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ARM, ORBM or neither?

Fri, 24 October 2003 12:10

freakyboy

Lieutenant

Messages: 583
Registered: November 2002
Location: Where the clowns can't re...

ARM, ORBM, Neither[ 37 votes ]
1.	I LOVE to strip mine everything (ARM)	4 / 11%
2.	I rely on my planetary mines (ORBM)	20 / 54%
3.	I'll do what's required (Neither)	13 / 35%

Generally speaking, playing in a standard vanilla game, medium universe with dense or packed galaxy settings...

how do you remote mine? Do you take ARM and lower your on world mining settings and bleed everything you can't colonise?

Do you expand your hab and mineral settings and pray for high concentration greens and low concentration reds?

Or do you take the middle route? After all you can stargate those monster miner hulls, so why take ARM?

Personally my remote miner choice goes hand in hand with my economic choice...

If I'm -F IT - then it's gotta be ORBM.

If I'm HG IT - it's neither for me since I'll remote mine when I need to.

[EDIT] I voted for neither since I generally take a HG style race for a medium galaxy.

If I'm HP IT - I gotta remote mine. I need every mineral from every world. I'm in this game to the bitter end so I'll need this advantage.

But what do you guys think?

[Updated on: Fri, 24 October 2003 12:11]

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Re: ARM, ORBM or neither?

Sat, 25 October 2003 22:19

Dark_Traveller

Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 33
Registered: October 2003
Location: Tigard, OR. USA

I personally strip mine but without ARM or OBRM. Maxi-Miners w/Robo Super-Miners. They are heavy and mineral expensive compared to the final ARM Miners but I have other uses for my points since the IT trait is expensive.

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Re: ARM, ORBM or neither?

Wed, 29 October 2003 01:06

Hatterson

Warrant Officer
Past Weekly Puzzle Master

Messages: 121
Registered: May 2003
Location: NY, USA

I will only remote mine in significant quantities if I manage to steal the alien miner off of the MT. Then it becomes a no-brainer because the an alien miner decked out ship is almost as efficient as the best ship (non alien-miner) that an ARM can build.

Other than that I can't justify spending the points on an ARM race. In my opinion the points are just much better spent in other areas of the race design.

"Don't be so humble - you are not that great. " - Golda Meir (1898-1978) to a visiting diplomat

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Re: ARM, ORBM or neither?

Wed, 29 October 2003 16:02

Sotek

Chief Warrant Officer 2

Messages: 167
Registered: November 2002

I'd like to note that even if you plan to remote-mine as an IT, ARM is foolish.

The advantage of ARM ships over non-ARM ships is really relatively minimal in all areas save one.

That one, the huge one, and the one that matters, is mobility.

But when you're talking about an IT, mass has almost no effect on mobility.

Gateability is completely unaffected, and while sublight travel is affected...
If you have either ramscoops or the AMG, reasonably short-range travel's not an issue.

And why are you remote-mining a world that's more than a few years from a gate, anyway?
You can get your miners to the target worlds no problem no matter the mass, and then if you have the AMG on 'em, you can bring them back years later once the world's been stripped.

Heck, they'll even provide fuel for the freighters that're running the minerals back to your worlds.

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Re: ARM, ORBM or neither?

Wed, 29 October 2003 16:24

freakyboy

Lieutenant

Messages: 583
Registered: November 2002
Location: Where the clowns can't re...

Which is precisely what I do - apart from the AMG idea, I never thought of that one!!! I'm gonna go redesign my mining fleet now Smile

I just wondered if anyone had any better ideas.

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Re: ARM, ORBM or neither?

Thu, 30 October 2003 05:39

iztok

Commander

Messages: 1219
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe

Hi!

Quote:

And why are you remote-mining a world that's more than a few years from a gate, anyway?
You can get your miners to the target worlds no problem no matter the mass, and then if you have the AMG on 'em, you can bring them back years later once the world's been stripped.

What I'm doing with rich, but far red planet is: several years ahead I send there a colonizing fleet and put in queue only a fort/dock with gates. When remotes stop mining one planet, I gate them to that planet, and add enough freighters to lift all pop as WP1 task. In the next turn I lose that planet and remotes do their first mining. This way remotes don't mine only 2 turns, regardless of distance to mining planet.
BR, Iztok

[Updated on: Thu, 30 October 2003 05:39]

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Re: ARM, ORBM or neither?

