This is a guide all about Mining and getting raw resources:
,
, and later
. Later in the game, this will help you with getting
, and eventually
, and
. The information on this page is current accurate as of the last closed Playtest before Early Access launch.
In order to avoid spoilers, the information will be presented over 3 sections:
- Early game (when you are in the first Robot tech tree, covered by the previous demos)
- Mid game (when some other tech trees are unlocked)
- End game (where all technologies are unlocked, and other secrets)
Basics
At the start of the game, you have access to two miners:
, and
. The latter is effectively a 2x speed up, at the same power cost for mining (with the except of
, where it's even better). You start off with 2x Laser Miners, and the ability to create additional Miners. These are all Small Components, so you have to fit them into Small sockets, which are generally easily accessible in the Early Game.
Early Game
Recommended Starter Blueprints
- + 1x
- + 2x
- + 1x
Replace any Miner with Laser Mining Tool.
Make sure to set the Store register so they will dump resources when full.
Explanation
The early game
s are great as Logistic Network bots or scouting explorables in early game, given their higher speed (4 vs 2 on workers) and extra space. The 1S building is especially cheap, and also buildings doesn't use Power. Until
s are unlocked, you're stuck with a limit of 500 Power. Make sure to build the buildings next to Rich Metal or Crystal Ore, so it takes a long time to exhaust. Early on, there should be more miners on Ore, as
s require a ton of Ore, but if you invest in solar power,
s will increase in demand.
Early Expansion
If you need access to more resources without robust remote power generation, it's easier to build out the Power Grid using a Small Power Field to reach further Metal deposits. For remote Crystal Mining, Crystal Power is a great component to always have power while you are far away from base, along with a Portable Power Field. There's plenty of Crystal everywhere, so don't worry too much about losing out on it.
Twinbot Blueprints
- + 2x
Explanation
Twinbots are the first bot to have two small sockets on a bot, so a single bot can mine twice as fast. For mining bots, if there are too many, they can block each other from getting to mining nodes, which will reduce mining efficiency. These bots will be great for early
mining, as you expand out from your base.
s are generally too slow, and overclocking doesn't make up for the loss in the second miner.
Re-simulator Blueprints
- + 2x
The last part of early game, is once you have built the
. A recipe in the Codex, shows that
s can be turned into
s by putting it in the Re-simulator, as long as you feed in a number of
s. The actual recipe is you need 5x Cubes for each recipe. Upgrading all the miners will be very important for future Mining missions.
Early Remote Mining Blueprints
- Miner bot: + 2x +
- Set Signal Reader register to the Foreman Bot.
- Link output of Signal Register to GOTO register.
- Set Miner registers to the resource.
- Set Home register to the Foreman bot.
- Foreman bot: + + + +
- Set GOTO register to one of the Miner bots. This keeps the foreman from standing next to an ore node.
- Set the Radar registers to: (1) Resource, and (2) (Optional) Mineable.
- Link output of Radar to Signal register.
- Power bot: + +
- Set GOTO/Home to the Foreman bot
You'll also need a Hauler to bring the materials back, but it won't be covered in this guide. The no-behavior hauler is just a
(or
) set as a Transport Route.
Explanation
To automate remote mining we need to solve the following problems:
- Being able to mine and find new patches (Radar on Foreman bot)
- Being able to bring the resource back home (Hauler transport route)
- Have enough power (Power bots)
- (Optional) Possibly avoid being attacked by bugs in Hostile mode (Would require behaviors)
The Miner bots work the same, but we will use the Signal reader to read where the newest resource is. You can link the resource to the Miner component, but it will cause all Miners to work on the same node, which may not be desired because of traffic jams. But if you manually set the resource, they will just mine whatever is in its visible range.
The Foreman bot's job is to find the nearest ore node. The radar allows us to find the closest one. The Optional filter looks for only Mineable, but generally it's also good to pick up dropped and loose resource while mining as well. The Radar has a radius of 30, so it can "see" pretty far.
The Power bot's job is to provide power to the swarm. The number you need depends on the size of the swarm. It's also possible to customize the number of Batteries/Solar Cells depending on size.
Here are the power costs:
- Miner bots costs 40 Power (10 for the bot, and 15 each per miner)
- Foreman bot costs 10 Power (10 for the bot, but radar occasionally uses 5).
- Power bots cost 10 Power (10 for the bot).
For Solar, you generate 50 per cell during the day, but generate 0 at night. For normal Day/Night lengths, it averages out to about 40 per day. But only if you have a battery to store the extra power. Generally, you'd want about one battery for two solar cells.
Power is difficult to solve early on, since you'll need a number of bots to provide enough power. If you run the 2x Miner bots + Foreman bot with 2x Solar cells, it can work at about 80% efficiency (100% during the day, and 0% at night). Adding a power bot (total of 3x Power + Battery, skipping the storage), you can probably bump that up to 90% efficiency. The battery won't make it through the night.
But really, what we need is a
. Either unlock the second tier tech tree, or find it in an explorable, and we can move onto the Mid Game.