Mobile Mining Base?

[Knightwolf]

Is there currently anyway to make a mobile mining base in the game? Can you use the new class of Auxiliary ships to create a mobile mining base?
Meaning can you assign a mining ship to automatically work/mine for a larger ship and the mining ship unloads its cargo to the larger ship and the larger ship stores the wares. Then maybe from there the larger ship can sell or assign another ship to transport to wares to a station.
I was hoping that maybe with the new Auxiliary ships we could do this. But I currently don't have the funds to test them out yet.
Please let me know if this is possible or if someone could test if this works with the new ships.

Thank you!

[Vandragorax]

An L ship is already a "mobile mining base". You can tell it to go and mine, and then use smaller docked ships to fly off and sell the goods or whatever. You can even tell subordinate S mining ships to mine while the L mining ship just sits in space effectively acting as a giant warehouse.

The only trouble is it involves a lot of manual orders or personally flying the smaller ships, as there aren't specific scripts to support this that just tells the L ship to remain in one sector mining and use its docked S ships to mine and sell (I don't think?)

Maybe if you can assign the L ship as the homebase for the S ships, then give the S ships automatic orders it could behave how you want (then position the L ship wherever).

[Knightwolf]

To clarify I just want the large ship to sit and collect what the smaller ones mine automatically. Not mine itself.
But I will test your suggestions. I thought maybe the new auxiliary ship would do this because I heard it explained as a mobile warehouse.

Basically I want optimize mining and have the miners mine in an area continually without the miners stopping to sale or transfer to a far off station.Then just use separate trading ships to transfer and sale to station.

[RodentofDoom]

Not yet, no.

The only option you have for S/M class miners is "Defend" if you try to assign them to an L class miner.

We may get "Mine for" or "Trade for" in future releases, but there's been no mention of it yet.

[Berserk Knight]

Without major overhauls (or the addition of multiple new ships), that configuration will be a waste of time, even if there was UI and AI support.

What you asked is basically jet-can mining in EVE - miners mine and drop off the ore at the jet-can, and there's a hauler that picks up and transports the resources from that can.
You need both the dedicated drop-off and a dedicated hauler for the setup to work at all.
X4 is missing both.

There are no freighters that can transport ore/gas. Only miners can carry them.
Due to the above, the only possible drop-off is an L miner.
Then for the hauler, either the L miner itself or the S miners have to go and sell the resources.

If S miners do the transporting, then they're wasting time docking and dropping things off at the L miner, only to waste even more time docking and picking them up later.

If L miners are the ones transporting... L ships are sluggish, especially when docking at stations. Even if selling within the local sector, they don't have any real speed advantage over smaller miners. ...If they have to pass through gates? No.
Then the S miners now need to come all the way over to the station anyways since their drop-off point moved there to unload.

[Scoob]

I think the idea of a large, L or XL Class, ship that can dock multiple M-Class Mining ships would be cool. The "mothership" could be simply a resource drop-off point, which could then go and offload / sell the collected Ores. Or other M-Class Freighters could do that for it as it remains parked in an ore-rich area.

As raw resources are the basic materials f the universe, having a cheaper low-rep requirement ship might be a good way for a player to start their empire, rather than going directly to a Station. I'd certainly like that style of gameplay.

Another good gameplay element this adds would be to defend such an asset. I'd envisage that an early-game L or XL ship wouldn't be particularly well armed, thus would need a small squad of Fighters and / or Drones to keep it safe. Having this ship (or another one like it) act as a Mobile Refinery might be cool too.

I think alternate ways to achieve the same result - i.e. processing Ore - adds a lot to the game. I for one would rush towards getting a Mobile Mining Base like this if it were an option. With the new Mobile Equipment Docks (support ships) it's not a huge leap to have such a ship for mining.

Scoob.

[Imperial Good]

I think the idea of a large, L or XL Class, ship that can dock multiple M-Class Mining ships would be cool. The "mothership" could be simply a resource drop-off point, which could then go and offload / sell the collected Ores. Or other M-Class Freighters could do that for it as it remains parked in an ore-rich area.

Except it is pointless when the ship can just fly to the station and unload itself... Also L miners already use drones to mine.

What people are asking here requires a lot of new gameplay features as well as assets to implement them. It might even require huge gameplay changes to make practical. Others have pointed this out already.

For a "mobile mining base" there would actually need to be a reason for it to exist, otherwise it will always be more efficient to get the miners to fly back and unload to the station directly like they do currently.

