THE FIELDS
Nine fields, one home. Everything the asteroid programme does runs out of a single field and comes back to it.
The home field carries the stations, the bulk of the raw material and the survey fleet. Every other field is measured by how far it sits from that point and by what it holds that the home field does not.
THE WORKING SET
| Home field | Base | Stations, cities and the stockpile. Everything stages through here, and most of the Duracrete sits in it. |
|---|---|---|
| Field II | Close | The richest ground held — over half the Meleenium and the only Varium in the estate. No Duracrete at all, which is why it and the home field are a pair rather than a choice. |
| Field III | Mid | Four mining operations based here. Durelium, Nova and Ardanium. |
| Field IV | Mid | Nova and Varmigio in volume. Carries more decaying deposits than any other field, so it is worked against a clock. |
| Field V | Far | Five cities and the highest income of any field, but the deposits are small. Mined, not prospected. |
SURVEY AND MINING
Both jobs are flown. Asteroid fields are prospected and worked from Mining Barques and Y-8 Mining Vessels — there is no ground crew on a rock, only a deck and a survey pattern.
Ten operations run at any time against a hundred and seven live deposits holding some ten million units of ore. Deposits decay in about six months whether or not they are touched, and the field regenerates afterwards and can be surveyed again.
Which means the shortage is not ore and never has been. At present throughput, the ground already surveyed would take four years to work through and it will not last one. The job is not to find more — it is to take more, faster, before the clock runs down on what is already found.
THE CEILING
Material in stock and material still in the ground together cover another seventy-six cities at the tightest constraint. That is what the recruitment is for. The limit on this programme is not ore and has not been for some time — it is hands.
Prospecting and mining seats are open on both routes. What the work pays, or start here if you are new to the game.