Would you use this giant remote miner?

[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.

[atari_eric]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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...

[Taera]

this is a very good but extremly time consuming strategy. i often use medium ships (~cruiser) for that - i load it with normal BR,LS,CQ, then Ion Engines III and the rest with the miners. Then i set orders - go to site -> sentry -> go to ressuply -> repeat orders

and you can forget about it, just check once in a while if it is producing less than it is costing.
Also, if an enemy comes in simultanous, the ship will just break the sentry and go to the ressuply post - probably better defended, and will effectively dodge any possible combats