For example one could change it that mining is now two stages where "unprocessed ore" requires being processed into "refined ore" which only "mobile mining bases" can do and then dedicated transport ships (like miners but cannot mine and more capacity) can move it to stations. This makes the ships a vital part of the economy as they are a required step in ore processing, maybe only needed to harvest from some resource sites as well (for variance in the universe).

Another example implementation would be adding a new class of solid/liquid M ships, "haulers", which are incapable of mining but have superior capacity and speed than their mining counter parts. A "mobile mining bases" could then be defined as a ship which collects solid/liquid from S, M and L miners (and possibly its self as well) nearby and prepares it for more efficient hauling back to stations via dedicated M or L haulage ships. This would potentially allow for much more efficient mining operations between sectors since haulers move product considerably more efficiently mining ships.

[RodentofDoom]

Not totally pointless.

It also sets up the groundwork for a "Trade For" order.
And with the recent introduction of the Supply Ship it would be a very useful addition to the right click command list for subordinates.

[Ezarkal]

I think the idea of a large, L or XL Class, ship that can dock multiple M-Class Mining ships would be cool. The "mothership" could be simply a resource drop-off point, which could then go and offload / sell the collected Ores. Or other M-Class Freighters could do that for it as it remains parked in an ore-rich area.

As neat as this idea looks on paper, I don't think it would translate so well in the game. The problem here is the S/M mining ships are much faster than the L/XL ships, simply for the fact that they can use highways, and have an easier path through jumpgates. This means that your L/XL mining ships are much more efficient for close-by mining operations than for distant ones, which kind of kills the purpose of a mobile mining base.

[graphicboy]

Well... that settles it. L/XL ships need jump drives. (I mean this - gate travel for these ships is stupid)

[Scoob]

Obviously this idea would result in a degree of rebalancing of mining times etc. so this is an efficient approach. Plus this isn't about being the most efficient way of doing something, but for adding variety into the game. It's not all about META.

Personally, I LIKE the idea of sticking with my mining capital ship and defending it from potential pirates etc. It would act as an early(ish) game base, with the ability to hold a fighter complement, along with Drones of course. Then the player could make large bulk sales in one go, getting a better price overall than multiple small trades. Or they can load up a station of their own very quickly. Or use smaller M-Class trade ships if they desired.

Like I said the key is variety, I mean, why have more than one ship of each class? So, ONE fighter for all races, ONE Scout, ONE Corvette etc. They all do the same thing after all, but the variety and the different strengths / weaknesses of each design make things interesting. The same is true for specialist ships like the Mobile Mining Base discussed here. I also don't think it'd be a huge leap technically at all, as we can currently easily issue manual orders to transfer wares to stations and ships. A set of commands so an M-Class miner see the Mobile Mining Base as it's offload target (home) isn't a huge ask.

Basically, I like this suggestion as a different way to play the game and I'd certainly be interested in using such a ship in the early-game. So, rather than having my early-game autominers having to be MANUALLY ordered around due to the sector range epic nerf, I can have them work for a single, larger ship in one sector, speeding up collection of Ore. Then, in ONE order, I can ask that ship to sell its collected ores, or have an assigned M-Class freighter do it. That way the miners can keep on mining, and not have to manually sell themselves. Sorta starting to sound efficient to me lol.

To be clear, I used to regularly run Autominers to make early-game money. Then the sector range Captain experience requirement bug was fixed so I used to have to manually order them around OR just get better crew. Then the EPIC NERF to experience-based sector range was dumped on us - bloody daft - so even my experienced crews needed hand-holding to sell stuff as they best prices were outside their heavily restricted sector range. Not fun. So, with this in mind, being able to automate ore collection again then give one order to sell (or use M-CLass traders if desired) appeals to me.

Anyway, I've waffled enough, but I support this idea as something FUN I'd like to do in-game. Perhaps it's more a roll-play thing for me, but running a small mining fleet, which sticks together as a fleet sounds cool.

Scoob.

[spankahontis]

I've always wanted to see the Xenon have their own 'Mobile Factories' that mine for basic resources and convert what they mine into Small & Medium Xenon Ships. They'd be like the CPU ships of Xenon Lore.

Of course you could have an Argon/Paranid/Teladi/Split/Boron alternative like the above to have smaller ships provide ore/silicon/gas etc. for it and medium transporters to deliver what it produces to stations (Obviously doesn't compare in storage size and production rate) to a Station, but it would be cool if you were starting off as a production mogul to own one of these.

[Ezarkal]

So, with this in mind, being able to automate ore collection again then give one order to sell (or use M-CLass traders if desired) appeals to me.

