Category:Metals

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1 Overview
2 Mining
3 Mining Efficiency
4 Processing Ore
5 Help With Mining
6 Alternatives to Mining
7 See also

[edit] Overview

Metals are used to build ships and ship parts. They are procured from planets and ship devices. Metals in planets are called minerals or unmined metals. Mineral Mines can extract these minerals at a rate that is dependant on your race and the density of the metal for that particular planet. Once extracted, the minerals become ore and metals. Ore must be refined into metals to become useful in building ships.

[edit] Mining

There are several ways to extract minerals from a planet's core - some are more, some are less effective:

Type		Metals	Ore	Affects
Buildings	Mineral Mine	75%	25%	, , ,
	Labor Mine	100%	-	, , ,
	Insectoid Nest	50%	-
Ship Devices	Laser Mining Drill	50%	-	, ,
	Particle Fountain	50%	-	, ,
	Fuel Drill	50%	-
Assault Units	Plasmatron N6i	75%	12,5%	, , ,
	Mole Mobile Drilling Rig	75%	12,5%	, , ,
	Driller Killer	75%	12,5%	, , ,
	Fuel Dradle	75%	12,5%

[edit] Mining Efficiency

It is very important for an economy to be as efficient as possible. It's worth stressing from the table above that mining Devices such as the Laser Mining Drill, Particle Fountain and Fuel Drill are only 50% efficient, i.e. 50% of the ore in a planet is completely wasted using these Devices. They are usually faster than using Mineral Mines, but this speed comes at a steep price. If you have enough metals in your stockpiles to build the ships you need then you are probably best served using Colonists and mining more slowly with Mineral Mines than using the devices. The devices also only mine metals and not fuel (in the case of the Laser Mining Drill and Particle Fountain), or only fuel (the Fuel Drill), whereas Mineral Mines and the units (except the Fuel Dradle) mine for both metals and fuel.

This doesn't mean that the devices are useless. Another important difference between the devices and the other mining methods is that the Devices ignore both the mineral density of the Planet and the mining rate of your chosen Race, where the Mineral Mines are restricted by both of these things, and the mining Units are also restricted in speed of mining by the mineral density. Mineral Mines are also restricted by happiness and declining yield over 100 Mines. Mining Devices (and Units in large numbers) are much faster than Mineral Mines in mining, and Devices are a lot faster if the mineral concentration is low.

Devices can also be used to mine asteroids from space, where only a few races (the IMT, Privateers and Solorians) can form bases on asteroids in order to build mineral mines or use units.

[edit] Processing Ore

Ore by itself has no direct use. It has to be transformed into metals first (at a ratio of 2:1)

Smelter
Ore Processing
The Driller Killer, Mole Mobile Drilling Rig, and Plasmatron N6i Assault Units can also smelt ore.
The Xelovi Hive of the RCS also provides "free smelting of ore".

[edit] Help With Mining

50,000+ Reptilians at a base will increase mining rates by 100%.
For The Reunited Coalition of Systems, 50,000+ Insectoids will also increase mining rates by 100% (for a total 300% boost if combined with Reptilians).
The Xelovi Hive special structure of The Reunited Coalition of Systems will triple the mining rate and provide free smelting of ore.
Increasing the Delta Stress of a planet will increase the rate of formation of new minerals.

[edit] Alternatives to Mining

The Crystals have a special Hyperlathe building which can produce metals from the HD Stress of a planet.
The Alchemy ship device can convert supplies into metals.
The DTMS-N Fuel Converter ship device can convert other metals or supplies into Neutronium fuel.
Neutronium fuel can can also be stolen using a Fuel Robber, or produced while traveling through space using a Ram Scoop.
The Solorian Unity have special rules for producing (non Neutronium) fuel from star heat.