Mineral Logistics

[skoormit]

...this game I'm doing now is a Conventional Start with no Starport and no Shipyards. When I built my shipyards the first one was a Commercial Yard which I got to 30,000 Tons to build my Pre-Cryo Colony Ship, so that refit wouldn't fit. My second yard was naval, but only 3,000 and it was for my Geo/Grav Survey Ship. I've just expanded the slipways on my existing yards and built up another two, one Naval and one Commercial, and I am in the process of expanding these new yards to 9,000 Tons for the Naval and 90,000 Tons for the Commercial. Sometime after I had finished converting all 1,500 of my Conventional Industry, and right about towards the end of expanding my TN Industry I began to have CMCs popping up like nuts. My Mass Driver was still queued up and I had to wait for my Starport first for Role-Play reasons, so I built some Haulers for the interim. They got about 10 years of use, so not too bad, and I'm in the process of replacing them right now.

Ah, yes, the small version makes sense as an early mineral mover for a conventional start.

I only ever build dedicated mineral haulers to alleviate the need to use my big freighters. Even then I hardly build much or any of either as I typically rely on Civilian Shipping for 90% of my installation moving needs and Mass Drivers for my CMCs, so typically a 5-10,000 Ton Freighter or two will do. At that point I just fold the freighter into an Orbital Miner and be done with it, since with a little extra work I can use the same design as a Salvager by just swapping modules.

I only build big freighters, because I find that Civvies are too slow to respond to contracts to move my installations around (and occasionally mess things up, if I create several demand contracts at once).
This means that I spend a couple decades in the early game fully utilizing a freighter yard, while adding more slipways the entire time.
I end up with hundreds of Haulers.
And while 25kt of cargo space is overkill for small mineral runs, I'm happy to live with the occasional overkill rather than spin up a separate yard for a freighter optimized for mineral hauling.
My mineral mule routes generally cover multiple systems, going empty outwards from Home and then scooping at a single collection point in each system on the return leg. A single Hauler can handle each route for a while until total mineral extraction along the route exceeds Hauler throughput. It is convenient to not have to worry about smaller throughput increments. I just check stockpile sizes as part of my annual New Year checklist. If minerals are backing up, I add a Hauler to the route.

This will be my primary intrasystem mule. It can move six units of Infrastructure, or one 25,000 Ton Installation with 5,000 Tons to spare. A good ship for the kinds of odd jobs I intend to have it do.

Good news: infrastructure is half the size you think it is. 2,500t. One standard hold can fit 10 units of infrastructure (normal or low-grav). Your design can fit 12.

[xenoscepter]

Oops, I forgot about that. Lol.

Better news though, although I factored the wrong amount, it is actually 2,000 per Infra as of C#.

So my design can fit 15 of 'em.

[skoormit]

Oops, I forgot about that. Lol.

Better news though, although I factored the wrong amount, it is actually 2,000 per Infra as of C#.

So my design can fit 15 of 'em.

Pretty sure it's 2500 per infrastructure.
My haulers with a single standard cargo bay haul 10 each.
Also says so here.

[xenoscepter]

So it would seem. Oh well.

[Froggiest1982]

...this game I'm doing now is a Conventional Start with no Starport and no Shipyards. When I built my shipyards the first one was a Commercial Yard which I got to 30,000 Tons to build my Pre-Cryo Colony Ship, so that refit wouldn't fit. My second yard was naval, but only 3,000 and it was for my Geo/Grav Survey Ship. I've just expanded the slipways on my existing yards and built up another two, one Naval and one Commercial, and I am in the process of expanding these new yards to 9,000 Tons for the Naval and 90,000 Tons for the Commercial. Sometime after I had finished converting all 1,500 of my Conventional Industry, and right about towards the end of expanding my TN Industry I began to have CMCs popping up like nuts. My Mass Driver was still queued up and I had to wait for my Starport first for Role-Play reasons, so I built some Haulers for the interim. They got about 10 years of use, so not too bad, and I'm in the process of replacing them right now.

Ah, yes, the small version makes sense as an early mineral mover for a conventional start.

I only ever build dedicated mineral haulers to alleviate the need to use my big freighters. Even then I hardly build much or any of either as I typically rely on Civilian Shipping for 90% of my installation moving needs and Mass Drivers for my CMCs, so typically a 5-10,000 Ton Freighter or two will do. At that point I just fold the freighter into an Orbital Miner and be done with it, since with a little extra work I can use the same design as a Salvager by just swapping modules.

