Not Enough Rare Metals

[Pyrin1701]

I keep finding myself with a surplus of everything, but a lack of Rare Metals. It seems to me that with no permanent, unending supply of Rare Metals, that every colony is doomed to fail eventually. Shouldnt we be able to send back normal metals to Earth for money? Or even Food? Under these conditions I do not see how a colony can be indefinitely self sustaining, and if that's not achievable, then what's the point of even expanding to Mars? I realize the Molehole can supply rare metals indefinitely, but, is that really enough to keep such large colonies going on their own?

[TheTripleAce3]

If you have Blue Sun as a rival colony then you can last a longer time on shipping metals for cash and buying electronics, and there's a few other ways to get them. Nano-refinement is one of the best breakthroughs in the game for this reason.

[Pyrin1701]

Originally posted by TheTripleAce3:

If you have Blue Sun as a rival colony then you can last a longer time on shipping metals for cash and buying electronics, and there's a few other ways to get them. Nano-refinement is one of the best breakthroughs in the game for this reason.

What does nano-refinement do?

It just seems to me that with no endless supply of Rare Metals, your doomed to eventually run out to supplies and money for supplies.

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Originally posted by CrazyCatDog:

Originally posted by TheTripleAce3:

If you have Blue Sun as a rival colony then you can last a longer time on shipping metals for cash and buying electronics, and there's a few other ways to get them. Nano-refinement is one of the best breakthroughs in the game for this reason.

What does nano-refinement do?

It just seems to me that with no endless supply of Rare Metals, your doomed to eventually run out to supplies and money for supplies.

Nanorefinement breakthrough makes extractors continue working when their deposit is exhausted.

[Ericus1]

The late-game wonder Mohole mine provides an unlimited source of rares and metal, and nano-refinement allows all resources to continue producing after they become exhausted, so in essence they become unlimited too.

[Pyrin1701]

Originally posted by Ericus1:

The late-game wonder Mohole mine provides an unlimited source of rares and metal, and nano-refinement allows all resources to continue producing after they become exhausted, so in essence they become unlimited too.

Oh nice, I'll have to look out for that one in the research tree

[some moron]

Yeah you keep saying things that are wrong. You are saying there is no endless rare, but you are wrong the molehill provides that. Perhaps what you mean is that there aren't ENOUGH unlimited rare.
You keep saying it needs to be a large colony and that is wrong.
I've never felt the need for more than four domes. That's plenty of rare.
Do you know about tourists? You keep saying you NEED rare but you do not. Just buy electronics. Please stop saying so many things that are simply wrong. Think about what you are saying before you type it, maybe that's your problem. Thank you.

[SkiRich]

Originally posted by Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia:

Originally posted by CrazyCatDog:

What does nano-refinement do?

It just seems to me that with no endless supply of Rare Metals, your doomed to eventually run out to supplies and money for supplies.

Nanorefinement breakthrough makes extractors continue working when their deposit is exhausted.

*** Caveat - yes it does, but at a fraction of the output. I would go so far as to say, unless you have automation tech for the rare metal extractors then that small fraction is not worth the upkeep of a people run nearby dome and resources.
If you have automation then you can move that dome and people, or collapse it altogether and just use transports to move the metals you do get back to someplace else.

[SkiRich]

Originally posted by CrazyCatDog:

I keep finding myself with a surplus of everything, but a lack of Rare Metals. It seems to me that with no permanent, unending supply of Rare Metals, that every colony is doomed to fail eventually. Shouldnt we be able to send back normal metals to Earth for money? Or even Food? Under these conditions I do not see how a colony can be indefinitely self sustaining, and if that's not achievable, then what's the point of even expanding to Mars? I realize the Molehole can supply rare metals indefinitely, but, is that really enough to keep such large colonies going on their own?

The answer is ... It depends on how much rare metal you need.
If you can get your requirements for rare metals down to what comes out of the moholes, then you are good to go. If you are playing vanilla, then you can only build small colonies for long term sandbox, since the larger the colony the more rare metals you need.

If you play with a few mods, then this is of no consequence.
- My Deposit Auto Refill Mod give you endless resources. (Controllable)
- My NASA Mission Sponsor allows for more than one MoHole.

[Ericus1]

Eh, late game human capital is plentiful. I keep tons of mines running.

[TheTripleAce3]

Originally posted by SkiRich:

If you play with a few mods, then this is of no consequence.
- My Deposit Auto Refill Mod give you endless resources. (Controllable)
- My NASA Mission Sponsor allows for more than one MoHole.

I didn't know about the deposit refill thing, glad I checked this thread again.

