Fast mining tech - useless?

Fast mining tech - useless? (Full Version)

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jacozilla -> Fast mining tech - useless? (10/22/2015 5:38:41 PM)
So given what I've read re: mining caps (40 for gas and 10 for solids), which can easily be achieved with negligible to no hit on economy even in pre-warp days by using 2 gas and 3 solid extractors per mining station/ship - Is there any point to the fast mining tech tree at all? On one hand, simple math and the aforementioned caps players have posted about seem to flat out say mining tech is useless. Sure - by taking a couple techs there I guess you could eventually reduce station overhead by removing a gas/solid extractor, but the weight/energy cost to just stick 2 and 3 on every station/ship is so low, it seems unless mining tech was all I had left to research there is no point. On other hand, with a game that seems to given such solid trade offs and design to big and small mechanics, it seems a glaring oversight the mining tech is basically useless. Are we absolutely sure the mining tech doesn't make mining faster, or are the caps pretty much it.

jacozilla -> RE: Fast mining tech - useless? (10/22/2015 11:04:22 PM)
Hmm, ok so maybe not useless per se because it needs to be traversed down in order to eventually get energy to fuel converter. Aside from that though, with the caps so easy to reach with so minor a weight obstacle for 2/3 extractors, seems like this tech line exists soley to be a buffer to get to energy to fuel conversion.

Shark7 -> RE: Fast mining tech - useless? (10/23/2015 5:13:38 AM)
When you play on the hardest difficulty, those mining upgrades will make a difference.

jacozilla -> RE: Fast mining tech - useless? (10/23/2015 11:05:51 AM)
Aside from AI difficulty, harder difficulty setting = less cash for player and other economy related bumps ( corruption, etc). So i get that. But while i'm currently playing on one down from max difficulty, unless that last level is logarithmic in terms of economy reduction, i dont see how playing on hardest difficulty will make mining tech matter. It is literally 2 gas and 3 solid (ok 3.33) extractors to cap mining speed with zero mining tech. The build on maintenance cost on that 1 extra gas and 1-2 solid extractors make negligible difference on any provate economy up to the difficulty one below max. Are you saying the last difficulty level progresses so sharply or in logarithmic curve for economy reduction that the savings of 1 gas and 1-2 solid extractor per station will matter? Again note - havent tried last difficulty setting yet but thus far each rise in setting has led to noticable rise in difficulty, lower reduction in resources - but in fairly linear progression. My cirrent strategy is to immediately redesign GMS and MS stations to 2 gas, 3 lux, and 3 mining extractors right at start of pre-warp and thus far hasnt affected my economy at all.

Shark7 -> RE: Fast mining tech - useless? (10/23/2015 6:10:40 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: jacozilla Aside from AI difficulty, harder difficulty setting = less cash for player and other economy related bumps ( corruption, etc). So i get that. But while i'm currently playing on one down from max difficulty, unless that last level is logarithmic in terms of economy reduction, i dont see how playing on hardest difficulty will make mining tech matter. It is literally 2 gas and 3 solid (ok 3.33) extractors to cap mining speed with zero mining tech. The build on maintenance cost on that 1 extra gas and 1-2 solid extractors make negligible difference on any provate economy up to the difficulty one below max. Are you saying the last difficulty level progresses so sharply or in logarithmic curve for economy reduction that the savings of 1 gas and 1-2 solid extractor per station will matter? Again note - havent tried last difficulty setting yet but thus far each rise in setting has led to noticable rise in difficulty, lower reduction in resources - but in fairly linear progression. My cirrent strategy is to immediately redesign GMS and MS stations to 2 gas, 3 lux, and 3 mining extractors right at start of pre-warp and thus far hasnt affected my economy at all. Your maintenance costs are based on the price of the strategic resources. And if you have shortages of strategic resources, the price of those resources go up, which raises your maintenance costs. Its why on the extreme difficulty I play at, a short war can see my income drop to -200k in very short order. Even being at peace and having a shortage of a strategic (Caslon and Hydrogen are usually the most common shortages) you can dip into negative income. So the faster I can get those minerals out of the ground and get them stock piled, the better.

