[ShadowWolf_IH]

Instead of landing in the hangar bay, what are the chances of hollowing out on the center sections?  And having the hsuttles come in through the top?  That way the shuttles have room to turn around?  It allows an easy drop off point in the center, and keeps the shuttles in the hangar from getting crowded by ice.

[TrashMan]

[StratComm]

Trashman, what's up with the random Nav Bouy texture?

I may take a stab at this too.  TM has a nice take for starters, but there's a whole lot of hull there for a ship that should have minimal crew and weapons.

[TrashMan]

I like it.... accept the fact allready that I use thattexture on most models:D

As for the explanation of hte upper pic:

Shadowwolf requested a destroyer-sized mining vessel.
Teh ship has 8 water tanks that are separate subobjects and destroyable. Allso the 4 cargo container like thingies  are ment to be something liek the storage/procesing sections, while the center section is hte hangar/refinement section. Crew quaters are the forward section.

I haven't added no turrets yt, since I'm still not shure if this will be the final design - thus suggestions and comments plase..

I'm thinking of perhaps making hte central and forward sections bigger

[ShadowWolf_IH]

If we are going to use that bay for both shuttle retreival, we need to make it bigger.....i am thinking that the shuttles would be about the size of a small freighter, and when tugging ice around.....maybe a little bigger.

[mikhael]

Its funny, but I've got a mining vessel around here somewhere. Far less "warship" like than Trashman's, and far more utilitarian. Of course, its a little one or two man thing.

It was originally built in Lego, but became my second major 3d project (in Truespace no less!). I ought to convert that to LW, clean it up and release it.

[TrashMan]

Originally posted by ShadowWolf_IH
If we are going to use that bay for both shuttle retreival, we need to make it bigger.....i am thinking that the shuttles would be about the size of a small freighter, and when tugging ice around.....maybe a little bigger.

Will make hte bay (the whiole middle section actually) bigger and add another one somewhere:D

[Pnakotus]

Mining asteroids?  Cause you always need more iron, carbon and silicates!  Oh wait...

Do it the efficient way - the Asimov way.  Take one large elemental furnace, place it near a bunch of oh-so-valuable rocks (heh).  Use smaller craft - landing pods, whatever - to nudge the rocks towards the refinery.  Rocks enter the processor and get split into their various (worthless) component elements, to be picked up later.  Missing is impossible: you'd have to be a complete moron to compute the thrust wrong.  None of this complicated manned landing-on or working-near dangerous asteroid fields.  After boosting the rocks, the landing pods can be reused, no humans need go anywhere near it, and it can be totally automated.  Course, you won't be building dick or squat out of ice, silicates and iron, but that never stopped HW2 mods right?  Using such a system, you could suck up your average maps worth of asteroids with a single refinery and perhaps a dozen utility vessels, so long as noone notices them.  Why pick up little bits of rock when the laws of motion make it a simple matter to launch the whole rock into the refinery?

And Death Star?  Mining tool?  AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  Deary me.

[karajorma]

You do realise that dense asteroid fields of the sort where that might work are something that only exists in science fiction anyway?

Any field dense enough to do what you're suggesting would have simply accreted into one big asteroid due to gravity long ago.

[Wanderer]

How about deep space mining with engines strapped on asteroids. No need to put any expensive vessels near the dangerous asteroids fields. Just send some hardy inspectors (like old ages miners) to find the most precious rocks and then either strap small engines on it or tow it to the refinery waiting some distance (few AUs, preferably close to the jump points) away. It could also be used to gather salvage or general junk from the systems. Practically same thing as the landing pod idea but it would only need few mining stations (ore processors) per system and then all the heavy industry could be gathered around these.

It might take few months for the rocks to arrive to the mining facility (or junk yard) but what's the rush? Not that it is going to spoil?

I see larger mining vessels that were discussed earlier in this thread as a miner 'scouts' or as an advance vessels for the mining teams to check systems to see if there are anything worth of mining before the real processors are build to the system.

[FireCrack]

Originally posted by karajorma
You do realise that dense asteroid fields of the sort where that might work are something that only exists in science fiction anyway?

Any field dense enough to do what you're suggesting would have simply accreted into one big asteroid due to gravity long ago.

