Would you use this giant remote miner? - Page 2

Narrew · #11 July 21st, 2003, 06:36 PM

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 · #12 July 21st, 2003, 08:37 PM

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 · #13 July 21st, 2003, 08:48 PM

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 · #14 July 21st, 2003, 09:01 PM

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 · #15 July 21st, 2003, 11:49 PM

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.

atari_eric · #16 July 22nd, 2003, 12:40 AM

Are you sure you have your cultures right? From Data\Cultures.txt, it looks like Xenophobes have the best Maintenance Reduction, followed by Engineers (my favorite). Traders are tied with Artisans for third (4), Merchants have only 1 point and are third-to-Last (ahead of Berzerkers and Workers (-2) and many cultures with 0 points, and tied with Warriors)

P.S. P&N is one of my favorite mods because I can Think Big and get sats big enough to stick both a computer and a miner on at the second research level. Important for high research cost games.

Fyron · #17 July 22nd, 2003, 01:16 AM

Actually, you are reading the wrong numbers Atari. The cultures that get maintenacne reduction (in unmodded se4) are:

Engineers: 2%
Merchants: 5%
Renegades: -5% (pay more maintenance)

minipol · #18 July 22nd, 2003, 01:25 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by 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.

I agree with Slick. This is exactly what i'm doing in my current solo game against the TDM AI. Besides, i consider remote mining unfair in a solo game since the ai doesn't use it.
The AI does build planets though.

jimbob · #19 July 22nd, 2003, 01:29 AM

When playing P&N I choose nomads and crank up my maintanance to the sky. A starbase with the recycling node plus the maint. bonus can have you looking at a maintanance cost of nearly zero!!
And of course when you're playing a nomadic race, you cant really colonize, so remote mining is your only real option. I avoid the satelite option however, you just don't rape enough resource to make it worthwhile (IMHO)

atari_eric · #20 July 22nd, 2003, 03:52 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Actually, you are reading the wrong numbers Atari. The cultures that get maintenacne reduction (in unmodded se4) are:

Engineers: 2%
Merchants: 5%
Renegades: -5% (pay more maintenance)

Okay, I just reinstalled SEIV gold and applied patch 3 and apparently my OLD install is significantly corrupt or something, as the new one now conforms to these values...