jacozilla -> RE: Fast mining tech - useless? (10/24/2015 1:35:38 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Shark7 quote: ORIGINAL: jacozilla Aside from AI difficulty, harder difficulty setting = less cash for player and other economy related bumps ( corruption, etc). So i get that. But while i'm currently playing on one down from max difficulty, unless that last level is logarithmic in terms of economy reduction, i dont see how playing on hardest difficulty will make mining tech matter. It is literally 2 gas and 3 solid (ok 3.33) extractors to cap mining speed with zero mining tech. The build on maintenance cost on that 1 extra gas and 1-2 solid extractors make negligible difference on any provate economy up to the difficulty one below max. Are you saying the last difficulty level progresses so sharply or in logarithmic curve for economy reduction that the savings of 1 gas and 1-2 solid extractor per station will matter? Again note - havent tried last difficulty setting yet but thus far each rise in setting has led to noticable rise in difficulty, lower reduction in resources - but in fairly linear progression. My cirrent strategy is to immediately redesign GMS and MS stations to 2 gas, 3 lux, and 3 mining extractors right at start of pre-warp and thus far hasnt affected my economy at all. Your maintenance costs are based on the price of the strategic resources. And if you have shortages of strategic resources, the price of those resources go up, which raises your maintenance costs. Its why on the extreme difficulty I play at, a short war can see my income drop to -200k in very short order. Even being at peace and having a shortage of a strategic (Caslon and Hydrogen are usually the most common shortages) you can dip into negative income. So the faster I can get those minerals out of the ground and get them stock piled, the better. Granted that resource shortages are bad for both strategic loss and economic reasons as mentioned - but I still don't get how this applies? My point is the gas / solid caps are so easy to reach, with negligible to zero hit on weight/economy, that you might as well stick 2 gas, 3 solid extractors on every mining station right from year 1 of pre-warp start. Done. No need to ever research mining tech, no need to redesign other than for adding other useful things to mining stations like shields, sensors, etc. How would you get more minerals out of the ground faster than simply maxing your mining cap on day 1 using 2 gas / 3 solid extractors? And how does playing on the hardest difficulty prevent anyone from affording this extremely tiny cost?

Shark7 -> RE: Fast mining tech - useless? (10/24/2015 9:00:52 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: jacozilla quote: ORIGINAL: Shark7 quote: ORIGINAL: jacozilla Aside from AI difficulty, harder difficulty setting = less cash for player and other economy related bumps ( corruption, etc). So i get that. But while i'm currently playing on one down from max difficulty, unless that last level is logarithmic in terms of economy reduction, i dont see how playing on hardest difficulty will make mining tech matter. It is literally 2 gas and 3 solid (ok 3.33) extractors to cap mining speed with zero mining tech. The build on maintenance cost on that 1 extra gas and 1-2 solid extractors make negligible difference on any provate economy up to the difficulty one below max. Are you saying the last difficulty level progresses so sharply or in logarithmic curve for economy reduction that the savings of 1 gas and 1-2 solid extractor per station will matter? Again note - havent tried last difficulty setting yet but thus far each rise in setting has led to noticable rise in difficulty, lower reduction in resources - but in fairly linear progression. My cirrent strategy is to immediately redesign GMS and MS stations to 2 gas, 3 lux, and 3 mining extractors right at start of pre-warp and thus far hasnt affected my economy at all. Your maintenance costs are based on the price of the strategic resources. And if you have shortages of strategic resources, the price of those resources go up, which raises your maintenance costs. Its why on the extreme difficulty I play at, a short war can see my income drop to -200k in very short order. Even being at peace and having a shortage of a strategic (Caslon and Hydrogen are usually the most common shortages) you can dip into negative income. So the faster I can get those minerals out of the ground and get them stock piled, the better. Granted that resource shortages are bad for both strategic loss and economic reasons as mentioned - but I still don't get how this applies? My point is the gas / solid caps are so easy to reach, with negligible to zero hit on weight/economy, that you might as well stick 2 gas, 3 solid extractors on every mining station right from year 1 of pre-warp start. Done. No need to ever research mining tech, no need to redesign other than for adding other useful things to mining stations like shields, sensors, etc. How would you get more minerals out of the ground faster than simply maxing your mining cap on day 1 using 2 gas / 3 solid extractors? And how does playing on the hardest difficulty prevent anyone from affording this extremely tiny cost? Also keep in mind that each and every component on a station raises its maintenance costs. So if you can do the same job (hit the cap) with fewer mining engines, you increase the private sectors profits and your tax revenue. I'm not going to pretend that the mining techs are things that you need to prioritize, but they do have their uses. I always go for the construction techs first myself, since bigger ships are needed to go to war. I do get the techs due to wanting the energy to fuel converters, but I wait until I have big enough ships to fight with first.

jacozilla -> RE: Fast mining tech - useless? (10/25/2015 12:23:04 AM)
Me too, I go for construction, but I do realize the mining tech tree is valuable, just not for the mining per se in my opinion. You need to traverse down that mining tech tree as mandatory part of getting to the energy to fuel converter which I find really, really useful. It not only helps alleviate a lot of fuel situations, but knowing I will get it as part of my overall empire plan, lets me not go wild on mining stations and lets my private sector pay for other things like long range scanners and stuff on stations. Once E2F converters are available on every station, I find I can use resupply ships more as flying fortresses to go kill empires, while my fuel needs are basically generated a good deal by the converters with mining stations bringing up any slack. While the converters don't produce extremely fast, I find sticking one on every bare bones staircase that exists over every planet anyways for the med/rec facilities helps generate a net total amount of fuel that is pretty big given total # of planets. I just started this thread because I was kinda hoping I was missing something, and that maybe in future we could have some enhancements where mining tech actually is worth it, maybe raise the caps or allow some way to make mining tech useful. Totally get that the maintenance is a bit more but it is an incredibly tiny amount, relative to the 1 more gas extractor we use at start of pre-warp until we can cut that down to 1, and 3 solid extractors instead of 2 after enough tech unlocked.

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