Questions about Shuttles

[psionyx]

Ok so, my dome in a playthrough is nowhere near a regular metal deposit, so I'm trying to figure out what my options are for gathering the resource, and I've yet to use shuttles. Sadly the encyclopedia about them is very lacking in details, so I have questions.

If I set up a shuttle hub near my main colony, is it possible to have them simply fly people out to work at the excavation site way out there? I'm not talking about building a second dome near the site, but simply having them literally commute to work at the excavation site, via the shuttle, and then return at the end of their shift. Does the game even allow that?

[Kai Heilos]

Colonists will only work within the radius around their dome. No traveling past that or inside other domes.

Simply put, no.

[Name Lips]

Yeah, you need to put a dome near it with just enough housing/services for the miners.

[psionyx]

Damn, I was kind of afraid of that. Guess I'll keep porting metal from earth in exchange for rare metals until I get a better dome design.

[Magistar]

Also shuttles are terrible at cargo delivery. They cost 1 fuel to fly and then they bring 3 concrete. Imagine building a 150 concrete dome. With 4-6 shuttles this takes forever.

Easiest way is to go out with the commander and construct a universal depot. Then setup trade routes with transport RC to get resources flowing to construct your new dome. Or simply land a new rocket next to it..

Alternatively you can create a network of overlapping drone hubs and put universal depots in between. Then you will get an automated resource flow. However the downside is that the game will spread out all your resources. So when you end up with 10 hubs like I did then having 40 electronics means there is 10x 2 electronics and somewhere a little pile of 20. Also you need a LOT of drones. But if you have enough resources it kind of works.

[lordofevil2000]

You can use your transport vehicles to pick up metal from rocks on the surface.

[Kai Heilos]

10 hubs and a multitude of wasted resources sitting in between them sounds a lot less inefficient that building a single shuttle hub. Plus you can upgrade them to carry 6 items and fuel is basically free.

[Magistar]

Originally posted by Kai Heilos:

10 hubs and a multitude of wasted resources sitting in between them sounds a lot less inefficient that building a single shuttle hub. Plus you can upgrade them to carry 6 items and fuel is basically free.

It's a sunk cost of 20-30 units. Cheaper then most buildings. But the main disadvantage is that it is slow. For a quick reaction you need to manually intervene with transport.

Fuel costs a lot of watter IMO. And water is scarce, just depleted my first depot.

How many shuttles are you recommending?

[Kai Heilos]

I have a single hub with 10 shuttles that can carry 6 items each. Also has a 33% speed increase tech and it works pretty well.

Fuel costs 1 water, which is covered by a single Vaporator. (My current vaporaters are upgraded to supply 2.5 water each ^.^)

[Aieonae]

Shuttles are mainly use for maintaince supply runs for me and they rarely even fly unless a rocket landed.

[psionyx]

Originally posted by Exchequer:

Also shuttles are terrible at cargo delivery. They cost 1 fuel to fly and then they bring 3 concrete. Imagine building a 150 concrete dome. With 4-6 shuttles this takes forever.

I don't have an issue getting supplies there to build a dome, that's not the issue. I'm trying to find a way to get people there without having to build another dome next to the metal.

Originally posted by lordofevil2000:

You can use your transport vehicles to pick up metal from rocks on the surface.

Yes I know that, I'm talking about an actual deep deposit of metal to keep my dome maintained with supplies to make mechanical/electronic parts for upkeep.

The closest metal deposit is so far away from my current dome, that if I bite the bullet and build a second dome, I'm just going to have to pipe the water to keep it alive from 3 sectors over, which is what I'm trying to avoid.

What I was hoping to accomplish, is to have a way to take workers from Dome A, to the site, let them work, and then bring them back to Dome A once their shift is over. Building a Dome B means I have to re-establish the entire system, and I don't want to do it in that location. It's very isolated and it would be a pain.

I'm contemplating just making a new dome (when I get the better types) somewhere else entirely and just shutting the first one down

[Azunai]

there's a breakthrough tech to automate extractors. if you're lucky you might roll that tech and could just run automated extractors in remote locations. may have to plop down a drone hub and some local powerplants to run the hub and mine, but the shuttles should be able to provide missing materials for maintenance and pick up the metal from there.

other than that - there's usually quite a lot of metal lying around on the surface, so get an RC transport if you don't have one yet and collect that stuff first.