Newbie Question: Setting up a sustainable Economy

[Redsyxx (OP)]

Hello All. . . .

I have recently picked this back up and I am determined to stick it out and learn the game this time.   I have started a new game, have 2 geo-survey ships out doing their thing and some research going.   I wanted to ask for help in setting up a sustainable economy which is my number 1 priority at this point.   I just need some a guide to a good economy etc. . . .   I also want to try and figure out how to collect the minerals that I am finding in the most effective/efficient manner and also getting the private industry ramped up and going.   I have a ton of other questions, but I figure if I can get my economy on track, that will afford me time to make some mistakes and learn.


Thanks for the help in advance.

[Erik L]

Don't try to do everything at once. Research, construction, unit training, ship building; it all adds up and if your economy cannot handle it right away, it tanks hard.

Start off with one or two items for a couple months, see how your income goes. Then add another and see. When you start to get to a break-even proposition, stop adding new tasks

Convert your mines to auto-mines and invest in 50 or so mass drivers. You can move them around to other worlds and send the minerals home. Dedicate a portion of your construction ability to reproduce itself. I usually set 10% of my CF to build 1000 more. Takes a couple hundred years, but my stuff gets built faster as I go.

And everyone else is going to tell you something different

[blue emu]

Minerals are your first concern... running out of minerals can stop you cold. Automated Mines and Mass Drivers are your friend. Remember to leave one Mass Driver on Earth, to catch the incoming shipments of ore.

Once your commercial shipyards get large enough, you can build Mining Stations... large commercial ships with no engines and packed full of mining modules, with perhaps a single cargo hold to carry along a Mass Driver for deployment on the target body. You will need Tugs (equipped with powerful engines and Tractor Beams) to tow the Mining Stations into place. The main advantage of these Mining Stations is that each mining module costs only half as many minerals as an Automated Mine, but has the same output... the main disadvantage is that they can only be used on Asteroids and Comets.

[xeryon]

Convert your mines to auto-mines and invest in 50 or so mass drivers.

And everyone else is going to tell you something different

Everyone will offer their own, that is for sure.  What I want to know is the thought process behind 50 mass drivers.  Except for very mineral rich worlds one driver seems to be sufficient up to 100 automines.

In may seem silly to colonize Mars because there may be no minerals on Mars.  Don't let that stop you from starting a colony there.  You will need to build one cargo ship and one colony ship to kick start it but once the colony is there the civilian shipping lines will start delivering cargo and people and generating a tax revenue for you.  In turn they will grow rapidly as Mars is a milk run for them.  Once the civilian line has cargo and colony ships I like to do 8 hour auto-turns.  The civilian lines seem to only generate one supply run each 8 hour, 1day or 5day increment.  If you do 8 hour increments they will do numerous runs over the course of a 5 day period.  You don't have to do this forever, just until the civilian lines have a healthy fleet

[Erik L]

Everyone will offer their own, that is for sure.  What I want to know is the thought process behind 50 mass drivers.  Except for very mineral rich worlds one driver seems to be sufficient up to 100 automines.

It's a good round number. And leaving more than one behind on your homeworld means you can have larger incoming packets.

[blue emu]

Pretty sure one Mass Driver can handle ANY amount of incoming packets. I typically leave only one home, and send more than one to each mining world... and I've NEVER been hit by an un-caught packet.

[Redsyxx (OP)]

Thanks for the info. . . . .  I currently have started moving Automated Mines to nearby Astroids, however how many on average do you deploy at each site?  I alos have my mass drivers going out as well.  It is easy to get frustrated while learning this, equally there is a ton of fun.   I want to make sure I stabilize the mines.  Thanks for the tips, as I know you really have to dig to get information and really wished there was a more complete guide, however it is still fun just figuring it out.   Like building a cargo ship that is too small to carry a automated mine, or engines on another cargo ship that make it so that the crews infant kids are grown by the time they return. . . . . .  :- P

[Erik L]

Mass drivers handle 5,000 tons per year. You get to stripmining your outer planets nicely, and that's more than 5,000 tons.

[Maltay]

I think he means that you only need one Mass Driver to receive any amount of minerals on a planetary body.  I have had one Mass Driver on Earth receiving mineral packets from upwards of 50 Mass Drivers and 500 Automines scattered throughout Sol's asteroids and moons.

[xeryon]

I know 50 is a nice round number.  I was asking because as an initial build order it seemed like an awful lot of drivers. 

My own preference is for nice round numbers.  I tended to deliver 100 automines and a single mass driver to a given body.  Except in special situations one driver has been enough.  In a normal Sol start I usually end up with mining colonies on 2-5 bodies.  No matter what you do be sure that your driving focus initially is to secure suitable amounts of duranium and corundium.  There is inevitably a mineral crash 5-20 years in depending on your play style and luck.  If you have dur and coru streaming in you can always build automines until you have righted your mineral economy again.

