This is a guide all about Mining and getting raw resources: Crystal Chunk, Metal Ore, and later Silica. Later in the game, this will help you with getting Blight Crystal, and eventually Laterite, and Obsidian. 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: Miner, and Laser Mining Tool. The latter is effectively a 2x speed up, at the same power cost for mining (with the except of Crystal Chunk, 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
In the early game, once the command center is placed, it's easy to use 2 Scouts for mining. The tutorial will suggest making more Workers to fir additional mining instead.
An early tip is to actually place a 1x1 (1S) building down, since it has a Small socket and 4 inventory slots, and use it to mine. The advantage is that buildings don't require power, and it's not like it needs to move that much, and has a lot more inventory space compared to a Worker. The best place is to put a Laser Miner on a building adjacent to a rich Metal Ore vein (in the early game, you'll need a lot more Metal than Crystal). Then it should last the entirety of the early game. Also, a 1S building costs way less materials than a Worker bot as well. You will also be limited by the initial 500 power until you research Solar Cells.
Early on, to get ready to ramp up production, 6 miners on Metal Ore is good (e.g. 2x Miners + 2x Laser Mining Tools), along with 3 miners on Crystal. Things will be adjusted based on what you are producing. Solar Cells are quite Crystal heavy, whereas buildings are Ore heavy.
Early Expansion
If you need access to more Crystal or Ore, early on, without robust power transmittion, 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.
Twinbots
Once Twinbots are unlocked, we gain access to two small sockets on a bot, so one bot can mine twice as fast. For bots that are mining, if you have more than 3 bots mining, sometimes they block each other, and will reduce your mining efficiency. With Twinbots, you need fewer bots, so that will also reduce blockage. These bots will be great for early Silica mining, as you expand out from your base.
As for Cubs they are quite slow with one medium socket. If we put a Miner in a Medium socket, we get access to Overclocking. Overclocking increases the efficiency of the component by 50% (as long as the socket is larger), and also increases the power consumption by 50%. For Miners, this means they work at 50% faster, and costs 25 power instead of 15. Generally, a Cub isn't better than a Twinbot for mining, since Miners are cheap to make.
The last part of early game, is once you have built the Re-simulator. A recipe in the Codex, shows that Miners can be turned into Laser Mining Tools by putting it in the Re-simulator, as long as you feed in a number of Robotics Data Cubes. The actual recipe is you need 5x Cubes for each transformation. Upgrading all the miners will be very important for future Mining missions.