Is Remote Mining For You?[ 35 votes ]
1.	Yes I love to remote mine!	17 / 49%
2.	Waste of a LRT?	2 / 6%
3.	Just too much Damn Effort?	3 / 9%
4.	Its is a waste of effort AND LRT!!	13 / 37%

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The answer for the Populated HW:
Well, I hate it when my plans of world(agham) galaxy domination are foiled! There are however, several ways to remedy this:
#It takes just one, Yes ONE starter colony to make your HW a mineral fountain. There are two ways to go about it:
a)Make friends with AR (You Woos! )
b)Enslave an AR while they are too weak.

#There are always those so called dead planets- planets too inhospitable for anyone to settle in vecinity, planets where figting has been very severe hence no mines, planets that were nuked etc... AND there are planets that were struck by comets(awh). Now concentration on those planets is high enough for high tech ARM miners to pay off very quickly. If you are an OBRM race a comet that struck you is not welcome, a comet that missed you is useless since you'll not be able to suck minerals out of it quickly. On other hand if you have a miner fleet on standby it just takes 3-5 turns to get to that juicy planet and 10 turns to suck it dry so that not even Greenpeace would want it. More diplomatically important, you don't even have to CONTROL that planet!

#From the creators of alien miner you get the nifty toy called THE GENESIS DEVICE. 5000 res is a bugger but an HP will have 50+100*1.5=200 res on a red world. That be near 25 turns before it is ready, not good, but wait who said you couldn't overcrowd?
That be near 360 res per red world i. e. 15 turns this is playable. Since now the genesis device does not destroy facilities you could have 15000 minerals per 25 yrs (10 to suck it dry). Now an HP absolutely needs ARM since it needs 7500 germ to build all the factories, so you can either inc efficiency of the mines or take ARM and decreace you mine no. and you'll suck the other planets.

Wait there is more to come...

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For the mathematicaly inclined I include the calculations for the amount of minerals you can suck out of planet before it becomes unprofitable (what every planet sucker should know):

at 100min con 1 mine = 1kt
at 50min con 1 mine = 1/2 kt (with me so far?)

if you have 100 min con it takes 125 mines to deplete min con by 1%
if you have 50 min con it takes 250 mines to deplete min con by 1%

In both cases you get: 1.00min con*125mines =125kt
0.50min con*250mines =125kt
In both case the min con is dec by 1%
Do this calc with different min cons and you'll get 125 kt of each mineral/min con pt EVERY time as long as your mine eff is 10kt/10 mines.
I call any planet with min con of <10 an unprofitable one.
avere min con you get is 50 so 50-10=40
i. e. 40*125=5000kt of every mineral
QED
(Stands for Queenslad Education Department)

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On Alien miner vs Ultra miner:
alien miner and ulatra miner are fairly even. In res/mine capability they are identical. Alien miner consts more iron and Germ though.
You get alien miner at con 10 and ultra at con 15 so alien miner is 20% discounted. BUT there is the cost of of the miner hull and the fact that each alien miner is = to 10 mines.
OBRM's must slap 2 aliens on a miniminer, which at the time when you get the alien is 82% the cost of the aliens! Add the the engine, and whatever you put in the mech cost and you get to the stage when 10 super miners on maxi miner hull are more cost effective! So the only advantage that OBRM race with the alien over the race that didn't take OBRM is the gatability of the miner ships. But then again, if someone has the alien miner, the chances are that many people will get it and so even that advantage is evaporated. As for an ARM race: ultra miners on ultra hulls weight about 1200 kt just 4 times the 300 kt, com'on people KNOW you've been gating something of simular weight.
An ARM race still has some advantages over the non OBRM race with alien miners. The cost of the hulls is one of the things but minituarization plays an even greater role. An alient miner requires advancement in Energy, Con, Electronics AND BIO!
So to get that 20% minituarization bonus I talked before, you'll NEED bio tech 10. Most people wouldn't advance higher than bio 7 if they had the choice.
And there you go Ultra Miner Beats the Alien miner on all accounts OBRM or no OBRM.

QED

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The main advantage of advanced remote mining (IMHO) is gateable midget miners.. especially if you dare take cheap engines, they get really fun. If you're IT, taking ARM is pointless.
For an HP it's worth considering skipping OBRM and remote mining if you don't mind the MM.
For HG's, I wouldn't recommend using remote mining.
Perhaps in FreeStars! things will be different.

[Updated on: Sun, 03 August 2003 00:12]

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alexdstewart wrote on Sat, 02 August 2003 20:01

QED (Stands for Queenslad Education Department)

They teach you well in Queensland, I see.

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With the compounding effect, in general, early growth counts more then late growth, so more points and room to grow fast vs something that only helps later - to me the choice is clear - take OBRM unless you really have a good reason not to.

