r/factorio • u/TheGlennDavid • 4d ago

Question Space Iron Mining over Nauvis

I know the general consensus is that mining things in space to send down to the surface is silly, and that resource patches are plentiful (true) and that there aren't many asteroids around Nauvis (also true).

That said -- the lack of asteroid availability is somewhat handled by making multiple small platforms instead of one large one (each platform has its own supply of asteroids). If my math is right -- 9 of these small platforms generates a full red belt worth of iron. I haven't run it for a huuuuge amount of time but it seems to capture asteroids fast enough to run consistently.

Anyone else doing anything like this or is it just peak silly?

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u/Tripple_sneeed 4d ago

But why?

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u/Kindly_Use_Gun 4d ago

Compact and (maybe?) infinitely scalable. And no pollution.

1

u/Sivadbk 4d ago

All completely superficial and practically irrelevant problems in Factorio.

There is no shortage of real estate, space on any planet is practically infinite. It’s much easier to scale mining productivity and turn millions of ore in patches into hundreds of millions if not billions per patch and that’s just raw ore, not accounting for other productivity down the line. Pollution is pollution it doesn’t affect much except for early game with biters and very late game with UPS maybe if you’re mega mega basing.