Anyway, I've waffled enough, but I support this idea as something FUN I'd like to do in-game. Perhaps it's more a roll-play thing for me, but running a small mining fleet, which sticks together as a fleet sounds cool.

+1 to that first point. Frequent multiple trade orders gets tedious fast.

+ infinity to the last one. I really like the concept as well, and nothing beats this argument.
I just find it doesn't fit in the game as it's current state.


@ spankahontis: Xenon mobile factories??? Now THAT sounds cool! It would make for pretty good mission targets, too.

[Scoob]

I've always wanted to see the Xenon have their own 'Mobile Factories' that mine for basic resources and convert what they mine into Small & Medium Xenon Ships. They'd be like the CPU ships of Xenon Lore.

Of course you could have an Argon/Paranid/Teladi/Split/Boron alternative like the above to have smaller ships provide ore/silicon/gas etc. for it and medium transporters to deliver what it produces to stations (Obviously doesn't compare in storage size and production rate) to a Station, but it would be cool if you were starting off as a production mogul to own one of these.

Yes, I was actually thinking that this would fit the Xenon well, as would (potentially) allowing their ships to be refineries or even able to build fighters for example. The Xenon lack the infrastructure of the Races, so this makes a degree of sense.

It's that early-game aspect that appeals to me. There's the element of mobile base, which is cool, plus the fact that it's gathering the most basic of materials that the universe needs.

Scoob.

[mr.WHO]

Rather that mobile minning ships I'd prefer XL size miner.

[spankahontis]

I've always wanted to see the Xenon have their own 'Mobile Factories' that mine for basic resources and convert what they mine into Small & Medium Xenon Ships. They'd be like the CPU ships of Xenon Lore.

Of course you could have an Argon/Paranid/Teladi/Split/Boron alternative like the above to have smaller ships provide ore/silicon/gas etc. for it and medium transporters to deliver what it produces to stations (Obviously doesn't compare in storage size and production rate) to a Station, but it would be cool if you were starting off as a production mogul to own one of these.

Yes, I was actually thinking that this would fit the Xenon well, as would (potentially) allowing their ships to be refineries or even able to build fighters for example. The Xenon lack the infrastructure of the Races, so this makes a degree of sense.

It's that early-game aspect that appeals to me. There's the element of mobile base, which is cool, plus the fact that it's gathering the most basic of materials that the universe needs.

Scoob.

Even the Kha'ak would greatly benefit from having an XL ship that uses it's Forager Class Ships to gather resources for the Hive production needs. It needs to be able to build it's Kha'ak Installations rather than them spawning in-game (Or rather not being a genuine threat).

Xenon would still need shipyards to build their larger ships, but mobile factories makes it harder to pin down the Xenon, when you think you've wiped them out? They start to manifest somewhere else?

[LegionOfOne]

Both a Mobile Mining Base and a Mobile Trade Station, with XL-class dedicated ships with a lot of cargo space and the ability to 'set up shop' in any sector and start mining/trading, probably with special scripts for their subordinates, is something I am very interested in as well.

I'm already thinking about how to make the Mobile Trade Stations a reality, I am closer to that one thanks to the mods I already released.
But Mobile Mining Bases are on my wishlist next !

As for anyone who doubts how useful MMBs would be, it all depends on the cargo capacity of the Base Ship. If it is large enough, it will be more efficient to set up the Base in the middle of the resource field, fill up fast since the mining ships around have no travel time, and sell everything at once with the slow but cargo-filled Base.
Unless I can make the Base act as a factory to process every raw resource as well, and in that case you can just use traders to sell the Base's production, then it doesn't even have to move unless you want to relocate to a new sector.

[Lazerath]

Adding stuff is great BUT....I would rather Egosoft actual finish what’s in the base game right now before adding anything else.

Patch 2.5 and we are STILL not able to use L size mining ships ourselves. Egosoft has not finished this part of the game and other parts so I would much rather they finished what’s been missing since the games release.

The game would be much better if the base game itself was finished. Adding cool new features is great and of course I welcome that openly but every time I see parts of the game that are not finished (half a year after initial release) THAT irritates the hell outta me.

Cheers!

[Buzz2005]

you are a very patient man if you like sitting in a very slow L miner and hunt asteroids

[LegionOfOne]

you are a very patient man if you like sitting in a very slow L miner and hunt asteroids

+1000

What's the point of AI pilots if we can't give them the horribly boring jobs ?
Piloting a L miner and sending drones to mine is NOT on my bucket-list...