Mining

Mining in Aurora refers to the extraction of TN Minerals. Mining is the cornerstone of any Empire, whether single-planet or a thousand star systems. Without minerals, it is impossible to construct anything at all, so it is extremely important to manage your mining correctly.

Minerals can be found on Asteroids, Comets, Moons, Gas Giants and Planets. Planets are, generally, the best sources for minerals, but Gas Giants are usually excellent repositories of Sorium. To mine, you will need one of three things: a Mine (automated or normal), an Asteroid Mining Module or a Sorium Harvester.

Geological Survey

Before you can start mining you have to find minerals first. Initial survey is conducted from orbit. Later employing of Geology Teams is almost essential to any large empire. Geology teams may be placed on any body where they will survey the planet/asteroid etc. to find more minerals or, in some cases, improve the accessibility of the minerals. This can be a serious benefit, as geology teams have been known to increase the tonnage of present minerals by as much as 1 million.

Extraction

Mining operations

Mining bases can be placed on any body except a Gas Giant and are the backbone of any large-scale mining operation. It is generally advisable to have a number of mines on any planet you inhabit that has mineral deposits. See: Mines for information about the different types.

Asteroid miners

Asteroid Mining Modules are a ship-based component that allows the ship to mine asteroids and comets, not Moons, Planets or Gas Giants. The minerals they dig up are left on the asteroid, so it is advisable to either place several Mass Drivers in orbit or have a freighter collect the minerals. While not as efficient as a regular mine (since you have the added cost of engines etc to consider), large fleets of Asteroid Miners can make short work of an Asteroid Belt.

Sorium Harvester

A Sorium Harvester is the only type of mine that can be used on a Gas Giant. Harvesters collect the Sorium found in the Gas Giants clouds and convert them directly to fuel. This is one of the better ways to keep fuel levels up, as most Gas Giants will have a million or more units of sorium. The game has a built-in conditional order for use with Sorium Harvesters. By using the condition 'When Fuel Tanks Full' and the response 'Unload at Colony and return to Gas Giant' you can essentially make your harvesters autonomous. Just ensure you have placed them at a Gas Giant first. As with Asteroid Miners, you don't need to give the ships any special orders, just place them at the mining site.

Storage

Colony storage, mass drivers..

Minerals Quantity & Accessibility

Every world has a chance to contain some of the TN-Elements, each with a specific quantity and rated at a level of accessibility between 0.1 and 1, which dictates how quickly the mineral can be harvested with any given quantity of mining equipment. Very massive planets are likely to have large number of minerals available at very high quantities but low accessibility, while smaller worlds, moons and asteroids are progressively more likely to have fewer minerals at higher levels of accessibility.

Minerals Accessibility value is multiplied by your annual mining rate to give the total amount for that mineral that you can mine. So if your mining rate is 12 tons/year and the accessibility of a mineral is 0.5, you will mine 6 tons/year. Over time, as more and more minerals are mined from the same body, its accessibility of the remaining minerals will decrease.

This spreadsheet contains a workbook which can be used to estimate the total extraction rate average over a planet's useful lifetime.

Tips

• Accessibility may be improved by assigning a Geosurvey team to the relevant planet/asteroid/etc. to perform a Survey.
• If your asteroid miners are not mining, it may be because they are orbiting a moon or planet, not an asteroid.