DRONES & RESOURCE DELIVERY | AUTO-ASSIGNING PLANETS
Resources
Resources are the essential building blocks of all facilities, ships and technology. You need resources to build new ships and facilities and to perform research and espionage. Resources are mined from non-habitable worlds (including stars and nebula) and are delivered back to a habitable world for processing via drones. The primary resources are: | Crystals |
 | Energy |
 | Gases |
 | Raw Metals |
 | Radioactives |
All solar systems with habitable worlds initially have a planet that can be mined for these resources - they are exceptionally abundant. There are also several more rare elements that can only be found in select locations in any given universe. These resources include (but are not limited to):
 | Organics |
Depending on the type of server you are competing on, you will start with a different amount of minerals already on your home world. You will need to have a constant flow of new resources delivered to your habitable world. This is accomplished with mining drones.
Moving resources from remote planets to your home world is a three part process.
- After being conquered, the remote mining planet needs to be assigned to the closest habitable world.
- Mines need to be built on the surface of the remote planet. It may take several turns for the mines to be constructed. Once they are built, mines begin producing minerals immediately. The minerals stockpile on the surface of the remote planet waiting to be picked-up by drones.
- Drones need to be assigned to the mining planet. Drones run back-and-forth endlessly picking up resources sitting on the remote planet surface and deliver them back to the assigned habitable world.
Several factors determine how quickly minerals are delivered from your remote mining planets to your habitable worlds: a) distance from the assigned habitable world, b) number of drones assigned to that mining planet and c) the speed of your drones. You have total control over (b) and (c).
The optimum configuration is one in which an equal number of minerals are being removed from the mining planet as are being mined each turn. For example, let's assume that drone thrust has not been upgraded at all. If you build 100 mines on a planet that is a distance of five from the habitable world it is assigned to, you would want to assign 500 drones to that planet. Each round, 100 units of a given resource will be mined and 100 drones will arrive at the planet to pickup minerals for delivery back to your habitable world.
The in-game drone assignment screen helps you optimize your assignments by clearly showing you how many resources would be delivered based on the three factors (mentioned above).
Tip! You initially start with 5000 drones. To build more, simply assign more drones than you presently have built and new ones will be constructed (assuming you have enough resources) to meet your need.
Users who are members have access to a special utility allowing you to quickly auto-assign all of the planets under your control to the closest respective habitable world.
You can select to rearrange all of your planets which will optimize your assignments by redirecting all of your mining planets to the closest habitable world. Or, you can select to reassign only the planets that are currently unassigned in Star Command.
There is a checkbox, also, that allows you to choose whether your Star Command will appear fully expanded (which allows you to see the results of the arrangement) or whether it should collapse everything after the reorganization is complete.
RESOURCES | DRONES & RESOURCE DELIVERY | AUTO-ASSIGNING PLANETS
