magic9mushroom wrote on Sun, 16 July 2017 15:19

My impression of received wisdom in the Stars! community regarding race design and, in particular, mine settings is this:

1. OBRM is a fantastic LRT except for narrow-hab factoried races and AR.
2. Mine efficiency over number is viable to increase your long-term mineral yield.
3. MA is a terrible LRT that should never be taken.

[...]

...if you think a game will be decided before 2500, "more mines" is better than fooling around with efficiency or MA.

I've always suspected this and as a matter of fact advised newbies in the FA-games always to rather go for a higher number of mines than to raise the mining efficiency.

Thanks for the test and analysis. After all there is quite a gap between "suspecting" and "having it tested".

By the way: For ITs everything is even more in favour of more mines because you can concentrate/maximising your mining operations on the planets with the best concentrations, same with red planets and the ability to gate back conquered minerals to the production centers. Since ITs have the ability to gate minerals, it doesn't really matter where you are mining but you can concentrate on maximising the output (especially important for the first 50 years). Same with pop growth. Actually this is the essence why ITs can economically keep up despite the almost forbidding high PRT cost which usually enforces lower factory and mine settings (I got away with as low settings as 10/3/14 for mines which I wouldn't recommend for other PRTs).