Asteroid Mining

This article describes the use of fleets to mine asteroid fields in system space. For resource extraction from planets, see Mining.

Asteroid Mining refers to the ability of specially-outfitted ships to extract resources from the coloured asteroid fields in star systems. It can be performed automatically or manually.

Overview

Each Star System will typically have between one and three asteroid fields, and the resources they contain can only be mined by fleets. In order to do this, a fleet must be equipped with two things:

1. At least one mining module
2. Cargo space to hold the extracted minerals

Only one ship in a fleet needs to have a mining module, but all ships in the fleet will share the cargo load as their capacity allows. Unlike other special modules, the flagship of a mining fleet does not require a mining module in order to mine asteroids.

Multiple mining modules in a fleet (on one or several ships) increases the speed of mining as their extraction rates stack. This means specialised high-speed mining ships can be left in the area of the asteroid field to mine, while general-purpose freighter fleets are flown in and out to receive the mined minerals.

Once exhausted, an asteroid field disappears and will not regenerate. Beron, Farsu, Limbalt & Ziryl asteroid fields have all been seen, but Olzine asteroid fields do not appear in the game. Starting systems typically have two fields, one of beron and one of farsu, as these are the resources that a starting player will need immediately.

Usage

Automatic

Pending feature: this will be introduced in the v104 patch expected December 19th

A fleet with asteroid mining capabilities can be ordered to mine resources from an asteroid field automatically. The fleet will travel to the asteroid field, mine it, and then return to the planet where it will transfer the resources it mined. It will continue to do so until the asteroid field is empty, or the fleet itself is interrupted e.g. attacked, ordered to move.

1. The fleet must be in orbit of one of your colonized planets to enable automated asteroid mining
2. Select the fleet and then click on the asteroid field
3. From the context menu select 'Auto-mine asteroids'
4. The fleet will then automatically travel to the asteroid field and begin mining it
5. Once the fleet's cargo is full, or the asteroid field is empty, the fleet will return to the planet where the original order was given and transfer the resources it mined to the colony
6. If the asteroid field has more resources available, steps 4 and 5 above are repeated, otherwise, the fleet will remain idle in orbit of the planet

Between systems

An asteroid mining fleet can be ordered to mine an asteroid field in a different system to the planet it's in orbit of:

1. Select the fleet from the star map (click the system where the fleet is to select it from the menu)
2. With the fleet selected, click the system where the asteroid field you want to mine is and select the 'Auto-mine asteroids' menu option for the asteroid field you want to mine

The process will work the same as it would if the asteroid field was in the same system e.g. travel to the asteroid field, mine it, return to the planet and transfer resources, repeat until the asteroid field is empty or the fleet is interrupted.

However, if boosted warp is enabled but the fleet then runs out of olzine, it will resume travel between the systems using the fleet's free warp speed (it will not automatically transfer available olzine to itself from a planet).

Manual

Please note: since automatic asteroid mining was introduced the manual method has little to no practical use

Fleets with a mining module have the option to mine asteroid fields on their Control Wheel.

Manoeuvre the fleet so that it is within the desired asteroid field and then click the Icon for mining on the Control Wheel of the fleet, illustrated in the image to the right.

• The fleet will mine the asteroid field until its cargo space is full, or it's interrupted e.g. attacked, ordered to move
• The fleet will not receive resources incrementally - a full load will be deposited once the timer reaches zero. If the fleet is interrupted, a partial cargo load will be received depending on the time spent mining. It is also worth noting that if the field does not hold enough resources to fill the fleet to capacity once fully mined, the time required will not decrease proportionally.
• A countdown timer is provided, but no notification will be sent when mining starts or finishes. For now, players should make a note of when their mining fleet is ready to be recalled to a planet to drop off the minerals harvested.

Stats

Image	Name	Level	Research	Size	PC	Mining	Fa	Credits
	Compact Mining System	1		S	25	1,080	400	200
	Asteroids Mining System	1		M	45	3,600	400	400
	Compact Mining System Improved	2		S	25	2,160	800	400
	Asteroids Mining System Improved	2		M	45	7,200	800	800
	Compact Mining System High Speed	3		S	25	4,320	1,200	800
	Asteroids Mining System High Speed	3		M	45	14,400	1,200	1,600

Definitions

• Level: the tech-level
• Research: the technology that must be researched to unlock this item for use
• Size: Small, Medium or Large
• PC (Power Consumption MWt): quantity of ship's power that will be consumed
• Mining: resource yield rate per hour
• Fa (Farsu): cost in farsu (added to ship total farsu cost)
• Credits: cost in credits (added to ship total credit cost)
• Build: build time in seconds (added to ship total build time)