[Erik L]

I usually tend to have two runs of mass drivers. Both at 25 each. The first group is for local use, the second gets sent out to other systems.

About the only thing I don't drop an automine/mass driver on are asteroids. I actually leave them alone mining-wise as I don't think the ROI is there. Not that I've done any analysis.

[Erik L]

So each Asteroid Mining module requires 60 Corundium to build. And at base tech (is it affected by increased mining capacities?) it produces 10 tons of minerals per year.

So 6 years to break even. Not counting the ship it is wrapped around.

*in-line edit* It is affected by mining rate tech.

Code: [Select]

Caravan - Copy class Freighter    31,300 tons     561 Crew     867.2 BP      TCS 626  TH 1200  EM 0
1916 km/s     Armour 1-88     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 17    Max Repair 120 MSP
Cargo 5000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 10   
Asteroid Miner: 3 module(s) producing 42 tons per mineral per annum

Ion Engine E0.8 (8)    Power 150    Fuel Use 8%    Signature 150    Armour 0    Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 71.9 billion km   (434 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
Probably not the most efficient mining vessel, just modified from an existing freighter design.
Note the 42 tons per year. It requires 414.2 duranium, 5 corbomite, 40 mercassium, 180 corundium, and 228 gallicite. 867.2 tons of minerals. 61 years for ROI.

I don't see where asteroid miners are remotely economically feasible.

Maybe someone else can post their designs with rates and mineral costs.

[blue emu]

61 years for ROI.

What are the assumptions behind this figure? Only one mineral on the Asteroid? Zero mining-skill Captain? Zero mining-skill Administrator on the Asteroid Colony? Zero mining-skill Sector Governor?

That sounds like a rather pessimistic set of assumptions.

Also, that's a very small Asteroid Mining vessel. Mine are around 100 k-tons. The fewer Mining Modules it carries, the greater the parasitic overhead, and the slower the ROI.

Why give it Engines? They'll spend virtually all of their time idle. Any decent commercial set-up will require Tugs anyway, so why not just tow them into place and forget about them?

[Erik L]

What are the assumptions behind this figure? Only one mineral on the Asteroid? Zero mining-skill Captain? Zero mining-skill Administrator on the Asteroid Colony? Zero mining-skill Sector Governor?

That sounds like a rather pessimistic set of assumptions.

Also, that's a very small Asteroid Mining vessel. Mine are around 100 k-tons. The fewer Mining Modules it carries, the greater the parasitic overhead, and the slower the ROI.

Why give it Engines? They'll spend virtually all of their time idle. Any decent commercial set-up will require Tugs anyway, so why not just tow them into place and forget about them?

As I said, it was modified from an existing freighter design, not designed from the ground up as a mining ship. And the numbers are based on 1 ship extracting an equivalent tonnage of minerals. Not necessarily those that went into the ship design. And yes, I did not factor in governors or captains. That is not something you can always rely on. The base numbers should exclude them.

[blue emu]

Here's a straightforward design, intended to be built in a 100 k-ton slip:

Scavenger class Asteroid Miner    96,050 tons     1858 Crew     2499.2 BP      TCS 1921  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 1-186     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 16    Max Repair 120 MSP
Cargo 5000    
Asteroid Miner: 18 module(s) producing 360 tons per mineral per annum

Fuel Capacity 5,000 Litres    Range N/A

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

Duranium 1272.9. Corundium 1080, Mercassium 79, Neutronium 62.4, Corbomite 5. Your milage may vary with Armor tech.

Assuming a 20 mining-skill ship's captain, a 10 mining-skill Asteroid Administrator, and a 20 mining-skill Sector Governor (who passes 1/4 of that skill down to subordinates), this ship will recover all the minerals spent in its construction in ten years... if it is working an Asteroid with ONE mineral on it at 1.0 concentration. Naturally, if it is working a five-mineral Asteroid, it will recover the investment in two years.

That's at base (10 minerals per mine) tech level. Naturally, your tech will probably be better than that. The displayed "360 minerals per annum" is at my current mining rate of 20. Treat it as 180 per annum for base tech level.

With no ship's captain, no planetary governor, no sector governor, no tech boost... it takes about 50% longer to recover your investment.

So 15 years for an absolutely base-level version of this ship, which gains no bonus from any source (leaders or tech) and works a rock with only one mineral... reduced to a single year if it gains a decent bonus from tech, captain, planetary and sector governor and works a fairly rich (five-mineral) deposit.

NOTE: An Automated Mine costs 240 minerals, and under the same assumptions (no tech, no governor, single mineral, etc) requires 24 years to pay that back.