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[Mr.Mountain]

How do you get asteroid mining ships to work on asteroids? I didn't add a cargo bay, is that necessary for it to pick up materials?

[Dutchling]

How do you get asteroid mining ships to work on asteroids? I didn't add a cargo bay, is that necessary for it to pick up materials?

It creates the minerals at a colony at the asteroid, so first create a colony.

This also means that you'd want those mineral shooting things I forgot the name of instead of cargo bays.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Mass Drivers? So just bundle a cargo ship with your asteroid miners then. It'll ferry the mass driver around and maybe some other things too while they're mining.

[Duuvian]

I built a Minecart class commercial ship with the smallest cargo bay and a super efficient engine to ferry minerals my Dwarf mining ships placed on asteroids.

[Mr.Mountain]

So as I was checking my colonies I noticed I had 3 civilian mining complexes in a random comet. The mines really aren't producing anything (I'm guessing due to the lack of underground infrastructure), but I don't recall ever putting them there. Does anyone have an explanation?

[USEC_OFFICER]

Civilians like to plop down mining colonies on asteroids and comets, and their mines will basically convert minerals to money for your empire. Of course minerals are much more worthwhile, but luckily you can purchase the minerals they mine in the colony page somewhere. _{I forget the exact tab.} So civilian mining colonies are pretty much free mines and a mass driver when you think about it.

[Duuvian]

Yeah, I always buy civ minerals. One thing I notice is they stop making new civ mines after a while though. I'm unsure if it's because the government (you) is forcing the civ mines to sell their minerals to the government and not civilians, or if there is cutoff of some kind after which no more civilian mine colonies appear. I've tried keeping a few less useful civ mines supplying minerals of which I have more than I need to the civilians, but it's hard to tell a difference.

I think the civ mining corps expand faster if you leave the minerals going to the civilian sector, but I could be wrong about that. I always run short on one mineral or another in a game and switch over the appropriate civ mines to supply the government. I don't see any more pop up after that, though that's not necessarily the cause.

A minor bonus of civilian mine colonies is that they spawn a free Garrison ground troops unit. You can transfer them to a different planet; I do it after the minerals run out before I abolish the colony.

[Tarran]

...Is the amount of time spent getting the free garrison off an obscure body really worth avoiding the cost of but 60 minerals?

[Mr.Mountain]

I think he was suggesting that the garrison unit was just a neat perk to civ mines. I could be wrong though, all that was going through my head while I read the post was a dwarf doing back flips.

[Tarran]

He wasn't just suggesting, he was making a statement.

A minor bonus of civilian mine colonies is that they spawn a free Garrison ground troops unit. You can transfer them to a different planet; I do it after the minerals run out before I abolish the colony.

To which I made a question.

[Sheb]

I just disband the garrisons units. It's not like they're ever going to be useful.

[QuakeIV]

I just assume they are corporate security and leave them alone.

[Sheb]

But you have to pay for them!

[Duuvian]

If you have a troop transport already it takes all of 5 seconds to order it's tf to transport it back to whatever planet. If you have more defunct civ colonies and a fleet with enough transport space for a brigade you can move 5 of them all at once. It's only one set of orders, and besides I do 30 days x500 anyways when I'm away from the computer when I'm playing Aurora so having a bunch of depleted civ colonies happens.

[Flying Dice]

The thing is, those are single garrison battalions. They have zero attack capability and defensive capability equal to or lower than every other combat unit save assault infantry. They're also tied for third-fastest to produce and cost virtually nothing. Literally the only thing they're good for is if all of your combat troops are tied up and you need to deal with rising dissent on an overcrowded colony/newly captured enemy planet. The fuel you burn to transport them is literally worth more than the units themselves. 

Spoiler: Three cheers for the most cost-effective weapon platform in the game (click to show/hide)