I only build big freighters, because I find that Civvies are too slow to respond to contracts to move my installations around (and occasionally mess things up, if I create several demand contracts at once).
This means that I spend a couple decades in the early game fully utilizing a freighter yard, while adding more slipways the entire time.
I end up with hundreds of Haulers.
And while 25kt of cargo space is overkill for small mineral runs, I'm happy to live with the occasional overkill rather than spin up a separate yard for a freighter optimized for mineral hauling.
My mineral mule routes generally cover multiple systems, going empty outwards from Home and then scooping at a single collection point in each system on the return leg. A single Hauler can handle each route for a while until total mineral extraction along the route exceeds Hauler throughput. It is convenient to not have to worry about smaller throughput increments. I just check stockpile sizes as part of my annual New Year checklist. If minerals are backing up, I add a Hauler to the route.

This will be my primary intrasystem mule. It can move six units of Infrastructure, or one 25,000 Ton Installation with 5,000 Tons to spare. A good ship for the kinds of odd jobs I intend to have it do.

Good news: infrastructure is half the size you think it is. 2,500t. One standard hold can fit 10 units of infrastructure (normal or low-grav). Your design can fit 12.

One should only use civvies for colonist and trade, feed the civs with other contracts just generates more wealth for them and you'll just end up purging them.

It is a fuel/efficiency trade off.

You invest some fuel to get your 10 Automated Mines immediately and in the right spot rather than wait 2 or 3 years and find yourself with one mining colony with 9 automines the other with 11 and both of them are still waitingbfor the mass driver...

[Jorgen_CAB]

The civilians are quite economical with moving stuff around as you don't need to pay fuel costs and for building the ships themselves which is rather huge at the end of the day.

You should obviously use both civilians and your own freighters in combination as you really want civilians to generate tax income from trade. Trade also means they move free infrastructure around to new colonies as well which is quite important.

I have learned that you should not choke the civilian with contracts because you can't control when they are doing what and in what order. You need to use your own freighters to move important things or those things that are strategically important to you.


In terms of minerals I tend to use small ships for the most part, at least for the early and mid game, as I play with very slow development penalties that is for a very long time. I don't tend to centralise production but making sure that colonies are as self sufficient as possible so I only have to move minerals around so they can make the stuff they need. So... making sure they have enough resources for a few years production is enough and then you just keep it that way. Using the reserves function is quite good for this.

If you have several colonies in one system with industry you can just use mass-drivers and shuttle the minerals around in a ring among them, very easy. I only need mineral haulers to get the minerals I mine in system with no colonies and bring them to my colonies or in system where the distance between colonies are too great and I need to use LP to shuttle minerals between colonies.

[Bluebreaker]

I wish that civilians would build CMCs anywhere there was a good amount of minerals instead of only in places with Duranium.    Having to setup mining colonies for every little asteroid is a pain, even if you use civilian lines.   

There is no such limitation?
My civilians just built a Gallicite only CMC on a moon. 

[skoormit]

I wish that civilians would build CMCs anywhere there was a good amount of minerals instead of only in places with Duranium.    Having to setup mining colonies for every little asteroid is a pain, even if you use civilian lines.   

There is no such limitation?
My civilians just built a Gallicite only CMC on a moon.

According to this post, CMCs will only be created on bodies with at least 10kt Duranium at 0.7 or higher Accessibility (plus other restrictions).

[Zincat]

I wish that civilians would build CMCs anywhere there was a good amount of minerals instead of only in places with Duranium.    Having to setup mining colonies for every little asteroid is a pain, even if you use civilian lines.   

There is no such limitation?
My civilians just built a Gallicite only CMC on a moon.

According to this post, CMCs will only be created on bodies with at least 10kt Duranium at 0.7 or higher Accessibility (plus other restrictions).

I seem to recall Steve saying, maybe in the WH40K campaign thread, or in that comment thread, that he would add a check for CMC for Gallicite as well, as he was having severe problems with gallicite at the time.

[Bluebreaker]

I wish that civilians would build CMCs anywhere there was a good amount of minerals instead of only in places with Duranium.     Having to setup mining colonies for every little asteroid is a pain, even if you use civilian lines.   

There is no such limitation?
My civilians just built a Gallicite only CMC on a moon. 

