The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

I'm wondering which planets have the best mineral counts in the beggining of the game.  I'd appreciate any suggestions.  Keep in mind that the landers are quite lame in the beggining of the game, so I'm looking for planets that are relatively tame, and mineral rich of course.  Thanks in advance

First take everything from Sol. Especially from Pluto. When you have little fuel and other stuff, go to the Alpha Centauri (little down from Sol). There's two planets or moons (I don't remember which ones) and there are lots of exotic. If you are quick enough, you won't be hurted.

Don't go for Venus though.
The Weather: 8 will turn you into burnt toast.

And yes, there are a pair of Ruby Worlds with Exotics in Alpha Centauri; however if you want to play 'fair' and not restart the game every time you mine, I'd have to suggest the Vulcupae Stars instead. Tons of relatively unhostile Auric / Treasure Worlds. (Same thing in my opinion... world full of gold [Au] or world full of gold and silver and platinum..)

Just make sure you bring a ton of fuel and cargo bays..

Agreed. I got good at dodging flames, but I lost around 55 crew anyway. Vulpeculae will help you get Orz and the shield, anyway...

And there are a couple of exotic worlds (ruby/sapphire/emerald) with calm environments (Weather & Tectonics 2 or less, Temperature below 100 Celsius). One's in the Tucanae region I believe, another's near the Lynchis regions. Not quite sure where others might be.

When heading off to see the Arilou, take a little time while waiting for the portal to open and mine some of the stars in their neighbourhood.  Beta Chandrasekhar is quite a worthwhile stop...

The ruby worlds at Alpha Centauri are pretty hostile, but you can get some really quick cash. As long as you can get your lander off the planet before it blows up, you'll get a good amount of resources. I mean, even if you lose most of your crew (like let's say 40), that's only 80 resources you'll lose, compared to the couple thousand you can make off from the exotics you'll find.

My personal plan goes something like this.

Mine out sol, except venus.  Load up on thrusters and cargo bays, as much as cash will allow.  Visit a few nearby star systems to get enough RUs for 90 or so fuel and a full compliment of thrusters.  Just the systems local to sol should provide enough resources to get your ship up to being a half decent cargo hauler.  Make positively sure you have the spathi-of-doom (aka fwiffo) and he's filled with crew, and go pay a visit to the ilwrath - in particular, Delta and Beta Tauri.  Loot as much as you can, but avoid anything too hostile, and let fwiffo terminate any spiders who get ambitious.

Go home, offload your minerals, load your ship up to maximum mining capacity, and fuel up.  Go visit the melnorme, sell your biodata and buy as much technology as you can.  Then go visit the space fungus at Zeta and Beta Scorpii, and loot like crazy again.  And if the mushroom feel any more lucky then the dillrats did, let the metamollusk tear em apart.

Visit the melnorme on the way back, buy the rest of the tech - shouldn't be any trouble by now.  Go home, offload minerals.  Save game.

Paint fwiffo's ship black.  Refit ship to be pure combat mode, 1 hellbore in slot 2, 3 trackers, 3 dynamos, 1 crew pod, 1 megafuel pod, rest shiva furnaces.  Rename ship "Emeril".  Return to mycon space.  Broil everything you see in butter and plasma.

Reload save game, and play as normal.

The rainbow worlds are also very good places to mine for tons of radioactives. Since each one nets you 500 credits with the Melnorme, and that's equivalent to 10,000 RU if you swap it all in for fuel, it's two birds with one stone.

Four of their locations in game will be divulged to you; Tanaka tells you where one is, the Thraddash comment regarding another, the Slyandro make references to a third, the Supox comment regarding a fourth.

If you're not adverse to a bit of 'cheating' you can look up the locations for these worlds. You'll only need four of them to gather up all the technology the Melnorme sell you; two of them if you also take into account the Umgah reward.

At 10,000 RU (plus the insane amount of radioactives) per planet, it sure as hell beats mining.

Especially when you buy High Efficiency Fuel Tank Technology and then run on over to Druuge space...

this is kinda a spoiler, but who cares?










Mine Alpha Ptolmae and mine the Centauri and Gorno systems. That'l set you on your way.

I swear, I need to sit down and make a giant listing of the stars where you can exotic minerals, and also the quantities of the deposits and environments of the planets therein.

After all, having a single cargo bay full of them is more profitable than having 3 cargo bays full of radioactives, or 4 cargo bays full of precious metals.

So many planets that almost never get mined, out there, because they're all in inconvenient locations.

I'm actually pretty sure there is a list of the richest worlds, in both life, minerals, and combined wealth on the PONAF somewhere.  I KNOW there is a list, since it's where I got those 4 worlds from above.  Delta Tauri is number 2 richest mineral system in the universe, Beta scorpii is the richest bio planet, iirc.

Of course, right now someone is probably cutting and pasting the actual list, so this may have been pointless.

Oh, there is. I have that list.
That's not the point.

I don't care for the richest worlds.
I care for the exotic mineral worlds with the smallest amount of environmental hostility.

*sings* Transformers!  Robots in Disguise!  By the way, I love your icon OldSkoolGamer.   ;D

You won't really have to worry about finding huge mideral deposits on worlds when you start the game.  You'll be hauling so many minerals back by just dancing from system to system that it should do the trick for a loooong time.

