Commercial Mining Colonies - Good or bad?

[Treebiter (OP)]

Firstly hello everyone. First post.  
 
I've just started playing and after a few restarts whilst learning the basics I now have a thriving Mars colony (3 million pop) and lots of commercial shipping. Mars has a lot of resources and I'd been concentraing my efforts on getting a mining operation running. However, whilst I was doing that the commercial sector were setting up mining colonies all over the shop. 6 in total so far and I'm only 6 months in. One asteroid in particular had enough Sorium to warrent my attention but it was nabbed before I got around to doing anything about it.

Now, what are the pros and cons of CMC's? Obviously I haven't had to put in the time and resources to set up the operation, which is a saving but I'm now having to buy the fruits of their labour. Should I really plonk colonies on any bodies which may be of use to me later before the commercial sector can get there, or should I embrace this and pay others to do the dirty work for me? It's only half way through year one in my game but there are already 6 CMC's set up.

[sloanjh]

Firstly hello everyone. First post.  :-)  To think about the value of them, consider how long it would take to build the 60 automines that those CMC represent - it's a LOT.  Since I usually do conventional starts, I'm usually in good shape on wealth, so the cost of the minerals is insignificant vs. the minerals themselves.

John

[Treebiter (OP)]

Ah, a recieving mass driver. Good call. That could have been messy  :wink:

Thanks

[UnLimiTeD]

For an equal price of those automines, you can build financial centers to get that wealth back, and they allow for great switching;
Low on wealth? buy less, low on minerals? buy more.

[waresky]

Firstly hello everyone. First post.  
 
I've just started playing and after a few restarts whilst learning the basics I now have a thriving Mars colony (3 million pop) and lots of commercial shipping. Mars has a lot of resources and I'd been concentraing my efforts on getting a mining operation running. However, whilst I was doing that the commercial sector were setting up mining colonies all over the shop. 6 in total so far and I'm only 6 months in. One asteroid in particular had enough Sorium to warrent my attention but it was nabbed before I got around to doing anything about it.

Now, what are the pros and cons of CMC's? Obviously I haven't had to put in the time and resources to set up the operation, which is a saving but I'm now having to buy the fruits of their labour. Should I really plonk colonies on any bodies which may be of use to me later before the commercial sector can get there, or should I embrace this and pay others to do the dirty work for me? It's only half way through year one in my game but there are already 6 CMC's set up.

EHy TREE!!! Welcome into "MOst Real Crazy Steve's Strategical 4x Universe Simulator":DDDDDDD

Happy to see others crazyest dummy same me:D

[sloanjh]

Ah, a recieving mass driver. Good call. That could have been messy  :wink:

Thanks

You seem to think that once a CMC has established a colony on a body, that you can't do anything (colony-wise) with that body.  That is not the case.  The CMC creates one of your colonies, to which you can assign a governor, transport auto-mines, transport pop (assuming they don't die off due to colony cost the moment you land them) etc.  As far as I know, the only consideration here is that (I think) a CMC won't establish itself on a world where you already have a colony.  Note that once a CMC is there it will grow (add more CMC) even if you have automines etc. there.  Note that if you put automines on the colony, you'll have to put your own mass driver there too - the civies won't let you use theirs.

For more info on CMC try searching for "Commercial Mining Complex" (or similar stuff) in *Steve* threads - you should find the post where he introduced them, probably in mechanics.

I suspect (but do not know) that CMC will only establish themselves on moons, asteroids, and comets (i.e. no planets).

At 50,000, I wouldn't worry about them too much - simply let the civies do their thing and then reap the rewards

John

[Treebiter (OP)]

Ah, I thought for all intents and purposes they were seperate entities. So apart from the private mining concerns they act as normal colonies. Got it, thanks.

Thanks for the welcome waresky. I'm sure you'll see me around the boards as I doubt my questions will end here