Larger Miners or Smaller?

[Bogart]

I've finally got some cash to play with, about 6 mil and growing and was just wondering how I should expand my mining / trading fleet. Right now I can get about 15 new ships (5 mineral miners, 5 gas miners, 5 transporters) but those will all have around 10-12k capacity each (as does my current mining/trading fleet of 15). This would essentially double the size of my fleet but I have also seen that I can buy single mining ships that cost much more, around 2.5 mil but have a capacity of 50k.

I'm just wondering is it better to have a larger fleet of smaller capacity ships or a smaller fleet with larger capacity? I'm a little concerned that if I buy a 50k capacity miner it won't be able to sell all its goods as often the demand for minerals runs out and takes a little while to go back up.

I'm also doing all my selling (for the miners) manually at the moment as they are mining and selling ice in Windfall Summit I so I really want to introduce some automation (I have 19 VIG rep and have heard once it gets to 20 I can sell them banned minerals).

[Wraith]

location and what resource your mining is important
Another thing is demand.

Typically I like to do a mix size fleet of miners.
As that give better docking potential then having a fleet of L miners when trading with AI stations

If your mining ice or gasses you don't have to worry about the Kha'ak (unless they run into you by chance)
Ore and Silicon require more consideration of where your mining and to make sure there isn't a hive/outpost influencing that sector if there is one it best to have L miners mine those spot unless your willing to kill the hive/outpost which will then free you to mine there for a significant amount of time.

[Bogart]

Originally posted by Wraith:

location and what resource your mining is important
Another thing is demand.

Typically I like to do a mix size fleet of miners.
As that give better docking potential then having a fleet of L miners when trading with AI stations

If your mining ice or gasses you don't have to worry about the Kha'ak (unless they run into you by chance)
Ore and Silicon require more consideration of where your mining and to make sure there isn't a hive/outpost influencing that sector if there is one it best to have L miners mine those spot unless your willing to kill the hive/outpost which will then free you to mine there for a significant amount of time.

Thanks. I decided to get my first L ship miner and wow it's really something else. I'm literally on board right now (docked my Mako to it) and am going to watch it work. There is demand for 100k Ore in a close by sector so I decided to try out the L miner. :)

[Wraith]

Originally posted by Bogart Porter Bridges:

Thanks. I decided to get my first L ship miner and wow it's really something else. I'm literally on board right now (docked my Mako to it) and am going to watch it work. There is demand for 100k Ore in a close by sector so I decided to try out the L miner. :)

careful where you watch your miners mine
I like watching miners mine to but some sector have tons of dead asteroid and that can ruin the IS mining.

Cough Cough Argon prime, Antigone 2nd contact

[LeftPaw]

I go with med. something fast enough to get to safety but at the same time can take a few hits in order to allow it's escort time to get stuck in. As we know any escort takes pictures before engaging.

[Lazarus Long]

I usually start with M ships as miners but switch to L ships as soon as I can so I don't have to worry about Kha'ak killing them off. If they have a long way to travel I will use Paranid ships for speed and have they have a short way to travel I'll use Teladi or Argon ships for capacity.

[Bogart]

Originally posted by Wraith:

Originally posted by Bogart Porter Bridges:

Thanks. I decided to get my first L ship miner and wow it's really something else. I'm literally on board right now (docked my Mako to it) and am going to watch it work. There is demand for 100k Ore in a close by sector so I decided to try out the L miner. :)

careful where you watch your miners mine
I like watching miners mine to but some sector have tons of dead asteroid and that can ruin the IS mining.

Cough Cough Argon prime, Antigone 2nd contact

Thanks. It's been flying around for a while now but hasn't mined anything. I gave it 5 mining drones, 4 collecting drones, and 1 repair drone. Any idea of what's going on?

[Wraith]

mining laser?
that a common mistake

[Bogart]

Originally posted by Wraith:

mining laser?
that a common mistake

I tried watching out for that but it can't have a Weapons. I'm sending it back to the shipyard now to get a mining turret added. I missed that when speccing it xD

[Kalisa]

it really depends on the situation for me but i usually tend to stick to large miners by mid game, they are usually far better then medium if they dont need to travel far or rather direct routes, mediums are great if u want more nimble ships, I find medium miners are actually great for ore haulers between stations though, espically if near the highway systems.

My usual mining station setup would be like 3-4 large mining ships attached to a mining station in the sector they mine at, and then a bunch of medium ships selling said ore to factions or hauling to my other stations, this model often ships abit by mid game or later, but works really well when selling stuff to npc stations.
I'll use large mining ships for ore hauling usually only if its directly to my own stations so i know they will be full most of the time, and the route is effecient for them.

[LeftPaw]

I know it's not about size but I have found the gas miners to be more lucrative.

[DaBa]

Large miners are significantly more expensive to build than medium and small ones. Small ones can carry very little ore and you will have to build A LOT of them if you want to get good results.

Medium miners are in my experience the perfect medium ground between both:

- They are faster than small miners and more manouverable than big ones which really helps with mining, navigating asteroid fields, dock and undock faster and so on.

- They also don't have to deal with travel engine spool up time that all big ships have, they also accelerate to their max travel mode speed faster than the big ships. Even though in theory medium miners will have lower max travel speed, in practice all of this makes them get from place to place faster (mostly due to ai piloting quirks).

- They can effectively run away from pirate harassment, especially the big SCA ships

- They are significantly more cost-efficient than large ships.


