Refiner-Class Mining Ship

Terry Mixon

Emperor Mongoose
It's been a while since I've posted a ship design, so I figured I'd start sharing my backlog with this one. The spreadsheet for it (and the rest of the ships I've designed) is linked in a word document in my signature below. I hacked the sheet a little as I didn't need the default mining drone processing equipment and took it, it's tonnage, and cost out to make room for the same tonnage of actual refining equipment.

I present the Refiner-Class Mining Ship.

If the Prospector-Class Mining ship is for the well-to-do miner, the enhanced Refiner-Class Mining Ship takes that to the next level. It comes with two sets of mining drones, but has replaced the default sorting equipment with an actual refinery, so this ship can produce far more than its plain cousin.

Rather than straight common ore, this one produces 50% common ore, 30% uncommon ore, 15% gems and crystals, and 5% precious metals. Where a ton of common ore might fetch Cr1,000, a ton of this mixture would bring Cr7,500. And as the ship can process 20 tons a day, that can quickly pay for the upgrades. The hold will take about 10 days to fill and the MCr1.5 value of the haul will more than make the payments and expenses even if you are jumping somewhere to mine and selling it elsewhere.1736047407429.png1736047846605.png
 
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Huh. And once again, someone here is thinking similarly (and/or in parallel) with one of my current projects. I'm currently working on something to carry out a similar role, although on a different scale - I've narrowed it down to a 10,000 ton mining/refining/smelting ship. (Yes, I know. Not really an adventure-class ship. This is more an industrial-scale operation.) I've also decided it would carry its own security, though - a quartet or 500 ton defense boats, which will also act as in-system refueling/skimmer boats and (likely) auxiliary sensor platforms for mineral scanning. (No sense in those expensive defensive boats sitting around waiting for a call that may never come, after all.)
 
Huh. And once again, someone here is thinking similarly (and/or in parallel) with one of my current projects. I'm currently working on something to carry out a similar role, although on a different scale - I've narrowed it down to a 10,000 ton mining/refining/smelting ship. (Yes, I know. Not really an adventure-class ship. This is more an industrial-scale operation.) I've also decided it would carry its own security, though - a quartet or 500 ton defense boats, which will also act as in-system refueling/skimmer boats and (likely) auxiliary sensor platforms for mineral scanning. (No sense in those expensive defensive boats sitting around waiting for a call that may never come, after all.)
I like the sound of that. If you boost the engine power, the system defense boats could ride externally and not take up precious interior space.

The smelter portion would add a lot to the cost and take up a lot of space. I considered adding it, but for a prospector, it just didn’t make sense. Not on the scale to handle the load in a timely manner. It almost needs to be a separate ship.

I have a 10,000 ton Imperialized version of the Allan Taorl Riftliner already designed. I’ll see about making some refining and smelting pods for it this afternoon.
 
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Updated version of a ship I made a few years back as sort of a port of the family mining ships from the First Bugger War in the Enderverse.

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Updated version of a ship I made a few years back as sort of a port of the family mining ships from the First Bugger War in the Enderverse.

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Nicely done. The only comments I have are that it seems a little lightly armed, and with a mineral refinery, you don't need the 5 tons of default processing equipment that comes with the drones. That space might be useful for other things.

The Robot Handbook has the rule for getting the drones without the processing equipment.

Five of these drones and their harnesses and processing equipment fit within 10 tons on a spacecraft; when sold as a set of five, the ore processing equipment and drone storage harnesses are included in the total drone pricing of MCr1. If the processing equipment is purchased separately, it consumes five tons and costs MCr0.2.

I tweaked a copy of the spreadsheet to remove the processing equipment tonnage. I also refunded the Cr200,000 for the processing equipment, but I probably should add that back in.
 
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Or figure out how to mark that capacity in the refinery section as already paid for.

I was looking at using the drones separately from the combination of laser drills and cargo nets, so that was added capacity.
 
Just remember that the default processing equipment only produces common ore. The refinery produces 50% common ore, 30% uncommon ore, 15% crystals & gems, and 5% precious metals. That's why I dumped the basic equipment.
 
Okay, I made some 400-ton pods for my 10,000-ton Taorl Riftliner-Class Merchant Tender (the design is posted in the forum but is more easily located with the word document in my signature) that can handle the mining and refining. The Taorl can handle 26 400-ton pods externally, so it can do more than one would expect.

For your convenience, I will share it here again.

To make the process work, one mining drone pod has more than enough mining drones to provide material to a single mineral refinery pod. The extras could help move product along with the eight cargo shuttles. The mineral refinery pod produces crystals & gems and precious metals that can be stored in the 12 cargo pods and the common and uncommon ore is shipped to the 8 smelter pods. 7.5 would be enough to process the output, but dropping one adds six days to the process. As it is, it can mine and refine a full load for the ship in 12 days and the smelting will wrap up after one more day.

With 1 mining drone pod, 1 mineral refinery pod, 8 smelting pods, and 12 cargo pods, that leaves 4 docking clamps for the four 400-ton system defense boats I'd added here to this.

The cost of the equipment:

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The expenses:

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The good news is that the average value of the 13 day processing run (leaving time to jump in and jump out in a month) is 77,025,000 credits.

I hope these help.

