No Minerals on Mars at all?

[Zerkuron (OP)]

Hey guys,

I`m new here and i got a bit overwhelmed by the Learning curve.  But I managed to do some game starts (and got bitchslapped by aliens a few times or ran out of any Minerals) So I want to start a new serious Gamestart.  But something seems odd.  I read many Posts where Players tell about Mining at Mars.  But everytime I start a new game(and surveyed Mars) I never got any Minerals there.  Besides the Minerals at Earth I only find Mins at Venus (access 0. 1), asteroids (low yield) and sometimes sorium on Jupiter.  (started New games a dozen times and deleted the game when Mars had no Minerals.

Is it bad luck or do I have to set Minerals at gamestart? It is really frustrating to run short of Mins (esspecially Mercassium for Colony Ships and Curundium for Mines and Mining Ships) after 5 Gameyears.

[Vanigo]

It's pretty common for mars to be mineral-free, yeah. Sometimes there's some good stuff there, but in my experience it's a bit unusual.

[Nathan_]

It can be bad luck, once you have geo teams trained up there should be some improvement, just don't plop down a 50 rating team on mars right away.

[Zerkuron (OP)]

WTF?

In my 14th restart I found alpha Centauri a binary star System.  It has 8 colonizable Planets.  Many of them full of minerals.

One Example: Alpha Centauri-A V Colony Cost 2. 0x, terraformable to 0
Duranium: 81M at 0. 2
Neutronium: 25M at 0. 1
Corbomite: 27. 7M at o. 1
Tritanium: 7M at 0. 2
Mercassium: 29. 1 M at 0. 1
Corundium: 342K at 0. 1

I Think I know my first extrasolar Mining colony 

But back to topic.  Is there a way to manipulate the Mineraloccurance? Especially at gamestart?

[Havear]

You can go to SM mode, System View (F9), and either modify mineral amounts and purity for individual bodies or run the routine again for everything.

[Zerkuron (OP)]

Thx for the quick answer!

[nafaho7]

You have mentioned using Survey ships to locate minerals.   Have you been making use of ground based Geosurvey teams?  An explanation is available on the Aurora Wiki.   From the front page, follow the link for Teams.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

bear in mind that planets with low accessibility like the planet cited do not actually make good mining colonies.  It's nice to have a bottomless well of resources in a pinch, but practically speaking you need high accessibility to fuel your industry.

[Zerkuron (OP)]

Yes I make use of Geo Teams.   But my only suitable Team (Skill 145, second Team would be 50) takes years for every single Planet/Asteroid.   I am now in Year 2058 (beginn was 2025) And Yet I have only finished Earth and Titan (Titan got also good Minerals but my Survey Ships forgot this Planet . 

Well now i Know that access 0.  1 is bad .  .  .   I didn`t thougt that the Mineralincoome is divided by the acces directly .  .  .   But for now this is my best (and now only) source of Minerals.   I don`t want to explore the Universe to far, because I have to wait for the Duranium for Warships.   I have only 3 Prinz Eugen Cruiser. 

Code: [Select]

Prinz Eugen class Cruiser    11,000 tons     701 Crew     1350.2 BP      TCS 220  TH 600  EM 0
2727 km/s     Armour 4-44     Shields 0-0     Sensors 10/10/0/0     Damage Control Rating 10     PPV 15
Maint Life 7.48 Years     MSP 767    AFR 96%    IFR 1.3%    1YR 24    5YR 362    Max Repair 40 MSP
Magazine 1257    

Military Ion Engine (10)    Power 60    Fuel Use 100%    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 350,000 Litres    Range 57.3 billion km   (243 days at full power)

Size 4 Missile Launcher (50% Reduction) (5)    Missile Size 4    Rate of Fire 300
Size 1 Missile Launcher (5)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 15
Missile Fire Control 3000t / 46M Km (1)     Range 46.5m km    Resolution 60
Anti Missile Fire Control 650k Km (1)     Range 6.0m km    Resolution 1
Size 4 Anti-ship Missile (60)  Speed: 15,000 km/s   End: 50m    Range: 45m km   WH: 3    Size: 4    TH: 70 / 42 / 21
Size 1 Anti-missile Missile (1017)  Speed: 16,000 km/s   End: 9.4m    Range: 9m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 106 / 64 / 32

