Introduction
WIP
Implied specialisations
The descriptions of the 8 Mining Ships present since the early Rebirth versions nominally indicate that they have various specialisations within their Bulk/Liquid groupings. In practice, this doesn't seem to be borne out in-game or with efforts at code diving. Mining Ships added subsequently (Onils, Manorinas, Vultures and Xenon S) do not have implied specialisation in their descriptions. Taking into consideration that you or your stations may need multiple harvested wares and the uncertainty over whether there an in-game benefit exists, implied specialisation may not be a significant reason for ship selection.
Nevertheless, those implied specialisations are as follows (Medium followed by Large ships):
- Crystals, Nividium and Ore: Dwalin and Fedhelm.
- Ice: Hymir and Sequana.
- Ions and plasma: Betaver amd Midir.
- Hydrogen: Nudung and Boann.
Ships, and Mining ships in particular, are discussed in more detail here.
Harvestable resources can be grouped into 2 categories based on how ships carry them:
- Bulk storage (Ice, Nividium, Ore and Silicon).
- Liquid storage (Hydrogen, Ions and Plasma).
There are 3 main types of Mine ships:
- Medium miners, which harvest Bulk or Liquid wares.
- Large miners, which also harvest Bulk or Liquid wares.
- The Scaldis (harvests either type) or re-purposed Trade ships (harvests single or both types, but no mining laser).
Useful info from elsewhere on the web:
- Guide to visually ID 'roid types by Snafu_X3 (XRebirth forum link and direct MS Word 2003 doc link).
- Harvestable resource locations by Sparky Sparkycorp for v3.61 (link) and v4.00 b7 (link) - exploration spoilers.