I've actually found that if you screw things up pretty badly at the beginning... (lose the tobermoon to the ilwrath avenger, lose Fwiffo in a probe fight, then warp out of the battle with the probe, lose a couple landers while mining (especially if they're on Io and full of radioactives) then you can be pretty screwed--- you're usually hauling in just enough minerals to cover your fuel costs to the nearest star with a non-hostile atmosphere, and making maybe enough profit to purchase a turning jet each time.

Obviously, you should start over at this point, but it never hurts to have a handy tally sheet ready to get your game kickstarted when you do start over.

Delta Tauri and Rainbow World locations and all that.

WARNING: HUGE SPOILER!!!!


















Here are the rainbow worlds:

Beta Pegasei I (39.5;745.8)
Epsilon Draconis I (283.6;785.7)
Epsilon Lipi I (543.7;827.0)
Beta Leporis I (766.6;866.6)
Gamma Aquarii I (853.4;879.7)
Groombridge I (996.0;904.2)
Alpha Andromedae I (862.5;700.0)
Gama Reticuli I (741.6;508.3)
Gamma Kepler I (602.0;297.9)
Zeta Sextantis I (468.1;91.6)

start with the stars within the illwraiths sphere of influence. alot are sutiable for a under powered lander, and the minerials are of good quality too. but if your having trouble against there ships, try waitng for a message from the starbase captain. hell fill you in. this unknown races ships work rather well in the beginning against the dillrats. ~DEFIANT

Obviously, a really minor suggestion, but one that still more or less applies; if you're on a world with Radioactives or exotics (or even precious metals) then be careful not to scoop up a mineral deposit when your lander is almost full up. You could lose a potential 150 RUs (500 RU for exotics) each and every time you do that. Just send the lander back and send it back down for another trip.

Also, it doesn't hurt to carry more cargo bays than you think you'll need. Yes, you can dump out commons and corrosives in favor of more expensive minerals if you max out on cargo---but those minerals will never be recovered again, and even 300 corrosives made way for 300 precious metals---is still 600 RU that you miss out on.

Fuel is a -lot- more expensive than many realize. Going to a star 30 light years away sucks up 60 fuel points on a round trip, not including lander fuel. That's 1200 RU, gone right there. This is another very good reason you want to err on the side of too much than too few cargo bays. If you dont' make at least 1200 RU on a return trip, all you've done is gone and wasted a couple months. I suggest using the Melnorme to fuel up when you can. Yes, you want to scrape all your credits together for technology--- but keep in mind that even with only the first technology the Melnorme give you--- the improved blasters--- you can still be a force to be feared by most of the creatures in the galaxy. You'll also find that having 150 crew with a pair of ion-bolt blasters can be a lot more resilent in space than having 50 crew with a pair of upgraded blasters. The Melnorme sell you fuel at a very good price, considering your bio units are worth double when you sell them to the Melnorme, and a single Rainbow World is basically worth 10,000 RU.

Oh and one more minor tip with a lander--- if you're at a planet with radioactives or exotics (or even precious metals), save the game before mining. Losing even an unupgraded lander full of cargo could cost you over a thousand RU, if you include the cost of the cargo you were carrying. (or double that, if you were carrying exotics). Obviously, most people recommend saving before mining anyways, but this gets tedious for some, and feels like cheating to others.

Since I know where everything is, I tend to just buy all the tech from the Melnorme using rainbow world income, ignore the info they sell, and then use lifeform data for fuel. That way I can use RU for crew, ships, & modules.

Well, once you know where all the rainbow worlds are (or even 4 of them) and how to get the portal spawner, the game basically becomes a piece of cake.

Wow, you guys really make this challenging for yourselves.  I certainly didn't rely on the rainbow worlds in any way shape or form when playing SC2.  I mean, I don't hate resource mining that much, anyways.  I couldn't tell you where all the Rainbow Planets were... maybe I know where one is....  I like to think it makes things more interesting...  maybe even a bit more challenging that way!   ;D

Well if it makes a difference to you Omni, I do set limits on myself. I do the whole Shiver's-list-thing where I don't visit rainbow worlds nor allow myself a reloaded saved game when my lander explodes. Nor allow myself to visit any key planets until they're directly mentioned in-game.

I actually just replayed the game using the technique of finding all rainbow worlds directly... I dunno, it feels weird not mining anything, and just doing the story elements. Not as ... swashbuckling anymore if you see what I mean?

Yeah, check it out... you're now officially a librarian.

Actually, it makes no difference at all.  I couldn't care less.   :P  But whatever floats your boat.  If you wanna be a librarian, go to librarian school.  If you wanna blow up some green, evil aliens then get your game face on, punk!

<deleteted by poster>

Thanks to all.  The overwhelming amount of advice offered helped me beat the game for the first time in a decade (Give or take a year or two).  I used to use the lander cheat in my guilt-free youth.   :-/

Dump out commons and corrosives? Personally I never bother picking them up in the first place.  Actually, except the first time I played (I think), I've always completely ignored anything less valuable than the precious metals (7RU/kiloton).

Same here, I usualy sell the weapon you start with for fuel, go hit the closest rainbow world with that fuel. Than from there on in I can pay for fuel w/cr instead of RU. Plus Rainbow Worlds have a ton of radioactives, and usualy the system itself will ahve some good minerals. So I mine those for more RU. And I just keep an eye out when in "event" systems. ALthough I am thinking about mapping the entire game just for the heck of it. Delta Tauri has 3 calm saphire worlds in it if that helps anyone.