AP - Questions about mining.

[Brinnie]

It has been a while since I have put down silicon mines, when I did it last it was in reunion.
Back then the advice was to choose asteroids with a high yield, up to 64 if I remember well. I am assuming that the concept remains the same but the greatest yield I've found so far is 40.


- What is the minimum yield for asteroids to make them mine worthy?

- Are asteroids with 64 yield still present in the game or am I looking for something that does not exist anymore?

- I want to mine for silicon wafers for my future solar plant complex, so I would like to group the asteroids together so to make them into a mining complex.
The idea being, one complex with all the mines and the other one with all the rest of the factories needed for a self sustained Energy Cells production complex.
The two of them connected via CLSs.
Can asteroids still be dragged around with tractor beams?

[DrBullwinkle]

Back then the advice was to...

First, ignore the advice the advice on the forum and try it for yourself. Half of the advice you get here is wrong, the other half you could learn yourself by playing the game -- and, usually, it is more fun to "discover" it for yourself.

Sure, higher yield asteroids are fine. One of the plots teaches you that asteroids with yields over 30 are generally considered "high-yield". You could learn the same by doing a few "scan asteroid" missions, which tell you when you have found high yield asteroids.

Yes, there are a few asteroids in the universe with 64 yields or higher, but only a few. Yields that high are extremely rare.

You can tow a mine with a tractor beam. (Thanks for keeping me honest, kgkosio)

[kgkosio]

You can not tow an asteroid.

You must first put a mine on it, at that point it can be towed.

[Brinnie]

First, ignore the advice the advice on the forum and try it for yourself. Half of the advice you get here is wrong, the other half you could learn yourself by playing the game -- and, usually, it is more fun to "discover" it for yourself.

I agree with the part about being more fun finding out for yourself, however I plan to plant at least two mines, drag them into position with tractor beams (that was not an easy peasy job when I did it in reunion) and connect them as a complex.

Now, finding out after that I used asteroids that had insufficient yield is not something that I would have enjoyed a lot

I will treat anything from 30 and above as a good candidate, I am also looking for the asteroids scan missions to see what you mean.

ps. In my travels I have found a sector with a 72 and a 40 yield silicon asteroid so I have a place to start.

Thanks






@kgkosio:

Thanks for the extra info.

[DrBullwinkle]

asteroids that had insufficient yield

There is no such thing, really. Any asteroid can be mined. Larger yields are more profitable, obviously, but there is no minimum.

[Manks]

Some spoiler-ish links:

Sectors along with total sun/silicon/ore:

http://www.altanetworks.com/x3/ap_sectors.html


Online complex calculator:

http://www.altanetworks.com/x3/x3apocc.html


I use the last one to figure out how to balance the yields of asteroids for my complexes. There's some simple math that says a yield-25 large silicon mine can feed enough crystal fabs and food to (more-or-less) run a large solar power plant in a 100% sun sector, but I get rather lazy when it comes to more variable conditions.

The good news is that you can chain together whatever silicon asteroids you want with no real loss in efficiency. Sadly, its not as simple a 2 x 10 yield = 1 x 20 yield, but if you have the patience to tow the rocks around and the cash to buy the facilities, even low-yield asteroids have their uses.

A final note, unless you're actually interested in producing an excess of the intermediate products to sell off, having a complex with a slight deficiency in crystals or silicon isn't the end of the world. The whole energy chain will hiccup occasionally, it'll flash yellow in the properties list for a short while, and you'll end up with ever-so-slightly fewer cells. Definitely not so big a deal that you over-build a complex just to make sure that supply in all goods exceeds demand (like I did my first few times). Doesn't really influence your other fabs, unless you cut the total energy a little close or they also use silicon.

[Brinnie]

Thanks for the links Manks.

I wont look at the sector map with asteroids details but the calculator, if accurate, is going to be perfect to find out what total yield of rocks I need to achieve what result.

If I understand how to use it, it is telling me that x2 25 yields mines produce slightly more than what is needed for a solar plant XL , while if I would use that single 72 yield I would have considerably more than what I need, which means I could start without the need to move any asteroid, if the thought of that operation frightened me.


Have I got my figures right?

Production > Usage

Spoiler

Show

2 mines L @25 yield = 387 > 375
1 mine L @72 yield = 545 > 375

[Manks]

Depends on the sun level in the system, but for a 100% then yeah, 2 at 25 should do it. For quick reference, unlabeled factories are "1x" production, medium are 2x, large are 5x, and extra large is 10x. Its about 1x per every 5 silicon on the 'roid, so a 72 would get you an XL and 2 M SPPs.

Moving the rocks was a bit intense at first, but its actually not that bad. Now-a-days I latch onto the docking part, flip the ship, and slam the boost extension. Using smaller asteroids also lets you build in phases, which I appreciate because I get tired of complex stuff pretty quickly.

[Brinnie]

Thank you for the extensive info, it has taught me a a lot that I didn't know.

Now I think I will start by building a double solar plant XL Complex, that' ll keep me busy for a few hours.