Economy - The Hitchhiker's Guide to Fleet Operations
With the heading "setup 1" it says here that 1 mining station can be used for a moon pair instead of the normal 2 mining stations. Boggz and others (but especially Boggz); however, think this is wrong. I just want confirmation or not on whether 1 mining station is as efficient as 2.
If it isn't efficient, I'd like to advise new players not to do it as part of their build order even tho the guide says so.

It is, in fact, just as efficient as long as those two moons are not terribly far away. I myself learned this by first denying it, and then testing it for myself many, many, many times. I encourage anyone else who is interested to do the same . No matter which line the moons form (i.e. horizontal, vertical, etc), 6 miners and 1 station will perform just as well as 2 stations and 6 miners.

EDIT: I added a point of clarification to the guide in case people were confused - when it says 3 mining stations apart or less - that means the physical model, not the footprint. When footprint is concerned it is about 2 "stations" apart. .Sorry if that confused anyone.

Actually Arash, in my experience people go for the miners (something suggested by the guide for the reason that the mining station being intact makes the player more likely to reexpand there and send miners for you to kill.) The station is also pretty well shielded and can usually even finish decom without being taken out. Miners don't take long to kill, and by going for the station you leave your fleet there longer and are thus more vulnerable to a reprisal by some nasty cloaked Roms or warp-ins.

nebula, you truly do not read, re-read my post until then enjoy this picture i stole from the screen shot topic~




to dom: true true, but i had no idea this was used back in 3.0.0 

There are downsides and upsides to both tactics - two stations represents a larger sink of income and requires more defenses to protect both stations. One station is indeed more fragile, but in turn can be protected more easily and lets you save some more funds

  Those are just semantics .

  He's not talking about what people SHOULD go for, he's pointing out what CAN happen.  Even 4 or so KBQ can destroy a mining station if you can't protect it.  Pulse armed ships like Rhiens and Martok B'rels aren't gonna do it, but Taqroja B'rels/Kvorts can destroy mining stations, Su'sa will BLAST it away, Bombers can EASILY destroy mining stations, Assimilators can do so easily (or just assim it and decom ).

  His point was to say that, even if it may save you some res since you on't have to build 2, your entire economy is hinged on a single building.

I also think that mining just with one station is somewhat inefficient. Also if the moons are close together. You need to think about the saved resources and what they can make possible for you and what your economic losses are during the game progress. If it's just a one additional ship you can build more it can be of advantage in early game. One more ship is a good thing.... but as you see is that this pays off just half way as in mid game the inhibited resources flow of dil and trit will slower down your ship production and your opponent will overtake you fleet wise. This is even more drastic when the deposition rate is low or resource capacity is huge - like with the Borg. Then you'll face serious problems.

So what I can think of for all the other races except Borg is to have one mining station at a close sticky moon pair in the very beginning to pull out one or two additional early game ships and during the rush (late early game at the latest) set another plant. You might also be able to just stock 2 freighters each moon with one mining plant and while building the second plant you build additional 2 freighters to have 3 freighters each moon. This might bring you additional saved resources for one or two more ships in early game. Be aware of the fact that you will face your offensive ship production to be stopped while your plant and two more freighters are being built. Use that time to harass the opponent! Otherwise this strategy doesn't make sense. Another disadvantage I see here is that once you dont micro good enough and loose ships it's even worse for you. So never ever loose ships when doing that... it will break your neck.

For expansions this strategy might be an option when you use the saved resource for a turret or two. Possible for Dominion...but not for Klings. IT's really depends on the race you play.

Hope I could help you.

That's not entirely correct either Mal . Yandon's tests (and my own personal tests) also got different results than the 435 dil/min or 290 tri/min (for 2 stations, 6 miners) - for instance, some of his were off by as much as 30 []/min, and mine were roughly the same at times. The rotation of the moon, placement of the mining station all affect it . I will go down saying that they are for all intensive purposes the same  . Mining will be variable, and sometimes you can even get away with -shock - TWO miners per moon. A very strange and rare thing of course, but for 2 stations versus 1 station, the rates are the same and the stations need be only less than 3 physical station models apart to function like that. The closer the stations are to each other, the closer the 1 station comes to the 2 station model. By the time the moons are 3 stations apart, you are at the limit of the efficiency.