Robo-Miner

From OPU Wiki

Properties

• Common Metals Cost: 700
• Rare Metals Cost: 0
• Build Time: Medium
• Hit Points: High
• Armor: None
• Track Type: Wheeled
• Speed: Medium

Commands (not always available): Move, Stop, Build, Transfer, Self-destruct.

Description

The Robo-Miner is as much a building as a vehicle. Like an off-shore oil-platform on old Earth, it is designed to be built in one location, then moved to a promising site to put down roots and fulfill its main function. Actually, the Robo-Miner is even more versatile than that. It can be converted in the field to adapt to two completely different kinds of mining. The first is conventional ore mining, using "Dutch miner" technology. This technology employs crab-like mining heads connected to the Robo-Miner by an umbilical. These miners burrow into rock and soil, extracting useful ore and returning in the form of a suspended slurry, which is pumped back through the umbilical to the Robo-Miner for further processing. The umbilical also provides power and control linkages to the surface facility.

The Robo-Miner is also capable of adapting to the more exotic and dangerous method of Magma Well mining. Magma Wells take advantage of naturally occurring magma vents in New Terra's crust. More important than the vent itself is the thin spot in the crust that it represents. Dutch miners open the upper parts of the vent to allow for free flow of molten material, while nuclear drill charges liquefy rock in the deeper crust, providing the initial flow. This begins a siphon effect that, in ideal conditions, provides a constant and uniform flow of mineral-rich molten rock.

The process is imperfect, however. The molten flow can go out of control or become blocked, causing an explosive pressure buildup. The hot-cracking process used to purify ore is subject to various kinds of instabilities and reaction run-aways. Though there are many failure modes, they have one thing in common. They are all violent. Operational Notes: Robo-Miners transform themselves into Common Ore Mines and (after the appropriate research is completed) Rare Ore Mines. Mines may only be deployed at mining beacons that have been surveyed by a Robo-Surveyor or by the EDWARD Satellite. Eden Robo-Miners may also, after the appropriate research has been completed, transform into Magma Wells, which are deployed over Magma Vents.

Tales from New Terra

Duncan Loo stared into the angry face of the engineer. Duncan had been at the remote Magma Well mining station only a few hours, and he'd already managed to cause a problem, though he couldn't for the life of him figure out how. He bent down to pick up the geologist’s hammer he'd dropped on the metal walkway. As he did, he could feel his face warmed by radiated energy from the massive magma conduit near him. He stood and looked at the engineer, Clute, he thought the man's name was. He was a short, broad-shouldered redhead, with a bushy fringe of beard framing his livid face.

Duncan smiled uneasily. "Sorry about the hammer. No harm done though, see?" Clute just scowled. "It's not the hammer. It's not where it landed. It's the noise. It’s that word." "Word?" "That word. You're new on the inspection team, rockhound, so I'll explain it to you. We never say that word here. Too much danger, too many things to go wrong." Nervously Duncan stuffed the hammer into the sample bag slung over his right shoulder. "I don't understand. What word?"

Clute looked at him and smiled, just a little. "Oops," he said.