Neighter OBRM nor ARM help or hinder your grawth rate. Well, you do get the extra pts for OBRM that you can put to use somewhereas
But ARM allows you to do the same much better, especially for an HP:
You can get you mine settings to about 8-5 per 10000 pop, and dec you eff if you are an HP. Now all that combined ARM actually GIVES you the points often more than OBRM does.

It probably comes down to when you want to do your fighting and how much time you want to spend MMing the remote mining.

Just HOW HARD is it to get to Elec 4 and Con 7? If you start reaseaching electronics early, You will find that getting to elec4 is not hard at all (plus you get all of those nifty scanners early), Con is a popular field to reseach and getting to con 7 is not hard at all. Now, when you have the requirements for a dicent miner, you'll be able to build remote miners at roughly 7res/mine. I know this SUCKs BUT think about it:
How many times you saw a juicy high min con planet with all the minerals at near 100 some measly 100ly away? Ok not that rare, but how many times that aforementioned planet was habbitable? That's right 4 or more times rarer. With this in mind will you pay the 2.3 price multiplier that comes with the remote miner?
(This is the part where you nod your head in agreement espesially if your mines cost 4-5 not 3 res)
Next in line comes the Ultra miner. With this babe you can build remote mines at about 2 res/mine. Oh Yaeh Baby!
What do I owe you? "con15 and elec 8, Honey..."
I could get that by Early Mid Game I recon. And suddenly you have the ability to build mines 25% cheaper than your opponents anywhere at the time when it most counts - in the mid game. And besides you get all those extra pts from worsening your mine settings, the pts that you can put to a good use in your economy, i. e. you'd be just as fearsome as an OBRM monster next door but with cheaper effective mines. And the best of it is that the ultra miner gets cheaper and cheaper...

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How do you people get those nifty white quote backgrounds again?
Quote:
"The main advantage of advanced remote mining (IMHO) is gateable midget miners.. especially if you dare take cheap engines, they get really fun. If you're IT, taking ARM is pointless.
For an HP it's worth considering skipping OBRM and remote mining if you don't mind the MM.
For HG's, I wouldn't recommend using remote mining."

Super Miner Gives you 4res/mine at best when you get it- 33% more than a standart mine! Ultra gives you 2res/mine. Go figure
The stars! is already contest between who MM more, no change there. But for RM, What MM? How hard is it to route the Miners on to a worlds, place some guards and troops, do simple loop orders for transport and forget about it forever after?
By the way I LOVE cheap engines,(I also love LSP,NAS,UR,MA but thats beside the point). If you are a SD you would want those miner hulls to be durable and able to withstand more standart mine field detonations than your opponents can
As I already have argued even HG races can benifit from ARM.
Quote:

"By the way, why did you start a seperate poll and not just reply to the existing one? You had the same options so it appears you'd seen that one. "

As the luck would have it, I had!
But the poll was then and it is now. I just wondered how many people I can convert in MonsterPlanet Suckers
Quote:

"In most games you will intersettle with some one, reducing the available planets for remote mining."

I have taken this into account. 1 in 4 seems to be the upper limit of a compettitive race. So that leaves the other 3 for the remote mining. 1 in 2 of them would have min con below average, these you will give to your "friends". More mineral rich planets are encountered when there are extrimes of temp, rad or grav. Assuming that the bonus you get from them is about 33%, 1.5 of the remaining planet*1.34= 2 plnaets worth of minerals.

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Hey you've got numbers! I LOVE numbers!
So here is a design I came up with:
Midget Miner with Ultrals:
Cost:
Iron 19 kt
Germ 6 kt
Res 62
Other:
Mass 174kt Gatable
Armor 100dp
Range 284ly(to 398 of alien)
Minig rate 50mines eqv

So you pay 71% more Iron
66.7% more Germ
9% more Res
with alien miner.
Now this difference doesn't seem like much and there is no doubt that alien mini-Miner is a bit more versatile but what can you do with this 9% res difference? You can slap a galaxy scoop or some other high tech engine for that difference! Now we have a miner that could gate through anywhere AND go at Warp 10 to its destination (withing 100ly there are on average 3 planets)! If the alien miner does the same the cost/eff difference increases. It is best to use alien miners on big miner hulls. An ultra miner with aliens is AWSOME!!!
But then again, OBRM's don't get accsess to them.

As I have said before alien and ultra mining robots are pretty close at MAX TECH. But when does that happen? When there are very few if any good min con planets around! So what use do I have of all these miners when they pay off in 65- yrs?
I need those good miners in mid game at tech 15 or something and at this stage ultra miners are much better. But there is an added element of gatability versatility etc... The main thing is that OBRM races incur heavy penalties at this stage compared to ARM and non-OBRM races even if they have alien miners. They pay twice the minerals and res. And they still pay twice the minerals at the end of the game when minerals are precious.
And alien tech has the nasty tendency to pass onto other players.

