Asteroid Prospecting and Mining - rule book, supplement, whatever?

[downer]

I see a mining operation as a single large capture/smelter ships with a small fleet of robotic tugs that latch onto asteroids and guide them into a bay where they can be broken down. Material from the asteroid in then processed on-site so the mining group can deliver somewhat refined material to wherever they're going to sell it.

I guess that's also how Spaceships wants this handled. The Mining/Refinery module seems to assume that you just pull in whatever you want to process, break it down and separate the components. Could be a tad boring if you want it to be part of the action rather than the downtime.

Of course, everything we know about actual asteroids comes from our own solar system. If you want, you can always make your asteroids different, denser, larger, less rubble-like, and just assume that our solar system is the odd case where it isn't so.

[Anthony]

In general, asteroid mining is going to be boring, low risk work that produces a commodity for which the demand is not particularly volatile, and that is going after an asset that isn't particularly limited. Unless you're planning on economic simulation for worldbuilding, it's really just a job, not an adventure, and it's not even a job that's particularly compatible with adventuring.

[KjetilKverndokken]

Originally Posted by Anthony

In general, asteroid mining is going to be boring, low risk work that produces a commodity for which the demand is not particularly volatile, and that is going after an asset that isn't particularly limited. Unless you're planning on economic simulation for worldbuilding, it's really just a job, not an adventure, and it's not even a job that's particularly compatible with adventuring.

And when one does the job, you release something in the asteroid, competing miners trying to outdo you, pirates wanting your haul etc etc etc etc... ITS so much one can do with it, its fantastic - and one can then also earn money....

So yes, even basic mining is an adventure :)

[starslayer]

See here is a major problem I see with asteroid mining in a FTL space faring adventure.

We can create matter with energy RIGHT NOW- it's being done in the LHC as we speak for those high energy collisions between matter and antimatter- and we are TL8. We have TL 7 robots operating autonomously on the edge of the solar system that have been going for decades (voyager). Outside of some cool 'tech light this may exist' guesses (and ultra-tech/spaceships does a good job at that) we cannot figure out much about what +2TL^ future may look like.


It may not even be worthwhile or nessassary to harvest asteroids, erecting giant solar arrays and using energy->matter may just be more reliable and provide much more of exactly what you want with no refining, or we may hit a hard line on our robotics expertise and there may be guys in suits physically drilling and boring asteroids for the vital elements required to power the reactors that make future life possible.

Some form of exotic unobtanium may be found in asteroids making any other element essentially worthless by comparison, or a critical shortage of something relatively mundane by today's standards may make rapid asteroid harvesting absolutely necessary (say- lithium).

A few factors to remember though- if it's already in an asteroid, and that asteroid is high risk, there is NO reason to do anything but hastily cut the rock into pieces, hook valuable prices onto the ship, and go to a SAFE place to process them- depending on the risk and yield of the rock the cutting it into pieces part may even be omitted; just move in- grab rock, go someplace safe. Only if the yield vs cost of propulsion is very low will on site processing be required- and if that's the case either the risks are low and it's a simple boring life, or the people doing it are desperate/forced.

You can get around that fact by making FTL or other setting specific work around- but they will be setting specific rather then 'realistic', and thus could not have been in any sort of pre-generated chart.

[Ulzgoroth]

Energy to matter is ridiculously inefficient compared to mining, unless you need exotic matter that you can't mine directly. However, if you've got total solar output harvesting, nothing is going to look like traditional SF.

Even with ultra-high tech, UT settings are often much poorer than what ambitious futurists of the 'build a dyson sphere' variety design.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by thrash

GDW also produced a boardgame called Belter: Mining the Asteroids, 2076.

It's a great game, too bad I can never get anybody to play it. :(

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

It's a great game, too bad I can never get anybody to play it. :(

Come to New Mexico! Board games as far as the eye can see!

[fschiff]

GURPS Traveller has a job line for Belter.

If you want more adventuring options in play I still think Mongoose Traveller's Belter book has plenty of rules for all the things you wanted in the first entry. They could certainly be adapted to GURPS.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by KjetilKverndokken

I looked through my M-Traveller pdf's and found that i have beltstrike, and it seems to give a very good job of describing what is needed in this thread. the only thing is to find out how to convert the M-Traveller credits to gurps Dollar, is it one for one or what?

It seems to me that such low value ascribes to gasses and ices would only be realistic a setting with reactionless drives. As soon as you need reaction mass to lift things to orbit, or you need to pay the fare to ride up a space elevator, volatiles are going to be much more valuable than that.

[thrash]

Originally Posted by KjetilKverndokken

So yes, even basic mining is an adventure :)

Would you say that drilling for oil in the modern world is good roleplaying campaign material? If so, then you might enjoy realistic asteroid mining.