As discussed in <<Player styles guide>>, each player must make his own strategy, this guide contains only a few aspects what worth taking into consideration when selecting to play OGame as a miner.
==What makes you a miner==
A miner is a player whose main income is coming from his own production of resources. Is hard and slow to advance in game only as a pure miner. If you want to add income from attacking other planets you might want to consider farming the inactives (Miner - farmer), or try to round up your income by attacking much weaker players with the help of a basic fighting fleet (Miner - raider).
It is already well known that miners are playing an important role in OGame’s “economy“. Playing as a miner is less time consuming than playing as a fleeter. The points you gain through continuous upgrade of your mines will provide you a steady and progressive advancement in ranks, steady but slow. The points you gain are permanent, while a fleeter points will consists in fleet points and thus can be lost overnight. You can achieve top ranks in your universe with the condition that you are a constant and perseverant player, and you will have patience to work on your mines for a few years. Having a strong alliance with like minded fellow player can only be of help and a stimulant for a long time play career in OGame.
==Account building for miners==
- start colonizing as soon as possible
- keep only colonies with higher fields
- consider abandoning the home planet once you find a high field colony (over 200 fields)
- develop first the technologies that are serving you
Some miners are usually positioning all colonies in the same system to make transports easier– this is a very bad strategy and a major weakness .
Calculate with care what will be your next mine. Take into consideration the amortization
Don't spend precious fields for buildings you don't need
==How to position your colonies==
Do not place your colonies in the same system. This will make you vulnerable to enemies that can move a planet in your system and farm you until you will be forced to quit
Best way to position your colonies is to select places enabling you to fleetsave for a decent amount of hours. See tutorial <<Fleetsave>>.
Select a colony that you are going to use as headquarters, take care to get a moon, use it to collect the resources from your other colonies until you get the necessary quantity for your next mine upgrade. It is optimal to position the other colonies so that transports collecting resources to your headquarters will take more or less the same time and thus you will be able to send them in fleetsave or to the colony needing the next upgrade without keeping ships or large amounts of resources on your planet or moon for too long time and tempt some greedy fleeter to attack you or destroy your moon.
Another reason for a moon would beto allow you to do BIG trades without being noticed.
Another advantage of having planets spread across galaxies is a larger range of systems with inactives whose resources can round up your daily income.
Good colony distribution is 2 planets per galaxy. For example: two colonies in G1, two colonies in G2, two colonies in G4 and two colonies in G6 or G9 (if you have a circular universe). The 2 colonies per galaxy should be placed at the optimal distance for a good fleetsaving, thus allowing you to periodically change the location of fleetsaving place making playing routine unpredictable for enemies. Later in game, having a moon on every colony will provide you a partial safety (remember, moons can be destroyed).
==Income & spending management==
Your main source of income and base for development is the production of your mines. Therefore is very important how you spend your resources. You can use third party tools to calculate the amortization of your mines, like o-calc (o-calc.com/index.php?sec=_amortisation&lang=en).
Maximizing your production can be achieved by:
- Raising your plasma technology (it costs you only resources and gives you 1% more metal and 0.66% more crystal per level of development, effective on all your planets all the time)
- Enlist a geologist (costs Dark Matter and gives you 10% of your mines production for all your planets)
- Buy a resource booster (costs Dark Matter and gives you 30%, 20% or10% more production for a given resource type on the planet where is activated
Energy management is very important: the difference between top 100 miner and top10 miner is simple: top 10 miner’s solar plant stops at level 24/25, after a certain level, solar plans are giving a smaller energy output than they cost, use solar satellites instead, especially if your planets are in spot 6 to 9.
Don’t invest in things you don't need like engine technologies or espionage (with espionage, players will scan you harder) or computer after a certain level. Investing in armor, shield and weapon can enhance your defensive capabilities.
Nanites (very useful thing but only build them when you're building 9 mines on all of your planets and still have some resources left!
For example: the time of building next mine is 5 days with your nanite level 3. Saving resources for next mine will take you like 2 weeks. So why build nanite 4? It doesn't matter if you have wait a week to finish a mine if you don't have resources to start another one. It will come a time when you'll need 4 weeks to finish a mine level, in this situation a nanite level in plus can be useful.
