the asteroids alone until you can make planets out of them, how many games go that long? And if it does, you can still make a planet and put some value improvement facs on it for a few years. As long as you don't deplete them to zero. But doing that makes no sense as before it gets to zero your ship will be costing you more then it is getting you back.

Geoschmo

[Captain Kwok]

If you have that kind of building capabilities - you might even want to convert the asteroids into planets then build the appropriate facilities to rake in the most resources over time.