It just seems like alot of space to start with. My previous game only had one commercial shipyard with about 30,000 tons of space.
Yet another question: Is it cheaper overall to build asteroid miners (An entire ship, consisting of all necessary components) instead of building automated mines and then using civilian freighters to haul them for me?
I don't know if cost's changed for current version, but I did saw an analysis for 5.60 and it did turned out to be cheaper to have asteroid miners, in term of BP cost to mining output, than autominer. At least if they're tugged, engines are expensive 
Still gonna need at least one freighter shipment of mass driver. Also, unless things' changed, shipping lines really don't like to ship stuff to unpopulated outposts and orbital habitats.
Regular mines are still cheaper than either, but they need orbital habitats, which can get expensive real quick.
Went to check out the numbers since it was bugging me that I gave something vague while I had 5.60 save available right here with all tech enabled.
140 duranium
40.5 neutronium
5 corbomite
10 mercassium
120 corundim
315.5 BP, 140 mineral per annum (2.25 BP per annum minerals )
2 asteroid mining module, 1 crew module, 1 bridge, 1 engineering space ( 1 asteroid mining module uses 60 corundim, 60 duranium and 100 crew for 70 mineral per annum, giving 1.71 BP per annum minerals )
120 duranium
120 corundim
240 BP, 70 minerals per annum (3.43 BP per annum minerals )
Automated mine
Maxed tech, yes, but it still illustrate relative relationship. As asteroid mining platform gets bigger, it does get slightly cheaper due to bridge being smaller and smaller fraction of cost. The armor tech could raise/lower the price there, but it's hard to best. There is one issue, you need shipyard able to build it, the prototype I used for cost example weights 10,200 tonnes. There're gearing up costs with duranium and neutronium, which makes asteroid miners less economical on BP points relatively. On positive side, civilian shipyards are relatively cheap to expand and not needing engines and retrofitting ( it automatically improves with mining tech ) makes them even cheaper if you already have tugs around.
I checked into regular mine with orbital habitat, but it costs more than automated mines on BP points for each mine
There could be another advantage, needing less hauling infrastructure. All it need is one shipment of mass driver and one tug to haul it, getting better with larger and larger mining platform ( if Aurora's still calculating fuel usage by distance, not by time ).
Now, as I've said, I don't know if costs changed in more current versions, since I'm still playing on 5.60.
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Topic: Aurora - The Dwarf Fortress of 4X Games (Read 2817591 times)