Asteroid mining

Asteroid Mining refers to mining of asteroids and comets using mining ships, and is an alternative to Automated Mines.

Overview

Researching the Asteroid Mining Module provides access to this useful ship component. To begin asteroid mining, simply create a ship with at least one mining module, create a mining colony on a suitable asteroid (via F9 or through right click on the body within System View F3) and move the ship there. On the summary page for the colony, a new entry, labeled Orbital Mines will appear.

Asteroid Mining Strategies

Depending on what ships you have constructed, there are a number of ways to exploit asteroid mining.

• Use pure mining ships to extract minerals and then collect the ores with freighters
• Use mining ships with enough cargo capacity to take away the minerals once the asteroid begins to deplete.
• Use larger mining ships with enough cargo capacity to move a mass driver, a few mining ships can then use their mass drivers to move mining output to a single location with a system for easy collection.