Would you use this giant remote miner?

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Nocturnal:
Once built, it's supposed to give a profit of 5,200 minerals after deducting upkeep (that looks awfully small to me, maybe I got the upkeep wrong?) at 100%, and 20,400 at 200% which is the average mining-ship-worthy asteroid field. Plus several thousand radioactives which I was short of when I designed it.

I don't use remote mining much anymore but in one game on PBW that I am in I have a few miners out there. These are baseship designs with 14 extractors on them. (I design 3 different ones for the 3 different resource types to gain maximum benifit of each field) And on a field that is only 168% it brings in a net 19kt of minerals; I pay a maintenance fee of 3042M 100O and 466R for a grand profit of 16kt of minerals. (Numbers are roughly the same with my organic and rad miners) So going by that your base will bring in alot more then just a 5200kt that you mentioned.

Hold on and I will go run a test to see roughly how much your miner will bring in exactly.

[Suicide Junkie]

What a horrible, unthinkable idea! We must organize a crusade against these pillagers of planetary value!!! Come, let us gather in the Nature shrine!

I can see how that would be quite profitable, but my people would never stand for such a monstrosity. All stellar objects must progress towards becoming shining oxygen-atmosphere jewels with 999% value. Reducing value via remote mining is equivalent to high treason.

[Ragnarok]

Ok, I did a test real quick and here are the results: I made a Starbase and filled it with your design of 19 mineral miners, and 5 rad miners. (I didn't use the massive lightning ray though)

The maintenance that will be charged to your empire each month will be 3000-M 75-O and 453-R.
I built the base on top of a field with the values of 189%-M 93%-O and 136%-R.
Your base will net 29kt-M 0kt-O and 5440kt-R.
Leaving you with a profit of +26kt-M -75-O and +4987-R.
It cost roughly 52kt-M 12kt-O and 7kt-R to build both the base and the space yard ship (striped down Version with only MC, Engines, and Space Yard III and Solar Sail)
So it would take 2 months to cover the minerals and rads invested to build both the base and ship used to construct it, and of course it wouldn't cover the orgs invested due to it having no organic miner componants.

[geoschmo]

The other point to consider is that for maximum efficency you should keep your designs to having all the same type of miner components. Instead of some mineral and some rad, you should have all mineral. The field still only reduces in value by 1% a turn and you get more minerals back for that one percent. Once the asteroids are depleted to the point where you aren't getting enough to cover the maintenance you can retorfit the starbase to collect all rads.

Geoschmo

[Loser]

Originally posted by Ragnarok:
Ok, I did a test real quick and here are the results: I made a Starbase and filled it with your design of 19 mineral miners, and 5 rad miners. (I didn't use the massive lightning ray though)

The maintenance that will be charged to your empire each month will be 3000-M 75-O and 453-R.
I built the base on top of a field with the values of 189%-M 93%-O and 136%-R.
Your base will net 29kt-M 0kt-O and 5440kt-R.
Leaving you with a profit of +26kt-M -75-O and +4987-R.
It cost roughly 52kt-M 12kt-O and 7kt-R to build both the base and the space yard ship (striped down Version with only MC, Engines, and Space Yard III and Solar Sail)
So it would take 2 months to cover the minerals and rads invested to build both the base and ship used to construct it, and of course it wouldn't cover the orgs invested due to it having no organic miner componants.

Don't forget to budget for the maintenance cost of the Space Yard Ship while it moved to the field and built the monstrosity,

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Loser:
Don't forget to budget for the maintenance cost of the Space Yard Ship while it moved to the field and built the monstrosity,

Here's an idea. It reduces the total amount of rescources havested a bit, but it cuts down on the time getting the thing setup. Build the starbase with a space yard comp and no miners. Your ship can build that in a few turns and be on it's way. Then your starbase can retrofit itself and add miners every turn. This has the advantage of not needing a return trip form the space yard ship when it's time to switch to rads or orgs. You just have to decide if the loss of four miner comps is worth not having a dedicated space yard ship to service all your remote mining bases.

As long as you don't retrofit to a design without a yard comp. Doh!

And when all the resources are bled dry from the asteroid field the starbase can scrap itself.

Geoschmo

[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 ]