I use exclusively medium miners. Their only drawback is that they die very easily to Khaak, but that's not a problem if you take a proactive approach and blow up their stations. I would only build big miners if money was no longer an issue, having less ships to manage is a good thing in general and added survivability can help. But if you just want to get them to power your economy or make you money, medium miners all the way.

[Kalisa]

I wouldnt say M miners are significantly more cost effective, they are alittle more cost effective for cargo to cost though, it really depends on the situation, L miners strengths are they are more defended (not the reason i really use them) and they mine faster then a medium miner, but they really suffer in their speed, usually about half as fast or 1/3 as fast as an M miner, M miners are better if that speed is utilized better or if theres highway access, L miners do really well if they are dropping off in the same sector thay are mining or just 1 sector over.
As for cost, a well fit L miner is about 5-6 million, a well fit M miner is about 1.5 million, most of the time a M miner hauls about 1/3 to 1/4 of their races L miner.
Miners are also more relliant on good crew and captains, so if u only have afew high level captains it may be worth giving them a larger ship, and then giving your less skilled captains the mediums.

If your starting out though or your fleet is still small, mediums are usually a better bang for your buck, espically when dealing with rep, smaller cargo means more trips, more trips means more rep for same amount of goods.

[DaBa]

Originally posted by Kalisa:

I wouldnt say M miners are significantly more cost effective, they are alittle more cost effective for cargo to cost though, it really depends on the situation, L miners strengths are they are more defended (not the reason i really use them) and they mine faster then a medium miner, but they really suffer in their speed, usually about half as fast or 1/3 as fast as an M miner, M miners are better if that speed is utilized better or if theres highway access, L miners do really well if they are dropping off in the same sector thay are mining or just 1 sector over.
As for cost, a well fit L miner is about 5-6 million, a well fit M miner is about 1.5 million, most of the time a M miner hauls about 1/3 to 1/4 of their races L miner.
Miners are also more relliant on good crew and captains, so if u only have afew high level captains it may be worth giving them a larger ship, and then giving your less skilled captains the mediums.

If your starting out though or your fleet is still small, mediums are usually a better bang for your buck, espically when dealing with rep, smaller cargo means more trips, more trips means more rep for same amount of goods.

I never give my miners the best equipment though, it's a waste of money. All the miner really needs is mk1 everything, minimum requires software and crew, no turrets beyond mining ones, and maybe mk2 engines if we're talking about slower miner ships like Bolo. That's how you make medium miners cost effective. It is not worth it to splurge extra on them, why would they need mk3 shields or thrusters, or even mk3 engines, where you can just buy more of them for the same money?

To give you an actual numbers comparison: Argon Drill M miner outfitted in this manner costs around 250k. a large miner from Argon: Magnetar, outfitted in the same fashion costs around 2.6 MILLION. You can buy 10 Drills for this price. A single magnetar can only carry as much as 4 drills can, meaning drills are more than 2 times as cost efficient considering cargo alone, not even considering all the other advantages I have listed. So no, they are not "a little more cost efficient" they are MASSIVELY more cost efficient.

Even if you factor in some attrition you might experience from things like Khaak, it's still hard to argue one is an undeniably more efficient option if you are looking to maximize the bang you get for your buck. Large miners really are only worth it if you really need them to be safe, for example if you want to mine in a sector that likes to get attacked by xenon and cannot secure it any other way. But even that is kinda questionable, since large miners like to fall prey to SCA pillager ships because they cannot really run away from them, and losing even a single miner to them sucks a lot. Medium ships can literally ignore anybody who harasses them and speed away unscatched, everything besides khaak who shoot before they ask any questions.

[Wraith]

you can also mine stuff that doesn't attract kha'ak making those M miners even more efficient

[Kalisa]

that drill also needs to do 4.5 runs to equal 1 magnetar run. AI also spends allot of time in between orders as dead time which adds up, this is really bad if its a low skilled captain, which if ur running 10 ships compared to 1, and most likely are running low skilled, and its not a 10:1 cost wise, its closer to an 9:1 or an 8:1 if ur going minimal loadouts for the magnetar to drill specifically. so that cost effective gap is not nearly as big as it seems when you count in dead time for the ship and needing to do so many more runs, and when you start getting to large scale mining operations, you really dont want to be relying on a factor increase of ships to do a near similar job.

But overall allot comes down to crew/pilot level, there was testing on the forums awhile back, and a 3 star was about 4x more effecient then a 1 star, and a 5 star was about 55% more effecient then the 3 star.
in general, if you had your drills with 2 star crew average, then it would take around 15 drills to equal 1 magnetar with 4-5 star crew in math effeciency, getting allot 4-5 star captains is a hell of allot harder. but this is more mid game focus. and this is all based in a vaccume, its not that good directly since mediums do travel faster. but its much closer value at that point when dealing with skilled crew vs unskilled.

Medium is good early game, and if u need to focus on rep or fast trades, or needing that speed, but in general large mining ships are a much better long term investment, its also very easy to lose afew medium ships to a quick spawn khaak in early/mid game, a baseline drill wouldnt stand a chance, a baseline magnetar at least wont take any damage.
I dont recommend L miners to selling to factions, but L miners mining for your station is amazing. Also needing less ships is also really nice for long term game performance.

also T2 mining drills effect the efficency by about 25% compared to T1, up to you if thats worth the increased cost.