As one of the few people ever to visit those asteroid outposts scattered throughout deep space, starship pilots are able to assist with mining the asteroids that are hauled in.
Each asteroid is sectioned off into several sites. You have control of one site at a time. This site consists of buildings and automated drones. Your job is to choose which buildings and drones to build, and to continue mining at your site until all ore is retrieved. You may also 'research' new buildings by downloading data from the asteroid outpost, although this will cost you some of your usable metals. You are then compensated for your time depending on how efficiently you turned the site's ore deposits into usable raw metals.
That part sounds simple enough. You should also be aware that there are less scrupulous groups operating in and around asteroid outposts. These people, rather than mining at their own site, will occasionally send poacher drones to steal your own metals. Your drones will do their best to defend against this automatically, but you should ensure your site's security by placing defensive buildings to protect your own site's metal.
Note: It is not necessary to destroy buildings to reclaim their metals prior to ending your site. This is taken into account automatically.
How To Begin
Travel to any space station that accepts hauled asteroids. Find this location's asteroid mining operations room. Type
START to begin.
Warning: Starting and cancelling mining sites in quick succession will give you lower and lower quality sites. For best results, complete the site you are given every time.
How To Control Your Site
You may continue to stand in the operations room and type commands to operate your site. You may also enter a virtual representation of your site using the
ENTER command and walk around to observe what is happening. (Note: Players using screen readers will probably find the virtual representation option easier.)
List of Commands
START: Assigns a mining site to you and allows you to begin operations.
MAP: Look at an overview of your mining site.
STATUS: A general report of your site's resources.
SUMMARY: A more extensive summary of your progress.
METALS/
ORE: Individually display amount of resource on your site.
DRONES: See what your drones are doing.
BUILDINGS: See what you've built and where your buildings are.
ENTER Enter a virtual representation of your mining site. It may also be followed by coordinates to enter at that location.
EXIT: Exit the virtual representation.
BUILD: Order the construction of a new building.
RESEARCH: Request data about new buildings from the outpost.
ORDER: Order new drones built, or existing drones upgraded.
DESTROY: Destroy an existing building and reclaim some of the metals used in its construction.
TASKS: Decide which types of drones do which kinds of tasks.
END: End operations on your site and collect compensation (if your work so far deserves any).
CHANNEL or
C [message]: Communicate with others running mining sites.
LICENSE: Upgrades your mining license at higher levels of industry points, gaining you access to higher quality, better paying asteroids.
UPGRADE: Improves specific aspects of your mining site. Any purchased upgrades will apply for all future sites.
DISPLAY: Toggles whether the semi-graphical map is displayed while building.
Special Asteroids
Most asteroids are classified as the "rocky" type. Once you have a mining license, you will occasionally be offered the opportunity to process more unusual asteroids.
- Metal-rich: These asteroids simply have more ore to process, and are a much bigger target for poachers.
- Comet: On comets, you may extract water ice for a boost to your payout. Ice is extracted using separate ice mining buildings, but the ice does not require processing.
- Radioactive: The third tier processors and higher will be able to extract radioactives as well as metal from your ore, boosting your payout. To support the power requirements of these advanced processors, radioisotope thermoelectric generators will be available.
