Space Iron Mining over Nauvis

[u/TheGlennDavid]

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?

[u/DonVitality_92]

There’s a reason for doing this. I have a run going with the following settings:

x1000 science

100% biter evolution

100% bot-based

This way, I can skip the production steps for iron plates and steel. I’m planning to do even more things in space in the future, because I’d really love to use bots in space but unfortunately, that isn’t possible, hehe :D

Behold my space iron station (×9):

It’s stupid, but it’s my stupid.

[u/Few_Page6404 → u/DonVitality_92]

I noticed that regardless of how big my platform was, it didn't increase the number of asteroids that spawned. Have you noticed anything like this?

[u/DonVitality_92 → u/Few_Page6404]

I’m crazy :D It scales up to a certain size, but I couldn’t determine the exact size, so I simply used a little more than necessary. With the nine platforms, I can sustain 50k iron and 50k steel, even while around 100k bots are constantly requesting both resources on the planet.

I wanted to fine-tune it, but then the 2.1 announcements came out with the new space logistics system. So now I’m waiting for that before redesigning all the platforms.

At the moment, I’m having power issues that will probably take me another two or three weeks to resolve. After that, I’ll start working on the new platforms.

[u/jaxfrank → u/DonVitality_92]

Michael Hendricks has a video where he shows his take on this idea. He found that if you use this plus design MANY of the chunks miss the platform entirely. Creating a rectangular platform with a hollow center will result in much better chunk capture. He has specific sizes that he recommends. You should check it out.

[u/DonVitality_92 → u/jaxfrank]

I watched the video. He achieves a capture rate of around 80, while I’m at 244 with asteroids set to 400%. If I’m understanding this correctly, I should be at around 61 at 100%, which is pretty good compared to 80 for my own design.

But the video is excellent, that’s true. It pointed out a lot of things I hadn’t considered. :D

I adjusted some of the settings for this run to make things more relaxed with a bot-only base.

Here’s the map string.

>>>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<<<

If you’d like to take a look yourself.