Questions, questions - mining.

1) No.

2) Yes-I'm not sure offhand how fast it drops off, but in general it's not a good idea to assign a mining base to a planet more than 4 or 5 parsecs away.  If you have to, make it at least a level 2 and keep it inside 10.  There does appear to be a minimum as well, but it seems to be somewhat different for the higher levels.  Let's just say the numbers are being a little hard to track down at the moment.

3) Yes.  The first level of ming is all well and good-5 industry for 5 turns isn't -that- horrible, if you manage to get multiple space miners up and running.  This is particularly useful with the Thalan tech tree early on, since their factories are so far out of reach in the colony rush, not to mention expensive and horrendous to maintain.

However, the second level increases it to 10 industry for another 10 turns-a total of 15 turns spent on 10 industry.  I'm sure you can get a factory or three built in that time, but the second level can have its uses.  The third level is even worse-20 industry, over 10 for the last level, for another 20 turns.  A combined 35 turns for a mere 20 industry.  The fourth and final level is perhaps even MORE worthless, as it's only 30 industry for yet another 20 turns-a total of 55 turns for only 30 industry.

Additionally, they flip -extremely- easily, so don't go mine your opponent's asteroids for them if you don't have a planet in the system.

Are you just talking about the time it takes for the mining base to be upgraded? If so surely if I have a mining ship anyway then I'm better off having it do this than sit around rusting (can ships rust in space?). Is there any cost involved in building the base?

Oh yes, I've noticed how easily they flip....erk!

That's how it looks to me.

Yes, a miner working "safe" fields is better than a miner sitting idle. Sole Soul might be one of those folks who immediately upgrade the starting miner to another ship, usually Colony. I started doing that the moment I read the idea here, so now I don't bother mining until near or after the end of my initial colony rush.

Not that I know of. I think their flip vulnerability might be a bit of "balance" for them being self-funding (except for the BC you have to spend to use those extra points on the target planet).

Just out of curiosity - does the number of 'moves' a mining vessel has have any effect in how fast it upgrades bases - I tend to up grade my engines over time just so they can move between bases faster, but it seems like they upgrade the existing bases a bit faster too and I haven't been sure if that's a real phenomenon or a perception resulting from my being more distracted by other things in the middle-late game.

Jonnan

Just a misperception, as far as I know. Upgrade time is fixed, all you are improving is travel time.

2:  It drops off at 1 point a parsec to a minimum of 1 point.  So if there is an asteroid belt at an empty star (or you just created one with a terror star), depending on the map setting, this will only net you 1 point of production no matter where you point it, so point it to where it's needed.  1 free point is still 1 free point.

By the end of the game I might have a miner for every asteroid, otherwise the may never get fully built. The research cost for the mining techs are kinda high, however the AI will pay BIG $$ for those techs. Mininers are very cheap and quick to build so I do. IT might take a lot of turns but its still more industry that you would otherwise not have. Luckily though, the AI doesn't really target them during a war.

If a planet is getting a bonus from an ecoinomic starbase and has asteroids, doed the starbase bonus which is a percent, include the production from the asteroids? Say the maximum 24% x 30 production for a total additional 37 production from the asteroids. And if so, do the asteroids or  just the planet need to be in the area of the starbase?

AI races don't, AI pirates do however.

So in the case of a pirate infestation, I'd say you wouldn't want to attempt to get an asteroid mined until your sectors are clear.

I'd have some 'trick' to offer if you don't mind...

As soon as a flip-warning pops up, i just *Decommission _&_ Rebuild*!

Not even a closeby AI can take away what is perpetually under my control unless they react by destroying my Miners to make room for theirs.

Part-2 of the same 'trick'...

I also trade early techs for all or most of THEIR Space Miners as fast as possible to create the above situations. I may just have a single Production Point (instead of a Full big FIVE which would be theirs to exploit turn after turns!) for each of these far-away Asteroid Fields... but the advantage(s) might become obvious to you in the long-term.

In theory, yes.

In reality, no.

I was testing a level 3, and it still gave 7/20 production out to ~20+ parsecs, but somewhere beyond 30 parsecs it dropped to 6.

Can you see why I didn't spend more time trying to nail it down?

EDIT: CaptainYar, racial bonuses apply to asteroid industry (customization points, techs, and I suppose we can include economic starbases in this category), as for most intents and purposes asteroids are treated as part of the base production of a planet.

However, a planet with an innate production bonus will only give that bonus to the asteroid industry (the rest of the industry gets it regardless) so long as it does not have a power plant/manufacturing capital/etc on it.  For some reason not only do the manu cap/power plants not treat the asteroid industry as base industry, but they cause the planet's production bonus to no longer treat it as base industry, either.

Even when it is no longer treated as base production, the racial bonuses from customization points, techs, and yes, economic starbases are still multiplied by the asteroid's production as well.

ORLY?  Hrm, maybe it's dependant on map size or something.  Every map I've noticed it on, it's 1 per parsec....but I normally play on medium/large maps.  Even then I don't pay too much attn to their outputs, moreso as to which planet I want the points going to.  If I need to tweak a ship planet some, and it's currently going to a planet that WAS building a wonder, then it's time to shift my asteroid focus lol.

I know that Dystopic has taken the time in some games to redirect asteroid output toward one planet..and well, since there can be a LOT of asteroids in a game, I mean thats a lot of "free" production coming in.  Time consuming? yes. 

YES.

it can really add up. a fully developed mining base several sectors away will contribute 5pp, IIRC. that doesn't seem like much off the back, but consider having 50 of those headed towards the same planet. now also consider that they receive all the usual production bonuses, including those from planet improvements, starbases, and passive civ-wide bonus. such a planet can often churn out the most powerful warship you're capable of building every turn.

And here I've been ratcheting down asteriod frequency to reduce traffic problems when I could have been trying out yet another vast click-sink of a neat idea...

indeed. i petitioned for an asteroid mining manager, but nothing came of it.