"Nationalizing" civilian mining colonies?

[Cavgunner (OP)]

I don't like having to pay those lazy civilians for minerals that belong to MY empire.  Which, by extension, means those minerals rightfully belong to me.

If I start shipping colonists to a civilian mining colony site to put it under my direct control, what exactly would happen?  Would the CMC just disappear?  Would I get to claim the mines there?  Or something else entirely?

[sloanjh]

I don't like having to pay those lazy civilians for minerals that belong to MY empire.  Which, by extension, means those minerals rightfully belong to me.

If I start shipping colonists to a civilian mining colony site to put it under my direct control, what exactly would happen?  Would the CMC just disappear?  Would I get to claim the mines there?  Or something else entirely?

The colony type changes from a CMC to a mining colony (if you ship automines) or an inhabited colony (if you ship people).  The CMC is still there functioning, and you have the option of buying or taxing the output.  Your colony functions normally too.  I forget in detail what the colony stats say (i.e. if the output includes the automine output), but you can figure it out if you do it.  In other words, additional population/mines have almost no interference with CMC (they do have to use the same mass driver target, of course).

John

PS - Please post new user questions like this in The Academy.

[Thiosk]

Is a man not entitled to the corundium unearthed by his plow?

"NO" says the Sector Governor on Earth, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible.

[Father Tim]

Nationalizing CMCs is not possible.  If you want to keep all the minerals for yourself, your only choice is to plant a colony there before any CMCs get built.  You can either use the 'Add Colony' button to claim any body with minerals for the Empire, or just the good mining sites and leave the 2,142 tons of 0.1 accessibility Whateverite to the civvies and tax their (near non-existent) production for 'free' cash.

[Thiosk]

Sometimes they can be quite helpful.  A pair of moons they were operating on early in a game were extremely rich, with good avail. but limited absolute quantity.  The minerals they were providing, especially corundium and duranium, were being produced at a time before I had good mineral capacity to actually get those resources.

I bought it all.  Still buying it, actually, even though my resource flow is much healthier--i still burn corundum stocks in about a month of mine construction.

[skeolan]

While we're on the subject:

The civvies beat me to a mining colony on an unusually rich asteroid near Earth - I started supplementing it with a few automines of my own, and subsequently the civvies built yet another CMC on the same planet, so the output has gotten pretty high now.  I noticed the colony asked for a Mass Driver target so I set it to Earth; but I've noticed the asteroid colony's stockpiles have become nonzero.  Is that because of my automine output not getting picked up by the CMC mass driver? Do I need to ship a separate mass driver out there to consume the full output of the CMC+automine operation?

[Thiosk]

yes, you need your own mass drivers, as i understand it.  They can send every unit they make, but cannot send any units you make.

[skeolan]

Nice.  Okay, time to take one of those idle freighters in the Reserve Task Group out for a spin. 

[Sheb]

No, as far as I know the civvies are going to ship your minerals as well. I guess your production just raised over your mass driver's ability to ship minerals (5,000 tons a year).

[sloanjh]

No, as far as I know the civvies are going to ship your minerals as well. I guess your production just raised over your mass driver's ability to ship minerals (5,000 tons a year).

This is incorrect in my experience.  The civvies ship their own minerals; yours sit there rotting on the docks (well, they would if they were bananas) unless you either emplace your own mass driver or ship them out via freighter.

John

[Aldaris]

CMCs start with a mass driver, if you buy the mineral output you can use the local mass driver for transport. I highly doubt Steve bothered to implement arbitrary restrictions like making them only work for the civvy output.

[Xeno The Morph]

I also think that they only (to the unit) transfer the Civilian minerals that are produced, that has been my experience with mixed civilian/'military' colonies.  I think that this also is the case for any civilian minerals that are produced when there is no MD target selected.

I think it is because the civilian 'mass driver' doesn't actually exist as such (so it can't be removed or merge with yours on the same base) but the code just automagically adds the production to a new/existing mass driver packet going to the destination.

[sloanjh]

I also think that they only (to the unit) transfer the Civilian minerals that are produced, that has been my experience with mixed civilian/'military' colonies.  I think that this also is the case for any civilian minerals that are produced when there is no MD target selected.

I think it is because the civilian 'mass driver' doesn't actually exist as such (so it can't be removed or merge with yours on the same base) but the code just automagically adds the production to a new/existing mass driver packet going to the destination.

Exactly.

John

[skeolan]

Second question on co-opting civilian mining efforts - I haven't actually gotten this far yet, but we're currently researching ship-based mining modules and I just finished my first design for a tanker with a Sorium harvester onboard.   Since the existing "Panamax" self-fuelling tanker design and the impending "Fracker" asteroid mining design will both be civilian, I anticipate the civilian shipping lines may eventually build some and start gobbling up asteroids and depleting the (huge) Sorium reserves I found on Saturn. 

Can I buy that mining output from them in similar fashion to CMCs? If so, how? Will this even happen, or will the civ AI not bother to build mining ships?

[Thiosk]

They won't build these designs unless you put cargo holds on them.

I put a cargo hold on a tanker-- big mistake.