cdrocrossdiscovery wrote:1. Should I place an Ore collector on the ship's external hard points?
The Ore Collector is just an upgrade, not an actual piece of hardware you can mount. But, Mining Lasers can be mounted in its turrets. Sure, if you want to, go ahead and put them on. You can't mount anything else in those locations, anyway. But, it's not entirely necessary for it to have them in order to mine. (They do a great job on Asteroids that appear in the sector map, though.) But, it is necessary for it to have an Ore Collector if you want the ship, itself, to collect Ore. Most don't use it that way, though.
2. What kind of ships should I put on the ship, and how should be equipped?
First, decide what it is that the MMB (Mobile Mining Base) is going to do and where it is going to be doing it. If it is going to be going into danger areas, you'd likely want a few fighters on it and enough defenses for it to protect itself. The MMB is pretty good at this, but that's not it's best use. The best use is as a center-point for a Mobile Mining Operation.
For suggestions on setting up a mobile mining fleet, see this thread:
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=145943
For my own Mobile Mining Operations, I typically outfit the MMB with all the "flavor" gear, like the Ore Collector and Mobile Mining Laser/whatever, but I don't have the MMB actually do any mining, itself. For that, I attach a squadron of Split Caimen Miners (Because they already come equipped with most of the necessary gear, they're fast and are well armed). For every ten Caimen Miners I have out mining a sector, I assign one CLS pilot to visit each, unload any collected ore or silicon, and then transport that to the MMB where it unloads it into the MMB's cargo hold. Then, I have Mistral Super Freighters unload the MMB's cargo hold and take the contents wherever it needs to go. (Smaller, faster TSs work just as well.) In this way, the mining operation never halts unless I tell it to. I can also redirect any materials to wherever they are needed.
For the docked support ships, I include at least one Falcon Hauler fully armed, fully tuned and with fully extended cargo bays. The Falcon Hauler(s) are responsible for gathering e-cells, should the MMB need them. They're only used in such a way out of necessity, as I have freighters assigned to refuel ships, if such is needed.
I also include up to three Argon Nova Raiders, fully equipped, fully tuned and armed with a full compliment of HEPTs and a PRG in the rear turret. These are "last-ditch" defenses, though. Anything big enough to threaten an MMB isn't going to be afraid of three Novas. At best, they'd just be extra targets as the MMB made a rapid getaway. But, that can help greatly in OS combat.
I always include one M5 to serve as a scout. It scans all the asteroids, maps the sector and, once those jobs are done, it scouts for enemies while the operation is underway.
In cases where the ship will be involved in a sector in a mobile-mining capacity for a long period of time, I always assign at least one Teladi Heavy Osprey as an escort and, in turn, have it escorted by a flight of Nova Raiders, fully armed. The H.Osprey group either Defends the area the MMB is in or Patrols the sector, depending on how hostile the sector could be. (A Heavy Osprey has better shields than other M6s and can take an opening salvo from just about anything other than a Q.)
Be sure to outfit your MMB fully with applicable weapons. There's little point taking up space in the cargo-hold for missiles. Anything bigger than what the MMB's ordinance could normally take out is not going to be afraid of an MMB firing missiles at it. The MMB can shrug off attacks from any small fighter group that one would normally encounter could fare well against an M6, due to its armaments. But, it should flee from anyhing else - It's shields are too weak and DPS too poor for larger or mnore dangerous targets. IOW, What it or its small fighter compliment can't defend itself against, it runs away from. At that point, without heavier escorts, you'd want to evacuate the entire sector so as to save your miners and pilots.