Thu, 06 November 2003 15:31

Dark_Traveller

Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 33
Registered: October 2003
Location: Tigard, OR. USA

Sotek is absolutely correct with the ARM ships. Expensive and really not much in the way of advantages compared to point cost, If you are IT or not. Anything over a 2ly travel for your mineral freighters is a waste of time in my book. I used to use ARM Constantly but the deeper(maybe smarter??) I got into Stars I found I could be just as effective with the standard Mining ships and Bots.

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Re: ARM, ORBM or neither?

Sun, 09 November 2003 03:28

Hatterson

Warrant Officer
Past Weekly Puzzle Master

Messages: 121
Registered: May 2003
Location: NY, USA

Dark_Traveller wrote on Thu, 06 November 2003 15:31

I used to use ARM Constantly but the deeper(maybe smarter??) I got into Stars I found I could be just as effective with the standard Mining ships and Bots.

Pretty much how I was too. When I was a beginner I used to think that ARM was amazing because you could pull massive quantities of minerals off of planets. The points that I was losing in race design weren't really that important because I was only playing against the computer on low difficulty. However, when I began to learn more about the strategy of Stars! I began to see that those points would actually matter when I began playing against real opponents.

Now my strategy, as I said earlier, is to not do any mining until (if) my MT friend decides to give me his fancy robots. If I can get these then I am given an almost unending supply of minerals that can be transported to anywhere in your empire withing a few years. This makes mineral management a lot easier because the quantity available is no longer the limiting factor.

In games where I am not fortunate enough to get the alien miner, however, I choose not to remote mine because it is just not cost effective.

"Don't be so humble - you are not that great. " - Golda Meir (1898-1978) to a visiting diplomat

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Re: ARM, ORBM or neither?

Sun, 09 November 2003 11:11

Sotek

Chief Warrant Officer 2

Messages: 167
Registered: November 2002

ARM is useful for gateable miners.

If you're IT, this no longer applies.

ARM is useful for AR because of the two starting ships: Yes, those two ships really do make a huge difference to the mineral-starved AR.

If you're IT, you *might* go without OBRM to have miners. You should *never* take ARM as an IT. Not worth it.

Non-ITs have a tougher decision, but as this is the IT forum...

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Re: ARM, ORBM or neither?

Tue, 18 November 2003 01:51

Cirrus

Crewman 3rd Class

Messages: 6
Registered: November 2003

Remote mining is a good idea to put to work those planets you can't terraform, but as an Interstellar Traveller race, Advanced Remote Mining is just not worth the points.

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Re: ARM, ORBM or neither?

Thu, 27 November 2003 10:58

Staz

Lieutenant

Messages: 514
Registered: November 2003
Location: UK

I have always taken OBRM and done remote mining with hordes of mini-miners. Each can only get up to 8k per turn, but I have fleets of up to 100 of them.

I realise that this is inefficient, but it seems to work.

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Re: ARM, ORBM or neither?

Tue, 16 December 2003 04:18

alexdstewart

Chief Warrant Officer 2

Messages: 164
Registered: July 2003
Location: Brisbane, QLD.

I always held opinion that ARM is a MUST to take...

I hold this opinion no longer...

ARM does give you RM that are half the price BUT, you also need to balance this against natural tendency of other players to colonize "your" RM worlds. I go for con12 el8 RM that I have the ability to build in 40's at "planet sucker fleet" rate. Does wonders to your mineral supply and you'll get to suck ALOT of planets dry before conmpetion arrives. Twisted Evil

ARM RM are just to late to come in. Con12 el8 RM is roughly twice as expencive as planet mines but this is offset by the fact that the first planets you strip mine are mineral rich, in 16-20turns after you striped a planet, U can move on to the next one nearby and at this point your actual min/res ratio becomes progressively better than that of planet mines. Razz

The challenge then is to keep 'em RM alive for 20+ turns. Evil or Very Mad

In the Future there is only WAR...
Therefore our extinction is assured, it is just a matter of where and when.

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