The rings of saturn... and some recently discovered system have feilds that dense.


But yes, it's still very uncommon.

[StratComm]

The rings of saturn consist of a (relatively speaking) fine particulate cloud, so individually collecting them piece-by-piece would be the ultimate waste of resources.

As for other systems, they may be denser than our own, yes, but not dense enough to even garuantee there being more than one in a 100km radius.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by FireCrack
some recently discovered system have feilds that dense.

Got a link? This I've not heard.

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by Pnakotus
Mining asteroids?  Cause you always need more iron, carbon and silicates!  Oh wait...
 

Do you know anything about asteroids at all? Estimates for PGMs alone in a decent sized iron asteroid are upwards of 4 trillion (and that's an eleven year old figure - probably considerably higher nowadays).

[Pnakotus]

Originally posted by karajorma
You do realise that dense asteroid fields of the sort where that might work are something that only exists in science fiction anyway?

Any field dense enough to do what you're suggesting would have simply accreted into one big asteroid due to gravity long ago.

BUH?  This is FS.  I've SEEN the asteroid fields in FS.  Soooo... you were saying what about density?  Those rocks are thick as thieves and hundreds of meters across.  Do you think it's more realistic to land drones on the surface and dig about like a four year old with a spade?

If we're talking real-world, asteroid mining is stupid ANYWAY, since they're made of **** and, lets face it, it's easier to get resources from those big asteroids chock with heavy elements - planets.  Freespace is hardly going to have a problem with spacelift.

[TrashMan]

I'll have the ship finished soon..just trying ot decide what to do with the front section and LOD1 will be done..

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by Pnakotus

If we're talking real-world, asteroid mining is stupid ANYWAY, since they're made of **** and, lets face it, it's easier to get resources from those big asteroids chock with heavy elements - planets.

My question remains - Do you know anything at all about asteroids? Irons are full of useful elements.

[Wanderer]

Just remember that the newest systems have the most of the heavy elements as they are bound to contain more materials from the earlier stars and supernovas. Youngest systems are however unlikely to have any habitable planets so what ever you have it is most likely problematic to mine it. And no know nows how much stuff is floating in the Oorts cloud and other regions further from the center of the system (if you count all the stuff floating in systems vicinity). Also binary and tertiary (and other multiple star systems) systems might have massive asteroid belts. Most profitable belts should however be found quite close to the star as further out the ice is primary component of the asteroids (closer than the 'snow line') and all the other stuff floating around (comets).

Earth's, and by that nearly every non gas giant planet's that we currently know, crust is mainly composed of lightweight components, mostly silica-based and iron ore is actually rather scarce at any minable depth. In space there should be (how are we to know at the moment?) asteroids that are composed mainly of iron. And iron (ore) contains lots of impurities that are also of value (heavier elements). Of course there are lots of poor asteroids but even one good one might be enough for some one to get rich (like gold miners of USA).

Also ice might be very valuable resource in systems where are no habitable planets as it can be fairly easily be broken in to its components, oxygen (for people to breath) and hydrogen (for fusion reactor to run) or be even used as water which is also critical to any (known) life.

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by Wanderer
In space there should be (how are we to know at the moment?) asteroids that are composed mainly of iron.

Because most of the meteorites that fall to earth are from the asteroid belt, and we've found nickel/iron ones.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Pnakotus
BUH?  This is FS.  I've SEEN the asteroid fields in FS.  Soooo... you were saying what about density?  Those rocks are thick as thieves and hundreds of meters across.  Do you think it's more realistic to land drones on the surface and dig about like a four year old with a spade?

The entire field is completely unrealistic. Comments on the most realistic way of mining an unrealistic field are pointless.

Originally posted by Pnakotus
If we're talking real-world, asteroid mining is stupid ANYWAY, since they're made of **** and, lets face it, it's easier to get resources from those big asteroids chock with heavy elements - planets.  Freespace is hardly going to have a problem with spacelift.

And here you go again talking about realism in a game that is basically airplanes in space. No one cares whether it's realistic or not. All that matters is if the game is fun. Shadow Wolf wants a mining ship for his missions and I see no gameplay based reason why there shouldn't be one.