Active Search Sensor MR10-R100 (1)     GPS 2000     Range 10.0m km    Resolution 100
Active Search Anti Missile 200k Km (1)     GPS 40     Range 2.0m km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH2-10 (1)     Sensitivity 10     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  10m km
EM Detection Sensor EM2-10 (1)     Sensitivity 10     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  10m km

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Thse were the Ships I made out of the Free Research Points and the  fast OOB at gamestart.   I may update the Engine to Megneto Plasma Drive, but for my new Design I have to wait .  .  . 

By the way, Any tipps for improving design? Especially for the next gamestart? Pls keep in mind this design is from the very beginning at the Game.   And I start with the default 500M population. 

[orfeusz]

There is many things Beginners don't know. But almost always they make this same mistake as You.

Don't pack everything on one ship Build 1-2 ships with sensors, some with AMM and majority with just FC and missile launchers. It will be 3 classes of ships.

It make Your fleet less expensive. For example You don't need more then 3 independent sensor platforms in a task group. One is enough and two more are only backups that You will use if first is destroyed. Also, You don't need AMM on every sheep. SPECIALIZE

If You have everything on ONE ship, then You will have many unneeded (and expensive) equipment that will take place where could missiles launchers be located (You never have too many of them ).


EDIT:
IMHO You shouldn't use reduced-size launchers. Sometimes only way of defeating enemy is by wave-after-wave of missiles.
Also for ASM i prefer size 6 missiles. But it doesn't mean that its right There is no Right or Wrong. You just Win or Die Trying  

If i see right, Your ASS have a range of 10mkm?! Then Your Missiles and MFC have range 4.5 times bigger then range on which You can detect enemy :/ Not good.  
For main fleet ASS i use (at the beggining) like 200mkm... R100
For MFC(missile fire control) try 120% of missiles range, as enemy can (and will) use ECM.

ASMissiles, i Think they Are good for beginner.

EDIT2:

AMMissiles? They are not efficient. Look at the range in which You can detect incoming generic missiles (size 6)(it's less then resolution 1). Its small. It should be bigger. Also AMM need to be fast but short range. Yours are too slow, and have much too big range. They TH for incoming 10 000 km/s (slow for a missile) is only 32%

[I don't know more details as i never use AMM   - for more fun]

[Zerkuron (OP)]

Thx for the help I will be a better Designer next time

Edit: I think every Newbie make the same mistake because we all read the tutorial and there we design a cruiser with all this expensive Modules in it.

[blue emu]

Try reading my "Missile Design for Noobs: The Kiwi/Emu approximation" thread.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,4215.0.html

... and a walk-through:

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,4309.msg42582.html#msg42582

Your AMMs should have a range of about 3 m-km, and your AMM (res-1) sensor should be able to spot missile-sized targets at about that distance. Bear in mind that missiles travel in 5-second increments and that AMMs don't move on the turn that they are launched... so if an incoming enemy missile is travelling at 40,000 kps you will need to spot it at more than 400,000 kilometers or you won't even get a single shot at it.

[Erik L]

so if an incoming enemy missile is travelling at 40,000 kps you will need to spot it at more than 400,000 kilometers or you won't even get a single shot at it.

I realize this is in reference to AMM, but CIWS should still fire at the missiles even if other weapons do not.

[blue emu]

I realize this is in reference to AMM, but CIWS should still fire at the missiles even if other weapons do not.

That's true of course... but it takes quite a bit of CIWS to reliably take down incoming missiles, and the ship quoted above isn't carrying any.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Bear in mind that missiles travel in 5-second increments and that AMMs don't move on the turn that they are launched... so if an incoming enemy missile is travelling at 40,000 kps you will need to spot it at more than 400,000 kilometers or you won't even get a single shot at it.

Actuaaaally... in my experience as long as the AMMs are faster than the incoming missile you can still get hits off in the 5-10 second range band. IE, spot at 300k, launch at 100k, 1 round of intercepts.  Missile initiative order seems to be based off speed. NOTE - my impression, not result of explicit testing.