Taorl Riftliner-Class Merchant Tender (redesigned)

This Imperialized version of the Aslan Taorl Riftliner is a civilian tender that can haul 26 400-ton mixed pods of cargo, fuel, low passengers, or standard passengers. The rapid changeover of preprepared pods allow the ship to only spend between 26 and 31 hours from jumping into a system and jumping out. Its efficiency makes it a favorite of the lines that can afford it and the network they need to have servicing it.

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First up, the Mining Drone Pod.

Taorl Riftliner-Class Merchant Tender 400-Ton Mining Drone Pod

This is the 400-ton mining drone pod for the Imperialized version of the Aslan Taorl Riftliner. Can feed a mineral refinery pod with plenty of drones left over to help move refined ores and raw materials. Comes with 79 sets of mining drones (395 in total). Does not include the default processing equipment as those tasks are handled by the mineral refinery pod.1736104502931.png

Then we have the mineral refinery pod.

Taorl Riftliner-Class Merchant Tender 400-Ton Mineral Refinery Pod

This is the 400-ton mineral refinery pod for the Imperialized version of the Aslan Taorl Riftliner. It is capable of producing an average of 670 tons of refined ore a day with the raw materials being loaded in a five-ton airlock on one side and the finished product coming out a five-ton airlock on the other side once the work is complete. The finished products are moved by the ship's crew in one of the eight attached cargo shuttles with the help of spare mining drones.

The breakdown per day is approximately: 335 tons of common ore, 201 tons of uncommon ore, 100.5 tons of gems & crystals, and 33.5 tons of precious metals. The crystals & gems and the precious metals are stored as is but the ores are sent on to a smelter pod for further refining. It has a crew of seven refinery workers and one medic.

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And next comes the smelter pod.

Taorl Riftliner-Class Merchant Tender 400-Ton Smelter Pod

This is the 400-ton smelter pod for the Imperialized version of the Aslan Taorl Riftliner. It is capable of processing 71.4 tons of processed ore into 35.7 tons of raw materials. It takes 7.5 smelters to process the output of a single mineral refinery pod. There is no crew aboard but they can access the pod to perform maintinace. The refined ore is brought in through a five-ton airlock on one side and the raw materials come out a five-ton airlock on the other side once the work is complete. The finished product is moved by the ship's crew in one of the eight attached cargo shuttles with the assistance of spare mining drones.

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And the output is stored in cargo pods.

Taorl Riftliner-Class Merchant Tender 400-Ton Cargo Pod (redesigned)

A Mongoose 2e design. This is the 400-ton cargo pod for the Imperialized version of the Aslan Taorl Riftliner. Holds 395 tons of cargo.

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Since you said you needed system defense boats, and I have some 400-ton ones of my own design that fit right on the tender with the 400-ton pods, I present to you the Hammer System Defense Boats. If you sacrifice one of the 400-ton cargo pods, it can carry 4 500-ton boats. Or you can download the spreadsheets (link below) and add 400 tons to the adjusted tonnage on the tender without difficulty.


Hammer-Class System Defense Boat

I wanted something hard-hitting to defend a system and put together the Hammer-Class System Defense Boat. With its medium missile bay, it can throw two dozen missiles at a time and has eighteen reloads in the magazine. It comes with a pair of triple sandcaster turrets to provide some defense.

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I like the sound of that. If you boost the engine power, the system defense boats could ride externally and not take up precious interior space.

The smelter portion would add a lot to the cost and take up a lot of space. I considered adding it, but for a prospector, it just didn’t make sense. Not on the scale to handle the load in a timely manner. It almost needs to be a separate ship.

I have a 10,000 ton Imperialized version of the Allan Taorl Riftliner already designed. I’ll see about making some refining and smelting pods for it this afternoon.
The smelter is a large part of why I really consider 10k tons as about the lower end of what the size should be. Honestly, 20 to 50 k-tons is more appropriate... but that would be larger than would really be affordable for the economic niche I'm looking at. (Private mining company, probably fewer than fifty employees.) For the defense boats, I was planning on having them ride in docking clamps, but having all the ships be streamlined or partially streamlined - fuel skimming and planetary landings are possible, but not when the boats are docked to the mothership. Instead, they ride the mothership for jumps and to allow the boat crews R & R while on long deployments (expected deployments could be up to three months, if the run includes searching out deposits as well as mining/processing them). The mothership is thus rather luxurious for a mining ship - no gold-plated freshers, but very comfortable, more commons space than one would expect, and biosphere space as well - but this is regarded more as an investment by the company than as "luxury".

Edited to add: Perhaps I should clarify - the design I have in mind isn't really intended for the 3I. There's no reason it couldn't be used there, but I'm intending it for a homebrew campaign, something no more related to the 3I than Star Wars is to our galaxy. As a result, I'll be using different design choices than I would if I were putting this in the 3I - the primary armament for each of the defense boats, for example, will be a pair of small pulse laser bays (from JTAS 7), backed up with a trio of triple pulse laser turrets. Missile defense will be primarily sensor operators conducting EW, backed up by turret gunners if need be - turret guns are multirole, in this case. The mining ship itself will be unarmed, as it is not intended to actually participate in combat. (Probably not an optimal choice, but it's more a decision based on narrative than strategic min-maxing.)
 
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