Where are the Civilians?

[DirectorTsaarx]

The convoy idea could be expanded a bit to make remote mining more useful. Rather than mining reducing an asteroid field's value by a percentage point per turn per ship/base, have asteroid fields always use the "finite resources" settings. Then, rather than automatically getting the resources from those mines, the resources have to be transported back to a spaceport (of course, resources should also be able to be stored at the asteroid field until a convoy comes by). I'm not certain what to do about planets, since eventually a player may want to colonize a planet that's been remotely mined. Maybe the reduction per turn per ship/base should be changed to a reduction per YEAR per COMPONENT.

[Baron Munchausen]

Letting part of the resources from a blockaded planet -- or even system if it's the space part planet -- does make some sense. But allowing for individual ships carrying resources from one point to another is still going to be far too much detail in a game of this scale. The option I suggested, that some random 'freighters' appear when you attack a planet with a space port, is about as far as it can reasonably go. For remote miners, you might be able to add a space port 'component' or some other component to represent shipment facilities. Requiring the presence of one of these on the same ship or in the same sector where the mining is occuring would offer some logistics problems. Exspecially if you could 'blockade' it like a planet. Even if you have defenders strong enough to hold off the attacker, their presence could still cost you the resources.