One or two mining stations per moon pair?

posted on July 1st, 2010, 8:10 pm

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.

posted on July 1st, 2010, 8:12 pm

It says that 1 station can work if the moons are close together.

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on July 1st, 2010, 8:14 pm

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on July 1st, 2010, 8:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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.

posted on July 1st, 2010, 8:24 pm

wish i was credited for the idea though.. BUT seriously I suggest not to do this, because people might have a thing for destroying mining station, so you have to rebuild your mining station all over again - for example federation warpin come destroy mining station, and you do not gain any type of income for a long while till you re-construct your mining station...

posted on July 1st, 2010, 8:29 pm

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.

posted on July 1st, 2010, 8:31 pm

We should credit Cairo then who was the first to demonstrate it in PR as I recall - or Les Deimos who figured it out in 3.0.0. Something changed after 3.0.3 and everybody stopped using that setup until you brought it to my attention again . The guide is a culmination of everybody's knowledge about strategy, tactics, RTS etc. If I spent time editing in all the people who contributed directly and indirectly to every specific piece of advise, the list of names would most probably end up longer than the guide itself and the guide is not dedicated to showing off who thought of what or rediscovered the wheel - it is supposed to help people to play better .

posted on July 1st, 2010, 8:32 pm

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 

posted on July 1st, 2010, 8:35 pm

You cannot count on Steamrunners every time. If you do get them tho then I would suggest targeting the station. Also most factions don't have warp-in, so they should really go for the miners.

posted on July 1st, 2010, 8:38 pm

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

posted on July 1st, 2010, 8:42 pm

if u take out the mining station at someone's base they are almost certain to try rebuild it. so if u have some torp heavy ships (like susa) on the prowl u can be nasty and take out the station.

but i prefer killing all the miners, more xp, costs more to replace 3 miners than 1 station i think, and takes longer to build 3 new miners. and u can stop killing miners after 1 kill and run with a victory, if u attack the station its all or nothing.

posted on July 1st, 2010, 8:43 pm

You cannot count on Steamrunners every time. If you do get them tho then I would suggest targeting the station. Also most factions don't have warp-in, so they should really go for the miners.

 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.

posted on July 1st, 2010, 8:47 pm

i agree with both dom and bogz  that are pointing out the same time .

[Shril]

posted on July 1st, 2010, 8:54 pm

Last edited by Shril on July 1st, 2010, 8:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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.

posted on July 1st, 2010, 9:14 pm

Sometimes I think that if the guide told you to stick a bee hive on your heads, because the buzzing makes you focus better, some of you would do it.   The only way you're really going to know about the game mechanics is to test them yourself.

I just did a 20 minute test, and it does seem to be close.  I tried it on the left expansion of Duel, since the moons are close there.  Long story short, I ended up with a dilithium mining rate of 420 per minute (I had to let the freighter that was in there completely unload past the 20 minute mark to get this.  Otherwise it was 413.15 per minute).  I got a tritanium mining rate of 285 per minute.

This is slightly lower than 2 mining stations, which will yield dilithium at 435/min, and tritainium at 290/min.  Keep in mind that I only did the one test, and might try to do more on other maps.  Also, we can see that just one extra miner unloading can drastically change the results.  I must say I am impressed that it is so close to the standard way of doing things.  There was usually only 1 miner waiting to unload, or if there were 2 waiting, it was for barely a second.

Just keep in mind that the moons need to be close to do this, otherwise it's probably not going to pan out.  And if you find you're having a resource crunch and all your miners are waiting or something, then build that extra station.

posted on July 1st, 2010, 9:23 pm

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.