According to this post, CMCs will only be created on bodies with at least 10kt Duranium at 0. 7 or higher Accessibility (plus other restrictions).

Then this restriction clearly does not apply on 1. 9. 5 or there is something missing

CMC creation event:
https://ibb. co/gTyMMNs

body minerals:
https://ibb. co/JQfj9r8

the system has 4 bodies with unexploited duranium

[Bluebreaker]

I wish that civilians would build CMCs anywhere there was a good amount of minerals instead of only in places with Duranium.     Having to setup mining colonies for every little asteroid is a pain, even if you use civilian lines.   

There is no such limitation?
My civilians just built a Gallicite only CMC on a moon. 

According to this post, CMCs will only be created on bodies with at least 10kt Duranium at 0. 7 or higher Accessibility (plus other restrictions).

I seem to recall Steve saying, maybe in the WH40K campaign thread, or in that comment thread, that he would add a check for CMC for Gallicite as well, as he was having severe problems with gallicite at the time.

This must be it then.

[skoormit]

I wish that civilians would build CMCs anywhere there was a good amount of minerals instead of only in places with Duranium.    Having to setup mining colonies for every little asteroid is a pain, even if you use civilian lines.   

There is no such limitation?
My civilians just built a Gallicite only CMC on a moon.

According to this post, CMCs will only be created on bodies with at least 10kt Duranium at 0.7 or higher Accessibility (plus other restrictions).

I seem to recall Steve saying, maybe in the WH40K campaign thread, or in that comment thread, that he would add a check for CMC for Gallicite as well, as he was having severe problems with gallicite at the time.

Well, not 30 minutes after posting that link, I had a CMC pop up on a colony with only Neutronium and Gallicite.

Can anyone point me to the details of the new Gallicite check? Is it as simple as changing "Duranium" to "Duranium or Gallicite" in the text as posted?

EDIT: Clearly it is not that simple.
The new CMC appeared on a comet with:          ~77k GAL@0.8 and ~35k NEU@0.9.
Another empty comet in the same system has ~282k GAL@0.9 and ~10k URI@1.0.
The empty comet is closer than the new CMC comet. It does have a longer path, but the max distance is only about 12Bkm (half the posted max CMC distance of 80AU).
The only way this selection makes any sense is if Neutronium is heavily weighted in the selection algorithm. Or if the selection does not just take the highest rated candidate, as the post claims.

[Droll]

I wish that civilians would build CMCs anywhere there was a good amount of minerals instead of only in places with Duranium.    Having to setup mining colonies for every little asteroid is a pain, even if you use civilian lines.   

There is no such limitation?
My civilians just built a Gallicite only CMC on a moon.

According to this post, CMCs will only be created on bodies with at least 10kt Duranium at 0.7 or higher Accessibility (plus other restrictions).

I seem to recall Steve saying, maybe in the WH40K campaign thread, or in that comment thread, that he would add a check for CMC for Gallicite as well, as he was having severe problems with gallicite at the time.

Well, not 30 minutes after posting that link, I had a CMC pop up on a colony with only Neutronium and Gallicite.

Can anyone point me to the details of the new Gallicite check? Is it as simple as changing "Duranium" to "Duranium or Gallicite" in the text as posted?

I think so. IMO it makes sense since without gallicite you get no engines, no engines means no ships, no ships means no way of shipping the duranium back to a colony.

In essence, he who controls the gallicite, controls the universe.

Edit: I accidentally put my reply inside the quote like an absolute tool

[Zincat]

Found it
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10440.msg117318#msg117318

It pays to have read all of Steve's campaigns XD

"I do agree though that the maintenance changes add extra strain, so I'll change the civilian mining location checks to Duranium or Gallicite"

[Borealis4x (OP)]

Why not just have civilians build on any body with a mineral that's 10k rich?

In other news, this conversations has prompted me to standardize my freighters into 4 classes.

- Light freighters with small cargo bays to haul minerals in convoys

- Standard freighters with standard cargo bays that haul infrastructure for colony fleets. Colony ships are based off of these designs so they can be built from the same shipyard.

- Heavy freighters with large cargo bays to haul mines and mass drivers

- And Super-Freighters with 4+ large cargo bays to haul the really heavy stuff like spaceports and labs and such.

Whats great about standardizing these designs early on is that the only thing you need to upgrade is the engine (which should always be the same size), meaning you can just refit.