Asteroid Miner

Asteroid Miner is a building placed on Shape Asteroids that extracts Shapes from the asteroid. It is unlocked with Milestone 0 (in the Certification Scenario it is unlocked by the Space Platforms Milestone) and must be placed on the bottom platform level above a Shape Asteroid. Each Asteroid Miner costs 2 Platform Capacity. By default an Asteroid Miner provides four extraction points for Shapes; additional extraction points are unlocked by connecting Miner Boosters.

Asteroid Miners provide a modest amount of internal building space for machines and Mini-Miners. The structure has three solid borders that are each four tiles wide, while the front edge includes a Notch with the normal three-tile gap to the edge. The available building space inside an Asteroid Miner measures 12 by 13 tiles (156 tiles). Of those tiles, 16 of the first machine level tiles are designated spots to place Mini-Miners, though any machine may be placed on those spots.

Miner Boosters extend an Asteroid Miner’s extraction capacity. Miner Boosters must themselves be placed on a Shape Asteroid and must point to an Asteroid Miner or to another Miner Booster in a chain. Up to three Miner Booster platforms may be connected or chained to a single Asteroid Miner. Each additional Miner Booster provides four extra Mini-Miner locations, increasing the total available extraction points up to a maximum of 16. Each Miner Booster consumes 1 Platform Capacity.

• Place Asteroid Miners on the bottom platform level of a Shape Asteroid so the extraction points align with mining positions.
• Use Miner Boosters to scale extraction capacity: each booster adds four Mini-Miner slots; chaining up to three boosters yields the full 16 extraction points.
• Track Platform Capacity when building on asteroids: Asteroid Miners cost 2 capacity each and Miner Boosters cost 1 capacity each.
• Treat the 16 designated first-level machine tiles as convenient Mini-Miner positions, but remember any machine can occupy those tiles if another layout is needed.