Annatar Giftbringer
Emperor Mongoose
Greetings,
I started reading about belting, and accumulated a couple questions... Potentially stupid questions... But here goes:
1) First of all, just to be sure, when Beltstrike talks about tons, is this metric or displacement? I'd assume dtons, but on page 4 it speaks of metric tons and size of asteroids, and after that it's just tons. Asteroid Size and yield on page 7 tells us how many % of an asteroid's mass is worth mining for instance.
2) Mining Drones. The major difference between main book "Mining Drones, 10 ton" and Beltstrike's individual drone is the level of detail the players want when playing, yes?
3) The Extraction addon for mining drones. Can a drone without it only be used for prospecting?
4) Cargo Drone. this one is connected to 1 above, can the cargo drone carry 20 dtons or 02 metric tons?
6) Page 7 mentions a "Mining exo-skeleton", a piece of gear not mentioned again. I picture something along the lines of the loader from Aliens, but should it be viewed as something required in order to extract ore manually, or as a tool for improving manual mining?
7) More of an observation than a question, but assuming that 1 does indeed talk of dtons, it seems to me most belting ships would spend more time travelling and selling than actually mining? The 10 ton drone package mines 1d6x10 tons per day, and most belting ships appear to be small, meaning they fill their entire cargo hold in one day. The only configuration that requires more time out by the asteroid than travelling or in port seems to be a solo miner working manually, and even then they could realistically mine 4-6 tons a day (Work 6 hours, rest 6, work 6, rest 6).
Using the individual drones from Beltstrike would yield similar results, since the space and money required for Main book drones means room for a lot of individual drones.
Or, would each drone require a dedicated operator? Beltstrike hints that a drone can work in auto-mode, but if each drone needs someone to remotely control it all the time, then I can see it taking longer to fill the hold unless the ship has a large crew, and there'd still be a use for manual labour too, to help speed up the process.
8) Are special ship sensors required for prospecting, and/or does regular penalties apply, such as -2dm for civilian sensors?
9) Larger asteroids require multiple scans, these could be done simultaneously right? If a mining ship carries a cutter, or a couple of mining drones? Using the 'standard program package' a number of drones might even be able to auto-prospect potential asteroids while the players are asleep?
I started reading about belting, and accumulated a couple questions... Potentially stupid questions... But here goes:
1) First of all, just to be sure, when Beltstrike talks about tons, is this metric or displacement? I'd assume dtons, but on page 4 it speaks of metric tons and size of asteroids, and after that it's just tons. Asteroid Size and yield on page 7 tells us how many % of an asteroid's mass is worth mining for instance.
2) Mining Drones. The major difference between main book "Mining Drones, 10 ton" and Beltstrike's individual drone is the level of detail the players want when playing, yes?
3) The Extraction addon for mining drones. Can a drone without it only be used for prospecting?
4) Cargo Drone. this one is connected to 1 above, can the cargo drone carry 20 dtons or 02 metric tons?
6) Page 7 mentions a "Mining exo-skeleton", a piece of gear not mentioned again. I picture something along the lines of the loader from Aliens, but should it be viewed as something required in order to extract ore manually, or as a tool for improving manual mining?
7) More of an observation than a question, but assuming that 1 does indeed talk of dtons, it seems to me most belting ships would spend more time travelling and selling than actually mining? The 10 ton drone package mines 1d6x10 tons per day, and most belting ships appear to be small, meaning they fill their entire cargo hold in one day. The only configuration that requires more time out by the asteroid than travelling or in port seems to be a solo miner working manually, and even then they could realistically mine 4-6 tons a day (Work 6 hours, rest 6, work 6, rest 6).
Using the individual drones from Beltstrike would yield similar results, since the space and money required for Main book drones means room for a lot of individual drones.
Or, would each drone require a dedicated operator? Beltstrike hints that a drone can work in auto-mode, but if each drone needs someone to remotely control it all the time, then I can see it taking longer to fill the hold unless the ship has a large crew, and there'd still be a use for manual labour too, to help speed up the process.
8) Are special ship sensors required for prospecting, and/or does regular penalties apply, such as -2dm for civilian sensors?
9) Larger asteroids require multiple scans, these could be done simultaneously right? If a mining ship carries a cutter, or a couple of mining drones? Using the 'standard program package' a number of drones might even be able to auto-prospect potential asteroids while the players are asleep?