resource extraction and cargo space on mining stations

[inyasha23]

i looked all over the forums and on the wiki but couldn't find out exactly what the maximum resource extraction you get for each mining tech. it doesn't tell you how much you can mine. so i never know how many extractors and cargo bays i need to get a optimized design.

how many extractorand and cargo bays do you need for eash lvl of mining tech to get maximum resourece extraction and storage?

[Atts]

There's no sorta one size fits all design here, there are far too many variables and it also depends on your playstyle, where as some people focus on a smaller number of mising stations they'd benefit from larger stations with more extractors and others have a large amount of stations thus benefits from smaller stations due to the cost of maintaining such a large number, on top of that, you'd need to take into account the size of the map, as on smaller maps freighter networks have less ground to cover and also take into account how large your freighters are, no point building extra extractors if the extraction rate is higher then your average freight capacity.

I could go on but tha should give you a general idea of what to look out for when designing your stations. Sorry it's it's a bit complicated bit it's a bit of a complex question.

[RemoteLeg]

The goal is to get a gas extraction rate of 40 and a solid extraction rate of 10 for your mining stations.

At the start of the game you have basic mining. If you hover your mouse over the "Mining" technology in the Energy & Construction tech tree you will see that this means you have a gas extraction rate of 20 and a solid extraction rate of 3, and a luxury extraction rate of 3 (see picture).

Therefore you should put 2 gas extractors on a gas mining station and 4 solid extractors on your solid mining station (in reality, I have found that 3 is sufficient). At the start of the game I recommend you create just two mining station designs as follows:
- gas mining station: 2 Gas Extractors + 3 Luxury Resource Extractors
- solid mining station: 3 Mining Engines + 3 Luxury Resource Extractors
I think there is too much micro-management when you create separate designs for pure luxury mining stations.

When you increase technology to Fast Mining it makes no difference to the design, but when you get to Self-Optimizing Extractors you can reduce your designs to use just 2 Mining Engines and 2 Luxury Resource Extractors where applicable and still maintain that extraction rate of 10. When you research High Power Extractors you can change your gas mining stations to just have one Gas Extractor.
Just remember that you should aim for a gas extraction rate of 40 and a solid/luxury extraction rate of 10. There is no benefit to adding more extractors after you reach this rate.

Storage is a little harder to estimate because it depends on your extraction rate and the frequency of how often freighters come calling. I usually put a dozen on a slow mining station and as many as 20 on a fast one. You don't want to run out of space because the mining station with cease operations when the cargo bay is full.

How to tell a fast mining station from a slow one?
It is based on the planet's resource density. An optimized mining station (extraction rate of 40/10) on a planet with 35% gold and 42% steel will extract 35 units of gold and 42 steel every six turns (months).
Obviously a planet with 40% gold is less desirable than a planet with 75% gold. However a planet with 30% gold, 30% steel, and 30% iridium will gather more resources (90) per cycle than any of the planets mentioned previously. I consider a fast mining station as one with a total extraction rate above 100.

[inyasha23]

thank you for the in-depth answer, i wish they would put all this in the wiki, been playing for over 6 months and still don't understand half of the game mechanics.


can i ask how you got a extraction rate of 40/10 as the being the most optimal?

[RemoteLeg]

can i ask how you got a extraction rate of 40/10 as the being the most optimal?

Easy - I experimented. [8D]
Actually I read the original numbers in another post then I created mining bases with 1, 2, 3, etc. extractors on board and checked how much ore I got every cycle. These figures are based on actual tests I performed.

Honestly, you never need more than 2 gas extractors or 3 solid/luxury extractors. These figures decrease as your mining technology improves.