Buying Minerals?

[Rich.h (OP)]

How does the mechanic work for buying minerals produced at civilian mining colonies, do the minerals just vanish from the colony and appear at my capital with a reduction in wealth? Or do they have to be physically moved by a civilian ship to my capital for me to get them? Finally can I just stick down a mass driver on a civilian mining colony and get the minerals with a wealth reduction?

[PSI]

Yes, the mined minerals will still stay on the colony. However, civilian mining colonies automatically come with a Mass Driver.

[Sharp]

Civilian Mining Complexes (CMCs) have a mass driver so you can choose to ship the materials to any colony in the system but by default they will just dump it in a stockpile on the colony where the CMC is so you can choose to transport by cargo ships or even leave it where the CMC is and use it to build factories on that colony.

I don't think you can send minerals to CMC colonies via mass driver unless you put one there yourself though.

Part of the price of paying for minerals to CMC includes access to mass driver for sending minerals so even if you have your own mining operation on the same colony as long as you are paying for minerals you can send your own mined minerals via the CMC mass driver.

[Rich.h (OP)]

Ah that clears things up nicely thanks.