Colonial attrition, trying to understand it....

[Krelnett_of_Kraan]

Again, depending on the size of your colony, it's just as easy to transport fissiles or water as it is to transport coal, and you won't need as much.

> Coal? Eww... How resource-intensive!

> We use hydropower on all our worlds. Cheap and efficient.

 

Ah, but I'd prefer Solar Energy then.

No need to feed anything and plenty of energy for small colonies.

 

For very small colonies though, coal is the only option. A 250,000-Construction Material Hydropower Plant would be worse than overkill on a 20-mine colony, and indeed the same resources would build 14 of the small mining colonies, for a total of 280 mines.

 

Which would need only 840 coal a turn to function. That means just two coal mines on a world with a coal deposit of 420+ would surfice.

 

And the value of small colonies increases if you factor in the resources needed to build and power items such as Deep Core Heatsinks.

 

And coal, for the most part, remains the only colony power generating resource you can transport, except for the odd finds of "power" which are pretty much one-shot affairs.

 

This only works for mining worlds, note. To really build anything in the quantities you need, large centralized population centers brimming with Industrial Complexes is the only way to go. We're experimenting with producing limited runs of specialized materials on microcolonies made up of Industrial complexs, however.

 

-Sha'thar

[hobknob]

For small colonies, < 50 pop, there is really no way to get away from the coal fired power plant. It is just too wasteful to provide a hydro or geo plant at 250,000 CM's just to provide 15-20 power. I have often expected to see some improvement on the standard coal fired plant that would boost output to 100 power or so for the intermediate colony and for those neutrals that have been growing for 100 turns now.

 

The only real downside to coal is the need for fuel. I avoid the issue of transporting fuel by limiting the application to worlds with some sort of coal deposit.

 

[Sha'thar of the Gosht Kohr]

For small colonies, < 50 pop, there is really no way to get away from the coal fired power plant. It is just too wasteful to provide a hydro or geo plant at 250,000 CM's just to provide 15-20 power. I have often expected to see some improvement on the standard coal fired plant that would boost output to 100 power or so for the intermediate colony and for those neutrals that have been growing for 100 turns now.

 

The only real downside to coal is the need for fuel. I avoid the issue of transporting fuel by limiting the application to worlds with some sort of coal deposit.

 

 

Since I'm only using the microcolony concept in systems with pre-existing large colonies which will be getting what the small colonies are producing, no fuel is used. and coal is carried back on the return trip.

 

I -am- experimenting with designing a small colony which will make coal out of raw resources, just to see. a microcolony with 5 stripmines, each with 3 Industrial Centers to make coal, could power 7 mining microcolonies, or 140 mines. This might be worthwhile on planets with large specialized resources (like rare elements) and no coal reserves which are one jump away from a homeworld or colony.

 

But as I say, I'm only puttering with this.

 

-Sha'thar