Does anyone use ROBO MINERS?

[Nitram Draw]

That's right, you can't mine from a colonized planet, but I think you can mine from any other un-colonized planets in the same location. Is this right?
When I robomine, I usually do it early in the game in the system where my home planet is located. I almost always play with "colonize home planet type" option on so I know I'm probably never going to use the other planets and they are in a pretty safe location.
Anyone ever see the AI robomine?

[This message has been edited by Nitram Draw (edited 07 May 2001).]

[dumbluck]

quote:

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Originally posted by Nitram Draw:
That's right, you can't mine from a colonized planet, but I think you can mine from any other un-colonized planets in the same location. Is this right?
]

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That is correct. As a matter of fact, I'm doing that in a current game: Space Station w/robominers over Colonized planet w/ _3_ moons, all over 140% Minerals (well, they USED to be over 140% )

[Master Belisarius]

I never use the Robo. Usually, I can get enough resources colonizing planets.
Also, I dislike all the micromanagement, for a few more resources.

[GruelThePurple]

As is, the RoboMiners are not very worthwhile. Unless you have a high value planet/asteroids/etc. and use a base to mine with, your returns are poor at best, and even with good returns, after a few turns you will drain the mining target to a point where the maintenance outweighs your gains.

Also, no matter where you mine, only the first vehicle in place will mine. This counts for ships or satellites or bases. Only one vessel, regardless of type or makeup, will mine.

That being all said, I do use a couple of mods to make remote mining worthwhile. First off, I turn off the flag in the settings file to cause mining to decrease a resource's value. This gives a constant flow of materials. I justify this by simply looking at colonized planets; their resources do not decrease, and given time, you can actually increase those values.

The second mod helps a lot with using the standard ships. I give RoboMiners a Cargo ability, but they can not actually hold cargo (set to 0). This allows me to dump miners onto transports, and they count against the transport's cargo requirement. So, with a large transport, you can fit several types of miners on board and reap a variety of materials from a single ship. That way too, I do not have to use combat space frames to make miners, which are generally more expensive than the transport frames.

Of course, even with these mods, a base is still the best mining platform, as they are cheaper in maintenance, and can hold gobs more miners.

Just my 11.5 cents (inflation and all).

[capnq]

I've only once gotten into a situation where robomining was useful, to deny the resources of a planet you can't use to an enemy. I was having trouble with an AI putting a colony in my space really early in a game, when it would have taken me years to get that colonization tech. Even then, it was easier to glass the planet with Radiation Bombs to make it unihabitable.

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Cap'n Q

[rdouglass]

quote:

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Originally posted by GruelThePurple:
That being all said, I do use a couple of mods to make remote mining worthwhile. First off, I turn off the flag in the settings file to cause mining to decrease a resource's value...

...The second mod helps a lot with using the standard ships. I give RoboMiners a Cargo ability, but they can not actually hold cargo (set to 0)....

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That sounds like a cool mod. Could you possibly enlighten us who are 'mod challenged'??

[GruelThePurple]

Once I get home (being at work and all), I can post what a mod'ed miner would look like with the cargo attribute.

[jimbob55]

1. Go to the Data folder in your SE4 directory.
2. Make a copy of the components.txt file somewhere safe.
3. open the components.txt file in wordpad most likely
4. search for robo. This will bring you to the first robo miner entry.
5. scroll down until you see this line :
Number of Abilities := 1
Change the value to 2.

paste this

Ability 2 Type := Cargo Storage
Ability 2 Descr := Provides 0kT worth of cargo space.
Ability 2 Val 1 := 0
Ability 2 Val 2 := 0

just above the line weapon type := none

This will mod your level 1 metal robominer to be a valid cargo component. All you have to do now is mod all 8 remaining robominers in the same way....

Alternatively add this to the end of your components.txt file. Be careful that there is only 1 line between the Last entry and this one, with one line between the end of this and the EOF '===' line.

Name := Omni - Miners I
Description := Small autonomous robots which can mine asteroids or empty planets remotely, but it will decrease their value permanently.
Pic Num := 240
Tonnage Space Taken := 100
Tonnage Structure := 100
Cost Minerals := 1000
Cost Organics := 200
Cost Radioactives := 200
Vehicle Type := Ship\Base\Sat
Supply Amount Used := 100
Restrictions := None
General Group := Remote Mining
Family := 30
Roman Numeral := 1
Custom Group := 0
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Minerals Extraction
Tech Level Req 1 := 1
Number of Abilities := 4
Ability 1 Type := Remote Resource Generation - Minerals
Ability 1 Descr := Automatically mines 300 minerals. Only one ship can mine a location each turn.
Ability 1 Val 1 := 300
Ability 1 Val 2 := 0
Ability 2 Type := Remote Resource Generation - Organics
Ability 2 Descr := Automatically mines 300 organics.
Ability 2 Val 1 := 300
Ability 2 Val 2 := 0
Ability 3 Type := Remote Resource Generation - Radioactives
Ability 3 Descr := Automatically mines 300 radioactives.
Ability 3 Val 1 := 300
Ability 3 Val 2 := 0
Ability 4 Type := Cargo Storage
Ability 4 Descr := Provides 0kT worth of cargo space.
Ability 4 Val 1 := 0
Ability 4 Val 2 := 0
Weapon Type := None


And bob is your father's brother. An all purpose remote mining bot with a pretty picture that can be mounted on a freighter hull. Of course, you could change all the values to 3000, or 10000 if you so desired. Such is the pleasure of modding.......

[This message has been edited by jimbob55 (edited 08 May 2001).]

[AJC]

Well actually even though I suggested using satellites - I never actually find myself using robomining at all, unless I am playing for more than just an immediate military victory - where I allow the AI to build up.

I wouldnt build a base to robo mine with - I dont want to pay any maintenance cost on my robo mining operations other than the cost of the single ship to deploy them and the cost of the satellites when I build them.

Often after deploying the satellites I will send the ship home and mothball it for the duration of the mining operation.

In answer to the question about stacking satellite miners - no it doesnt work -
but if you deploy 10 or so in an asteroid system you will make a pretty good haul over a few turns. Its a nice supplement to the normal income.

[This message has been edited by AJC (edited 08 May 2001).]

[Noble713]

I also turned off the "deplete asteroid" flag in my MOD. Combine this with a 100-pt. increase (I think, I may have left it alone) in the resources mined, and robo-miners are actually useful.

If you put 3 Robo-Miners on a space station at an asteroid over 100%, you get 2000 minerals of pure profit every turn. This gets better with higher level miners and richer asteroids (up to about 3500 minerals profit).

In my Last game I had built about 20 mining stations and they were vital to running my large fleet (a 200-ship fleet with 800kT cruisers and a 3500kt heavy battleship is expensive). It's important to defend your stations though, as I lost an entire system of them to cloaked ships and the loss forced me to halt all new construction.