Managing automated mines on Mercury

[Antonin1957 (OP)]

After a great deal of trial and error I have deposited 2 automated mines and a mass driver on Mercury. The mass driver destination is "Earth." Do you have to turn on the mass driver on Mercury? Do you have to turn on the mass driver on Earth in order to receive the minerals?

How do you know the mass driver is functioning? How do you know how much it is sending to Earth? Can you specify which minerals it sends?

The mining tab for Mercury says the colony's production is 22 Duranium, 2 Sorium and 12 Gallicite. Is that per year, or so far?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

[GodEmperor]

Mass Drivers work automatically, all you need to do is pick the destination from "mining" window. And iirc in C# you dont need Mass Drivers on the recieving planet, unlike in VB6. Checked, its not true - you still need mass driver on the recieving end.

How do you know the mass driver is functioning?

You see mineral packets flying on the system map if you turn them on and you see minerals trickling down from the stockpile.

Can you specify which minerals it sends?

No, it sends all available at once, unless you mess with reserve levels i think.

The mining tab for Mercury says the colony's production is 22 Duranium, 2 Sorium and 12 Gallicite. Is that per year, or so far?

Yeah mining tab lists per year and those numbers are consistent with 2 mines +- eventual bonus from governor.

[Froggiest1982]

After a great deal of trial and error I have deposited 2 automated mines and a mass driver on Mercury. The mass driver destination is "Earth." Do you have to turn on the mass driver on Mercury? Do you have to turn on the mass driver on Earth in order to receive the minerals?

How do you know the mass driver is functioning? How do you know how much it is sending to Earth? Can you specify which minerals it sends?

The mining tab for Mercury says the colony's production is 22 Duranium, 2 Sorium and 12 Gallicite. Is that per year, or so far?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

You can find more information here: https://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Mass_Driver

Here are some important tips that were not covered in previous answers:

• Mass Drivers can transport 5000 tons of minerals per year. If your operations grow that number, you must have more than 1 Mass Driver on the mining colony. You can double check your capacity on the planetary tab.
• Mass Driver Genocide (see the link for more info)

[paolot]

Beware. From the Wiki: "A Mass Driver can send a limited amount of mineral during a year (depending of its rating), but has an unlimited capacity for receiving.".
It means that you can have just one mass driver on Earth, which is able to receive all the packets coming from all the mass drivers at the mining sites in the Solar System.

Suggestion: usually, minerals deposits on Mercury are rather large, so you need several mines and/or automines to exploit them. Much more than 2 AMs.
Then, if mined minerals are more abundant than mass driver(s) capacity to sent them to Earth, they are stockpiled on the surface of the planet/body, and you can collect them through cargo ships (you need also a Cargo Shuttle Station at the body, if it can't be mined from orbit).

[Antonin1957 (OP)]

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

I feel like a bit of a nerd to actually be happy to successfully drop my automated mines on Mercury. I am adding a few more every couple months, but now I'm having trouble with maintenance of my cargo ship. The name is now red.

So I need to do some more reading about maintenance....

[Andrew]

You cargo ship should be commercial and so not get maintenance issues. All it should have is commercial engines, cargo holds and some shuttles

[Steve Zax]

After a great deal of trial and error I have deposited 2 automated mines and a mass driver on Mercury. The mass driver destination is "Earth." Do you have to turn on the mass driver on Mercury? Do you have to turn on the mass driver on Earth in order to receive the minerals?

How do you know the mass driver is functioning? How do you know how much it is sending to Earth? Can you specify which minerals it sends?

The mining tab for Mercury says the colony's production is 22 Duranium, 2 Sorium and 12 Gallicite. Is that per year, or so far?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

You can find more information here: https://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Mass_Driver

Here are some important tips that were not covered in previous answers:

• Mass Drivers can transport 5000 tons of minerals per year. If your operations grow that number, you must have more than 1 Mass Driver on the mining colony. You can double check your capacity on the planetary tab.
• Mass Driver Genocide (see the link for more info)

Someone corrected their own statement that you do not need a mass driver on earth to receive minerals
this is correct. 
The Aurora Wiki is (to the best of my recollection) out of date when it talks about Mass Driver Genocide. In some recent patch, this is no longer possible. When you remove or otherwise no longer have a receiving Mass Driver, there is no more genocide... I think you do not "get" the minerals, but I am pretty sure you can't accidentally or intentionally damage a planet via Mass driver.

[Garfunkel]

You cannot remove the last mass driver if there are incoming mineral packets. And you cannot set a target for the sending mass driver that doesn't have a mass driver.

[Steve Zax]

You cannot remove the last mass driver if there are incoming mineral packets. And you cannot set a target for the sending mass driver that doesn't have a mass driver.

OK, so I was right that MD Genocide is no longer possible, but wrong about the details.