Mining DEAs
Population Requirement: Low (0.33)
Cost Basis: Low (50)

This DEA produces Minerals and AUs from rare mineral byproducts (like gold and gems) and excess mineral production. Best terrain Mountains.

Mining DEAs LOW pop requirement and a LOW cost basis make them an attractive DEA to build on young colonies.

MINERAL OUTPUT

The formula for determining the mineral output of a mining DEA is as follows:

(Base efficiency + Base efficiency mods ) * Efficiency mods * DEA Capacity

BASE EFFICIENCY

This is the basic mineral output of the mining DEA before any mods affect it. You can think of this as the starting productivity of the DEA. The base efficiency of a mining DEA depends on which region it is placed (only mining and bioharvest DEAs are so effected) and is as follows:

Displayed as mineral richness by terrain type

A mining DEA placed in a region with mountain terrain on a planet with a mineral richness of abundant would have a base efficiency of 5. That mining DEA would produce 5 minerals if no other mods affected it.

BASE EFFICIENCY MODS

are mods that directly affect the base efficiency of the DEA and are added to the base efficiency before any other mods take effect. They consist of:

(species mods + race picks + mining DEA buildings + mining DEA planetary builds + mining achievements)

Below is a table for the rest of the mods organized by increasing techs. The numbers in () represent the mod to base mining efficiency. Don’t be fooled by the small numbers. These mods can have a MUCH greater impact on the final output of the mine because they are factored in FIRST before any other mods. A +1 could give a net boost of 25 to mining output late in the game.

* the cost is multiplied by the square root of the number of regions on the planet. Therefore the multiplier has a range of 1-3.46. Weigh the benefit/cost before building one of these planetary buildings because the cost is the same regardless of the number of mining DEA present on the planet (I.e. don’t build one if there are no mining DEAs on the planet).

EFFICIENCY MODS

are covered above under General DEA Data

DEA CAPACITY

from the DEA (always one) and any capacity buildings present. All Capacity buildings require additional population to run and represent the “extensiveness” of the DEA facilities. These buildings generally give a greater boost to mineral production than efficiency buildings but cost more and require population to run.

If you have all 4 capacity buildings present in a mining DEA the total capacity would be 6 and the pop requirements to run at 100% would be 1.65 pop

AUs FROM MINERALS PRODUCED

The amount of money earned from the usage of minerals depends on how they are used.

Consumed as food – 30 AUs/mineral
Consumed by Industrial DEAs to create Industry – 15 AUs/mineral
Any excess sold off – 7.5 AUs/mineral – this is multiplied by (100% - the unemployment rate) to simulate supply and demand for the excess minerals.

Below is the money earned by a mining DEA producing only the minerals from its base efficiency (all other mods having no effect in this example) and having ALL of the minerals produced consumed by Industrial DEAs on the same or shipped any other planet.

DOUBLE these numbers if all the minerals are consumed as food and HALF them if all are sold off as excess.

AUs FROM RARE BYPRODUCTS

This represents any exotic/rare minerals (like gold, gems, etc) found during the mining process and gives a bonus to AU’s produced by the mine without affecting its normal output.

The formula is:

AUs = minerals produced * mineral richness factor * 4 * race pick

This formula is illustrated below assuming a mining DEA with only it’s base efficiency:

times

times

tuning variable of 4 * race pick

gives a result of

The ratio of (AUs produced from using minerals : AUs from rare byproducts) is determined by the mineral richness of the planet. As you can see the bonus from rare minerals is trivial for Very Poor planets but is very significant for planets that are Very Rich (being equal to the AU’s earned from consuming all the minerals as food – the max price for minerals).

The main purpose of the rare mineral bonus(and a similar bonus to bioharvesting) is to give an incentive to place mining or bioharvesting DEAs on planets with very good regions for these DEAs regardless of the need for the minerals or bioharvest they produce. As the game progresses the need for mineral and bioharvest DEAs will diminish and I don’t want these DEAs to become rather useless like farmers did late game in MOO2. This rare bonus will allow mining DEAs to be viable choices for planets with good mineral richness even late in the game and especially desirable when the need for minerals is significant.