Don't build fighting ships unless you need them to farm inactives
Do as many expeditions you can, use the scrap dealer to transform unwanted ships back to resources
==Trading==
Don’t believe anyone telling you that selling deuterium at low ratio like 2:1:1 is useless. You can get important advantages by trading this useful resources either to the merchant (costs 3.500 DM) or with other players.
Trading with other players brings one of the most attractive aspects of OGame: the social aspect – interaction with other players that can be really advantageous to you if you manage to establish permanent trading connections. By supplying a big fleeter you might be offered also a NAP (Non Aggression Pact) from him, although if you play this game as u should (i.e. by never being profitable to anyone) no need for such NAPs anyway. But these partnerships might be useful for other reasons like: ninjas, return hits of any sat bashers.
==Protection of your daily production==
=Fleetsave=
Being a miner means your mines are well developed and have a higher output. It is very important to login at least once a day to “clean up” your colonies by collecting the resources produced over night and ordering new constructions. Before you log off is important to fleetsave: send your resources in deploy mission. YOU HAVE TO BE ONLINE WHEN YOUR CARGOES LAND – NO EXCUSES HERE. And this is about the most important difference between a pure miner and a turtle: a miner uses his (cheap) cargoes to move resources around while the turtle tries to use (expensive) tactic of storing them on his own, heavily defended, planet to do that job. Don't forget to make activity after a few minutes ( 15-20) on all your planets and moons to prevent enemies to detect your fleetsaving routine
=Defense=
This one is simple – any more defense than absolute minimum to guard your satellites and offline production – and you’re throwing your money (read resources) away…put it all in them mines. Each resource that we spend in defense doesn't produce resources so we want to spend as less resources as possible in defense to get the maximum profit!
The size of defense will depend on the level of your mines e.g. 20 plasmas, 50 gauss, 100 hl 1550 ll and 1500 rl which proves to be enough to defend the production of level 30 metal, 25 crystal & 25 deuterium and 200 sats for the entire day.
Optimal size of defense can also vary with universe speed (fleet and economy) and with other characteristics like defense to debris but best is to adapt on the run based on your own experience and your frequency of your login to the game
Some lazy miners are building defense in excess becoming the so called Turtles.
==Further readings==
Reaching the Top in Three weeks, Mining Guide
Najics mining guide
Fleetsave
Defence
Trading
==What makes you a miner==
A miner is a player whose main income is coming from his own production of resources. Is hard and slow to advance in game only as a pure miner. If you want to add income from attacking other planets you might want to consider farming the inactives (Miner - farmer), or try to round up your income by attacking much weaker players with the help of a basic fighting fleet (Miner - raider).
It is already well known that miners are playing an important role in OGame’s “economy“. Playing as a miner is less time consuming than playing as a fleeter. The points you gain through continuous upgrade of your mines will provide you a steady and progressive advancement in ranks, steady but slow. The points you gain are permanent, while a fleeter points will consists in fleet points and thus can be lost overnight. You can achieve top ranks in your universe with the condition that you are a constant and perseverant player, and you will have patience to work on your mines for a few years. Having a strong alliance with like minded fellow player can only be of help and a stimulant for a long time play career in OGame.
==Account building for miners==
- start colonizing as soon as possible
- keep only colonies with higher fields
- consider abandoning the home planet once you find a high field colony (over 200 fields)
- develop first the technologies that are serving you
Some miners are usually positioning all colonies in the same system to make transports easier– this is a very bad strategy and a major weakness .
Calculate with care what will be your next mine. Take into consideration the amortization
Don't spend precious fields for buildings you don't need
==How to position your colonies==
Do not place your colonies in the same system. This will make you vulnerable to enemies that can move a planet in your system and farm you until you will be forced to quit
Best way to position your colonies is to select places enabling you to fleetsave for a decent amount of hours. See tutorial <<Fleetsave>>.
Select a colony that you are going to use as headquarters, take care to get a moon, use it to collect the resources from your other colonies until you get the necessary quantity for your next mine upgrade. It is optimal to position the other colonies so that transports collecting resources to your headquarters will take more or less the same time and thus you will be able to send them in fleetsave or to the colony needing the next upgrade without keeping ships or large amounts of resources on your planet or moon for too long time and tempt some greedy fleeter to attack you or destroy your moon.
Another reason for a moon would beto allow you to do BIG trades without being noticed.
