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[Tarran]

How much cargo space is needed to carry an auto mine? Or a mass driver? Where can i check this?

Five to carry a mine. Five to carry a Mass Driver.

I have a question myself.. there is a civilian mining colony on one of Neptunes Moons (Proteus, .04 gravity).  Will they ever be of any use? Do Civilian Mining Complexes need people? Or are they just useless?

They don't need people, they are automatic mines which can either give you money or cost money but give minerals they mine from the planet. They also have built-in Mass Drivers. You can choose by selecting the planet in the Economics window, then the "Civilian/Ind Status" tab, finally, "Civilian Mining Complexes Status".

[USEC_OFFICER]

I have a question myself.. there is a civilian mining colony on one of Neptunes Moons (Proteus, .04 gravity).  Will they ever be of any use? Do Civilian Mining Complexes need people? Or are they just useless?

Basically they generate income for your nation. Alternatively, you can also buy the minerals that they harvest from then. Obviously it costs money, but you'll usually need more minerals than money anyways. As far as I can tell, once set up they require no additional input. Also when they spawn they give you free ground units. Just when they spawn though.

[Mini]

5 cargo holds for most installations, with 25 for a few including research centres and terraforming stations.

Mining ships vs automines, automines are more cost efficient (you don't need to build a ship around it) but require more time to move between asteroids. For anything other than asteroids and comets you can't use mining ships.

CMC: You can buy the minerals, and if you don't then they give you money. If you are buying the minerals you can also make use of the civilian mass driver, but I'm fairly sure that's only for stuff they mine. One CMC is worth 10 automines, and comes with a garrison unit.

[CT]

So, my cargo ships have enough space to carry the auto mines but when they try I get a even t message saying failed to load auto-mine. Retry or something to that effect. Help?

EDIT: So, it appears that the cargo holds are full. But instead of going to unload the mines they have, they continue to try and load more. How do I fix this?

[Crustypeanut]

Ah, thats good to know, I'm glad they're not useless.  This particular colony isn't mining anything absolutely amazing though, but i'll probably buy their minerals.


As for the automines vs mining ships - I think its about weighing if you want those minerals faster (ships) or more cost effective (automines).  If you go the ship route, yes you'll have to design a ship around the mining modules (I find that fun, to be honest, plus I"m a bit of a roleplayer and I like the idea of asteroid mining ships), but if you're low on Corundium (which I am..), then the ship route might be better, unless the mining modules require a lot of that.  If they do.. well fuck.  XD  I also think there would be less micromanaging involved with the ship route.  Instead of having to load the automines and mass driver into a group of ships, or one large one, then unloading all of those at the asteroid and repeating, you instead just need to load the mass driver into one ship (or the 5 parts into 5 ships), then unload it at the asteroid and repeat. 

I could be totally wrong in my logic though, it wouldn't surprise me.  Still, I like the idea of asteroid mining ships.  Reminds me of EVE Online

So, my cargo ships have enough space to carry the auto mines but when they try I get a even t message saying failed to load auto-mine. Retry or something to that effect. Help?

EDIT: So, it appears that the cargo holds are full. But instead of going to unload the mines they have, they continue to try and load more. How do I fix this?

Simply tell them to unload all installations or minerals (whatever they're carrying) at a planet, and then go about to tell them to load the automines.

[Metalax]

Asteroid mining modules cost 60 Duranium + 60 Corundium each with the cost of the rest of the ships systems on top of that, while automines cost 120 Duranium + 120 Corundium. So it make sense to make them when you have an acute Corundium or Duranium shortage as you get twice the number of mines out of your stockpile.

As an example one of my old asteroid miners(though with fairly high armour tech so low tech ships would have a higher Duranium cost).

Code: [Select]

Extractor class Asteroid Miner    28,200 tons     593 Crew     863.5 BP      TCS 564  TH 300  EM 0
531 km/s     Armour 1-82     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 19    Max Repair 120 MSP
Asteroid Miner: 5 module(s) producing 50 tons per mineral per annum

Civilian Ion Engine (2)    Power 150    Fuel Use 7%    Signature 150    Armour 0    Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 45.5 billion km   (992 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
Costs 424 Duranium, 300 Corundium, 27.5 Neutronium, 5 Corbomite, 50 Mercassium, 57 Gallicite. Total 863.5

5 Automines would cost 600 Duranium, 600 Corundium. Total 1200

As a note, when designing asteroid miners it may be a good idea to go with older cheaper engines as they are going to be spending most of their time sitting still with only occasional need to move, so no need for a high speed. Also personally I wouldn't go with putting cargo space on a miner to transport the mass driver as it is just wasted space for most of the time. Just have a freighter ship one to your next intended asteroid just before your current mine is exhausted.

[Flying Dice]

I typically go with automines, as you will tend to run into unihabitable worlds with massive mineral deposits all over the place, and with AMs you can drop 100 or so on a planet, come back with a freighter fleet in a few years, and haul tens of thousands of tons of minerals back to Earth. Asteroids tend to not have nearly enough minerals to make them worth exploiting once you've begun to settle outside of Sol, so your mining ships will be useful for a few decades/until they strip the asteroid belt, and then will be too much trouble to bother with.


Tip for the day: If you have outdated ships, have the crew abandon ship in one of your home systems, pick up the crew, and then you can salvage it for minerals and can scrap components at an industrial center to generate wealth. Much better than keeping obsolete ships in operation if you don't really need them.

[Tarran]

Tip for the day: If you have outdated ships, have the crew abandon ship in one of your home systems, pick up the crew, and then you can salvage it for minerals and can scrap components at an industrial center to generate wealth. Much better than keeping obsolete ships in operation if you don't really need them.

Can't you just use shipyards to scrap the ship?

[Metalax]

yes you can, although it takes up a slip to do so so if you are needing all of your slips for new construction/refit it can be a viable tactic. It is also the only way in which you can salvage any materials from outdated PDC's that are not worth upgrading (and I think that pdc refiting is still bugged to not actually do the refit once the refit construction has been completed).

[adwarf]

I am currently working on plans for a 60,000,000,000 ton carrier to be the flagship of my fleet, but it is slow going as my shipyards are going to take a while to update to a large enough size to build it. (I may also have to set up some fifty mining bases in the first asteroid ring.)

[Tarran]

Can a ship that large even be designed without breaking the game? And would it ever be practical?

[adwarf]

Can a ship that large even be designed without breaking the game? And would it ever be practical?

I am going to try at  least though I don't have the tech to actual make it at the moment. Also yes it will be powerful you try destroying a ship several times the size of Earth. Though if it isn't possible I will scale it down to 500,000 Tons and just stick with it having the best armaments out of the rest of the fleet.

[Urist Imiknorris]

And would it ever be practical?

Who gives a shit about practicality? This is Bay12.

[Crustypeanut]

And would it ever be practical?

Who gives a shit about practicality? This is Bay12.

Damn straight!

[Metalax]

Make a backup of the database before you start designing a ship that large as if I recall correctly you can start getting overflow errors once you get past 100 million tons, with the possibility of corrupting the database.