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On balance of OBRM and ARM in relation to RC pts:
From the standart level of mines 10/5/10
OBRM + 10/3/14 (someone said it was the optimal one)
you incur 5 RC ps penalty.
ARM+ 10/5/6 you incur no penalty
if you insist on 3res/mine:
ARM 9/3/6 you incur 10 RC penalty.
Now with balanced ARM your ground based output is 39% that of OBRM. Fortunately for you the amount of minerals extracted is the same but OBRM will pay 2.6 times res to extract those minerals quicker. Your early factory building would be more limited but usually that's not a problem since you'd be able to find a high min con world early and this negates the high initial costs of remote mining. In other words you won't be that disadvantaged in the early game. When you hit Con 12 Elec6
in early mid-game, you will match the OBRM closely in terms of Mineral extraction and Mine/Res ration. Soon after that you'll have remote mines that are 2res/mine plus the ability to have unlimited extraction power over any given world, from then on, the universe is at your mercy.

Generally I think I should play a game with a race that depens on RM minig to demonstrate my point. See yea on the Galactic Battle Field.
(This one is going to get Ugly)

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alexdstewart wrote on Mon, 04 August 2003 17:08

Hey Now this difference doesn't seem like much and there is no doubt that alien mini-Miner is a bit more versatile but what can you do with this 9% res difference?

More importantly, what can you do with a 71% ironium difference?

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Coyote wrote on Mon, 04 August 2003 21:08

"Mineless" races have been tried and found unplayable. You need at least basic mines on your planets to be able to build RM ships in the first place.

10/5/6 is not exactly mineless,- I've played such a race and won (well, against Al's anyways, and yes that was my only victory).

Looks like you have discovered me i'am indeed trying to get a workable 5/15/5 mine race. Normally what you said is true but this race uses the fact that that you start off with readily available minerals on your HW. (Joy, Joy and more Joy)
So far this race has proven to be a real killer. It expands without stopping and sweeps Al's before it like there are none.
So I am joining the first game that comes next from the 'List" and I am going to kick some major a$$!

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[Updated on: Tue, 05 August 2003 01:06]

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Yes indeed...
Care to join that one?

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[Updated on: Tue, 05 August 2003 07:16]

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alexdstewart wrote on Tue, 05 August 2003 03:51

Coyote wrote on Mon, 04 August 2003 21:08 "Mineless" races have been tried and found unplayable. You need at least basic mines on your planets to be able to build RM ships in the first place. 10/5/6 is not exactly mineless,- I've played such a race and won (well, against Al's anyways, and yes that was my only victory). Looks like you have discovered me i'am indeed trying to get a workable 5/15/5 mine race. Normally what you said is true but this race uses the fact that that you start off with readily available minerals on your HW. (Joy, Joy and more Joy) So far this race has proven to be a real killer. It expands without stopping and sweeps Al's before it like there are none. So I am joining the first game that comes next from the 'List" and I am going to kick some major a$$!

Too bad I don't have the time to join this game I would love to shoot at your expensive miners with my colloidal CC's, while you research con12 and elec6 .
I hope this is a large or huge universe, you'll need the space. If it's smaller the -f and HG races will go after you like mad. You won't stand a chance (and comparing any normal player with the AI is just plain offensive ).

Just curious... How are you going to try to keep the other players of your miningworlds?

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Yes, Yes I am testing the race now...
I am NOT STUPID and know perfectly well that a -m race of conventional design doesn't stand a chance. But who said that I designed a conventional -m race? I designed an -f mineless race!
You won't BELIVE how many RC pts I had to play with.
It's not that I could spend them on mines or factories anywhere..
But anyway 1 in 3 hab with immunity allows you to expand explosively and because distances between different habbitable colonies are usually just 1 turn and there is a space dock on every world and you have IFE... well I could grow exponentially very for a long time using limited res. Combine that with cheap weapons, con, electronics and normal energy and combine THAT with the 16 fac/10000 pop so I could inc my res output conquering... Well you've got a killer race. I had the economic power to build destroyers with 2 phasers and a ram by 2424 non-AccBBs! hehe...
I agree that AI are lousy but my AI's are on tough and besides Human players depend on their freighters to balance their pop.
It takes one(!) armed probe to destroy any given freighter. And cathing something with the speed of 1.5 is not exactly easy.
Since I am a WM, blowing you to pieces is never a problem. How good are your chances to even BUILD phaser basooka CC's when virtually all of you freighters are destroyed by 2430+?
(With the starbases going next). And how good are your chances to get past Battle Cruisers with superior weapons AND cloaked 80% and scouts with elec 10 scanners to destroy my vulnerable remote miners? Well there is going to be no diplomacy in this game.
in 2424 remote miners cost 6.25 res/mine. There should always be a freighter with some troops in it and some patrol ships to guard aginst intruders to the mining worlds. I never bothered to test this race in the sterile lab conditions, casuse this race is designed to grow through conquest, where are the opponents in the lab game?

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