Another advantage of having planets spread across galaxies is a larger range of systems with inactives whose resources can round up your daily income.
Good colony distribution is 2 planets per galaxy. For example: two colonies in G1, two colonies in G2, two colonies in G4 and two colonies in G6 or G9 (if you have a circular universe). The 2 colonies per galaxy should be placed at the optimal distance for a good fleetsaving, thus allowing you to periodically change the location of fleetsaving place making playing routine unpredictable for enemies. Later in game, having a moon on every colony will provide you a partial safety (remember, moons can be destroyed).
==Income & spending management==
Your main source of income and base for development is the production of your mines. Therefore is very important how you spend your resources. You can use third party tools to calculate the amortization of your mines, like o-calc (o-calc.com/index.php?sec=_amortisation&lang=en).
Maximizing your production can be achieved by:
- Raising your plasma technology (it costs you only resources and gives you 1% more metal and 0.66% more crystal per level of development, effective on all your planets all the time)
- Enlist a geologist (costs Dark Matter and gives you 10% of your mines production for all your planets)
- Buy a resource booster (costs Dark Matter and gives you 30%, 20% or10% more production for a given resource type on the planet where is activated
Energy management is very important: the difference between top 100 miner and top10 miner is simple: top 10 miner’s solar plant stops at level 24/25, after a certain level, solar plans are giving a smaller energy output than they cost, use solar satellites instead, especially if your planets are in spot 6 to 9.
Don’t invest in things you don't need like engine technologies or espionage (with espionage, players will scan you harder) or computer after a certain level. Investing in armor, shield and weapon can enhance your defensive capabilities.
Nanites (very useful thing but only build them when you're building 9 mines on all of your planets and still have some resources left!
For example: the time of building next mine is 5 days with your nanite level 3. Saving resources for next mine will take you like 2 weeks. So why build nanite 4? It doesn't matter if you have wait a week to finish a mine if you don't have resources to start another one. It will come a time when you'll need 4 weeks to finish a mine level, in this situation a nanite level in plus can be useful.
Don't build fighting ships unless you need them to farm inactives
Do as many expeditions you can, use the scrap dealer to transform unwanted ships back to resources
==Trading==
Don’t believe anyone telling you that selling deuterium at low ratio like 2:1:1 is useless. You can get important advantages by trading this useful resources either to the merchant (costs 3.500 DM) or with other players.
Trading with other players brings one of the most attractive aspects of OGame: the social aspect – interaction with other players that can be really advantageous to you if you manage to establish permanent trading connections. By supplying a big fleeter you might be offered also a NAP (Non Aggression Pact) from him, although if you play this game as u should (i.e. by never being profitable to anyone) no need for such NAPs anyway. But these partnerships might be useful for other reasons like: ninjas, return hits of any sat bashers.
==Protection of your daily production==
=Fleetsave=
Being a miner means your mines are well developed and have a higher output. It is very important to login at least once a day to “clean up” your colonies by collecting the resources produced over night and ordering new constructions. Before you log off is important to fleetsave: send your resources in deploy mission. YOU HAVE TO BE ONLINE WHEN YOUR CARGOES LAND – NO EXCUSES HERE. And this is about the most important difference between a pure miner and a turtle: a miner uses his (cheap) cargoes to move resources around while the turtle tries to use (expensive) tactic of storing them on his own, heavily defended, planet to do that job. Don't forget to make activity after a few minutes ( 15-20) on all your planets and moons to prevent enemies to detect your fleetsaving routine
=Defense=
This one is simple – any more defense than absolute minimum to guard your satellites and offline production – and you’re throwing your money (read resources) away…put it all in them mines. Each resource that we spend in defense doesn't produce resources so we want to spend as less resources as possible in defense to get the maximum profit!
The size of defense will depend on the level of your mines e.g. 20 plasmas, 50 gauss, 100 hl 1550 ll and 1500 rl which proves to be enough to defend the production of level 30 metal, 25 crystal & 25 deuterium and 200 sats for the entire day.
Optimal size of defense can also vary with universe speed (fleet and economy) and with other characteristics like defense to debris but best is to adapt on the run based on your own experience and your frequency of your login to the game
Some lazy miners are building defense in excess becoming the so called Turtles.
==Further readings==
Reaching the Top in Three weeks, Mining Guide
Najics mining guide
Fleetsave
Defence
Trading
