Stick a fork in Robo-Miners, they're done!

[geoschmo]

Robo-Miners have always been considered close to useless by the majority of people on this forum. I think we can now declare them officially obsolete!

I noticed recently that one of the Last patches changed robo-miners so that only one mining component of each type will generate resources per turn. The first question that this brings to mind is, "Who in the world thought Robo-miners were a big enough problem that they bothered to email Aaron and suggest that change?" The second question is "What good are they now at all?"

Prior to that you could at least build a large vessel or space station with enough robo miners to overcome the resources you would be spending in maint for the ship. With only one per sector functional, that goes out the window.

Now what is left?

Possibility #1: A race very low maintenance could build destroyers with robo-miner components that might generate more minerals than they cost in maint.

Problem: I have not worked out the numbers, this may not even be true. Besides the fact that a race with very low maint probably won't need robo-miners to begin with.


Possibility #2: Satellite Miners. This was my preferred use for the robominer component all along. It has the advantage of generating resources without costing maint.

Problem: You still have to research satellite 3 to get a unit big enough to hold a robo-miner comp. By the time I have research sat 3 (A very expensive tech to research) My empire has probably expanded to the point where I don't have resource problems anymore, or time to deal with moving them around to choice locations.

Possibility #3: Low tech resource converting. Use Robo-rad extractors or Robo-farmers. Costs minerals in maint, but you would have a net gain in the resource you are extracting.

Problem: This is a possibility. It has not changed really. But it's not terribly efficient, and my experience has been that minerals are what I am in short supply on until later in the game. And by them my empire has expanded to the point where resources are not a problem.


Of course I have several options to fix this, and they can be modded in very easily. But as far as the unmodded game goes, robo-miners are IMHO obsolete unless Aaron does one or more of the following...

1. Reduce the size of the robo-miner component. This would allow their use on small sats, getting them into the game earlier, when you actually have resource problems.

2. Reduce the cost to research sat 3. See suggestion 1.

3. Give robo-resource components more resource generation ability. Get them above the break even point of maint.

4. Give robo-resource components the "Modified Maintenance Cost" ability to reduce the maint cost of a ship that has them onboard. (This has potential for abuse though. Players may put them on their larger warships just to get the maint reduction.)


Any comments?

Geoschmo

[This message has been edited by geoschmo (edited 10 August 2001).]

[rdouglass]

I'm not sure, but I can think of possibly two scenarios where they may be useful: finite resource games and P&N mod games.

However, I am in agreement - they are even less useful now...

[thorfrog]

Malfador needs to fix this. Double or Triple their output. Make them useful. Adds a different level of strategy to the game.

[Dracus]

The only thing I use them for is to mess up planets that I will not be inhabiting. SO that others will not plant a colony there.
Other then that, they are useless.

[capnq]

quote:

---

Possibility #3: Low tech resource converting. Use Robo-rad extractors or Robo-farmers. Costs minerals in maint, but you would have a net gain in the resource you are extracting.

Problem: This is a possibility. It has not changed really. But it's not terribly efficient, and my experience has been that minerals are what I am in short supply on until later in the game. And by them my empire has expanded to the point where resources are not a problem.

---

I've been using this in one of my PBW games, where my race has Organic Manipulation and routinely runs surpluses in minerals and deficits in organics.

Another use is exploiting asteroids early in the game, long before you've researched the tech to build planets out of them.

A much rarer purpose I've used them for before is "scorched earth" denial of resources. If I can't colonize a planet type, and I want to discourage the AI from plonking down a colony there, I can strip mine it to make it less appealing.

------------------
Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[Baron Munchausen]

I've never seen this "one component" effect, but I'm still using Beta 1.40 rather than patch 1.41 -- I hope this is just a mistake on your part and not a real change. Currently I can get pretty good return on a Battlestation filled with Robominers. Especially if you place it over a planet with moons. It's definitely a good way to supplement your resources. If this has been cut back to just one component it'll be useless as you've said. Are you sure it's not one VEHICLE? Have you noticed this with satellites maybe? He's been trying to restrict it to one satellite in a group for some time now but couldn't quite get it to work right.

I think the best use for these other than increasing their output so they can be useful to everyone would be to make them a racial tech for a "space native" race as we've discussed in these forums before. If it become possible to generate research and intel with components, and for population to grow in a "habitat" component, you could have races that are UNABLE to live on planets (they could be whiffs of gas that can't handle strong gravity, for example). They would have to use remote mining to get their resources and build huge stations to house their operations. Obviously, they should have a racial ability to build larger stations very early in the game and ultimately have special stations larger than anything else in the game. They should also have the ablity to remote mine better than any standard race.

Edit:

Even better, how about using the "vestigial" properties of asteroids? People have noticed how they still have facility capacity. What if these 'space native' races could colonize asteroids but not planets? You could have some interesting late game conflicts when Stellar Manipulations are held by several races and one major race wants to bLast all the planets into asteroids so it can colonize them while the rest want to convert all asteroids into planet so THEY can colonize those...


[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 10 August 2001).]

[Menschenfresser]

ok. This ought to clear this up. I did a short test on an asteroid of medium size with the following stats:

143% mineral content
90% Organic content
127% radio content

First mined with a Lt. Cruiser having the following components:

Bridge, Life, Crew
Max Engines
One of each of the three miners at level one.

These are the results:
Mined 858 minerals, 540 organics, and 762 radioactives.
Maint. Cost on this ship was: 854 minerals, 29 organics, and 136 radioactives.

Then put another Lt. Cruiser on the same asteroid w/ three mineral miners (level one)

Mined 2574 minerals with a maintanence of 1004 minerals.

Gain of 1570...

[Menschenfresser]

I am currently playing a TDM-mopack game in an extra large galaxy with 20 empires. I just modded the mineral miners to mine 1000, 1500, and 2000 minerals respectively.

Comment: If the mining ability is raised high enough for remote miners, then it won't be necessary to build facilities on any planet. This is a bit risky, but very interesting gameplay...and might be worthy of those looking for a challenging role-playing empire to tackle: one that can only mine remotely...for enviromental reasons let us say.

Question: Has anybody actually seen the AI use remote miners? I can't remember seeing one.

[geoschmo]

Ok, I stand corrected on the multiple robo comps per ships thing. I can say for sure that more than one sattelite per sector will not work. I tested that myself. I assumed it was a component limit and not a vehicle limit, but I was incorrect. Thanks for the info.

Geoschmo

[Menschenfresser]

I took my own advice and decided to start a new game where I role-play an empire that does not want the planetary destructive effect of mining. I started with 3 planets and have nearly gotten rid of all of my mineral miners...all of my minerals coming from the modded remote miners.

Really I just wanted to let you all in on a little secret...resources collected by remote mining aren't counted towards one's score. I am in Last place because it says I have no mineral facilities, and only mine 200 minerals per turn.

Any reason for this?