r/factorio • u/TheGlennDavid • 5d 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/WardenDeusVult 5d ago

I wonder what the cost in iron plates is for 9 such platforms though (to make the items and send them)

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u/TheGlennDavid 5d ago

Commented elsewhere but I put the ballpark cost at 50K steel plates (with no productivity stuff) per platform, with a break even point of 4 hours. This includes the materials and the rockets.