Resource & Asteroid Mining
Resource & Asteroid Mining
The five main Strategic Resources and Asteroids can be found out in space, orbiting the various types of Star systems, but each have a different function and method of collection. The more exotic Strategic Resources are found on the various worlds orbiting these stars and again have their own method for mining.
The five most common Strategic Resources are found in space orbiting stars:
- Elerium
- Durantium
- Antimatter
- Promethium
- Thulium
To collect these, the player must build a Mining Starbase within its area of effect, and collection will occur at a rate set by the mining modules installed.
These five Strategic Resources are used in building advanced Ship components, certain of the rarer Improvements and can be traded in Diplomacy or with the Galactic Bazaar. There are other uses for these resources too, some of which are Civilization Ability dependent. For example, Durantium is used in the construction of Yor Citizens, while Onyx and Luxar Citizens require Promethium for increased Growth rates.
Other Strategic resources found on a Core World, including the rarer types used in the most advanced construction projects, can be collected by building an Extractor Improvement on the hex containing the resource. Those found on Colonies can be extracted by building an Orbital Extractor once the relevant Tech has been researched, and the mining rate can be increased through further research.
Asteroid Mining Bases are created by first building a Mining Ship in a Shipyard, and then sending it onto a cluster of Asteroids. One Mining Ship is required for each cluster of connected Asteroids, and once it has reached any hex in the cluster, it will collect 0.1 Minerals per Asteroid hex per turn. This rate can be increased through further research. Note that a cluster of Asteroids includes all hexes containing Asteroids that are connected to one another, unbroken by any hexes separating them. So long as an Asteroid hex touches another, they are considered to be in the same cluster and only require the one Asteroid Ship to create the base.