How do I get my freighters to actually pick up the mineral's I'm mining from asteroids? They are currently following the same asteroid as my mining ships, but yet when I go to the ship screen they have nothing in their holds. And how do you get them to unload? And how long does it take for commerical companies to start building ships? I gave them 3000 wealth, and they have yet to build anything.
You'll need to execute orders for the freighters to Load Minerals from the asteroid in question. I find that you wind up wanting to handle this one of two ways:
1. Periodic "mule runs" where you send a freighter out to the asteroid, load up with whatever minerals are laying around, and come back to Earth to dump the ore. Doesn't need to be a constant thing, maybe one run every 3-6 months.
2. Build a few mass drivers, then have your freighter load one and drop it off on the asteroid. Then you go into the Mining tab for that asteroid "colony" and aim it whereever you want the ore to go. That way, you have a steady stream of minerals incoming. When that rock's tapped out, you move the miner to a new one and just have the freighter move the mass driver as well.
3. An advanced strategy is to design your miner with sufficient cargo space to hold a single mass driver. That way, you don't even need a freighter. The miner can carry its own mass driver with it from rock to rock. If you design it with a really long deployment time, it can theoretically stay out in the Belt for decades this way without needing any support vessels.
My system maps of Sol typically have mineral packets flying all over the place, from asteroid operations and CMCs (civilian mining colonies).
As far as civilian lines, they not only need money, but some destinations and some business. If you have no extraterrestrial colonies (CMCs don't count), there's nothing to haul, and thus no reason to build ships. Easiest way to generate some shipping traffic (in 6.0, at least):
1. Build some infrastructure. It's cheap and quick to make.
2. Load it onto your freighter(s).
3. Drop it on Luna or Mars.
4a. If you have a colony ship, move a few hundred thousand colonists there as well. This will generate a demand for goods and more infrastructure, which should trigger freighters to be built.
4b. If you don't have a colony ship, move some mines or factories there. This will generate a demand for population, which should trigger colony ships to be built.
Voila! You'll start seeing colony ships and/or freighters being built. You'll also see CMCs start popping up. CMCs are your friend, because they have integrated mass drivers, 1 level of deep space tracking station, and generate a free Garrison Battalion.
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Topic: Aurora - The Dwarf Fortress of 4X Games (Read 2818002 times)