[Pyrin1701]

Originally posted by SkiRich:

Originally posted by CrazyCatDog:

I keep finding myself with a surplus of everything, but a lack of Rare Metals. It seems to me that with no permanent, unending supply of Rare Metals, that every colony is doomed to fail eventually. Shouldnt we be able to send back normal metals to Earth for money? Or even Food? Under these conditions I do not see how a colony can be indefinitely self sustaining, and if that's not achievable, then what's the point of even expanding to Mars? I realize the Molehole can supply rare metals indefinitely, but, is that really enough to keep such large colonies going on their own?

The answer is ... It depends on how much rare metal you need.
If you can get your requirements for rare metals down to what comes out of the moholes, then you are good to go. If you are playing vanilla, then you can only build small colonies for long term sandbox, since the larger the colony the more rare metals you need.

If you play with a few mods, then this is of no consequence.
- My Deposit Auto Refill Mod give you endless resources. (Controllable)
- My NASA Mission Sponsor allows for more than one MoHole.

Can you build more then one mohole?

Sorry, read that further. So I need a mod to make more then one mohole? Okay, that's fine though it doesnt make sense to me why in the base game we're allowed only one. Realistically you should be able to put moholes all over the planet, within a reasonable safe distance of each other.

[SkiRich]

Originally posted by CrazyCatDog:

Originally posted by SkiRich:

The answer is ... It depends on how much rare metal you need.
If you can get your requirements for rare metals down to what comes out of the moholes, then you are good to go. If you are playing vanilla, then you can only build small colonies for long term sandbox, since the larger the colony the more rare metals you need.

If you play with a few mods, then this is of no consequence.
- My Deposit Auto Refill Mod give you endless resources. (Controllable)
- My NASA Mission Sponsor allows for more than one MoHole.

Can you build more then one mohole?

Sorry, read that further. So I need a mod to make more then one mohole? Okay, that's fine though it doesnt make sense to me why in the base game we're allowed only one. Realistically you should be able to put moholes all over the planet, within a reasonable safe distance of each other.

You can only build one in vanilla.
Thats why my sponsor allows for multiple wonders. You do need to play as NASA to get it. There are bunch of other freebies that get unlocked if you also take the NASA 2k Commander.

If the sponsor thing is too much there is a mod in the workshop that allows for multiple wonders., although I dont use it.

Yeah mohole is one of those that seemed to me should be allowed to build multiple times.
Just remember you need to do something with all that surplus metal byproduct.

Lots of solar panel fields with zero tribby scrubbers will do it. All metal maintenance. You can also trade them away.

[Tryst49]

If you don't have enough rare metals, that is more likely a problem of lack of workers in the mines than a lack of resources. I used a mod to have automated mines and had one single rare metals mine going, it gave me 3x more rare metals than I could use in a year, even after selling half of them to pay for outsourced research, which resulted in researching over half the research that is available to start out.

After deep scanning the entire map, I had 3 more places where rare metals mines could have been put.

[kbmodigity]

Originally posted by CrazyCatDog:

Originally posted by SkiRich:

The answer is ... It depends on how much rare metal you need.
If you can get your requirements for rare metals down to what comes out of the moholes, then you are good to go. If you are playing vanilla, then you can only build small colonies for long term sandbox, since the larger the colony the more rare metals you need.

If you play with a few mods, then this is of no consequence.
- My Deposit Auto Refill Mod give you endless resources. (Controllable)
- My NASA Mission Sponsor allows for more than one MoHole.

Can you build more then one mohole?

Sorry, read that further. So I need a mod to make more then one mohole? Okay, that's fine though it doesnt make sense to me why in the base game we're allowed only one. Realistically you should be able to put moholes all over the planet, within a reasonable safe distance of each other.

One Mohole is more than enough. You can upgrade it 3 times. Each upgrade makes it give more metal and rares per day. Without upgrading it at all I have more metal than I know what to do with. With rares i make enough to keep 3 electronics factories fully staffed running with no problem AND have 3 shuttles that go non stop from mars to earth just making me money.

[Pyrin1701]

I cannot seem to find this Nano-Refinement project. My mines keep running out of materials, and the single Mohole is not enough to keep me afloat anymore. Even fully upgraded it only outputs 32 rare metals a cycle.

I've also noticed that the bigger your colony gets, the more game glitches you see. I have buildings inside domes claiming they dont have power when I'm producing 600 units more then I'm using. I've had some building highlight a building halfway across the map when I click on them cus it's the same type of building. It's starting to make me feel like this game is still far from finished, there is a lot of end game polishing that needs to be done yet. I have drones doing nothing while the drone load is high in some areas, and the range the drones will bring stuff from Universal Depots seems to be getting smaller and smaller the further I make the shuttles fly resources. :(