Flinging Mineral Packets

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Playing Stars!

Flinging a mineral packet is a two step process:

Target the Mass Driver

This must be done before you build the packets, or the packets will disintegrate.  Of course, you must also have a mass driver on the planet's starbase.

1.        Click on the Set Dest button on the Starbase tile.

2.        Select a target by left-clicking on the target planet in the Scanner. The Scanner displays the path as a purple line.

⇒        You can also target a Mass Driver by SHIFT-clicking on the destination planet.

For the packet to arrive safely, the target must also have a driver of equal or greater capacity. If the planet has a lesser mass driver, or no driver at all, the packet will destroy some or all of the colonists and installations on the planet surface. On both inhabited and uninhabited planets, 2/3 of the minerals in the packet will be lost in the collision.

Build and Fling the Packets

You build packets using the Production dialog. The packets are automatically flung as soon as they're built.

1.        Target the mass driver, if you haven't already.

2.        Choose the packet speed. Slower speeds allow you to fling packets to planets with lesser mass drivers (meaning you want the planet to "catch" the packet. Higher speeds (above the rated speed) are unstable but get there quicker and do more damage.

3.        Click on Change in the Production tile, opening the Production dialog.

4.        Look at the production inventory. It contains a packet type for each mineral and a mixed packet that contains all three minerals. When you click on a packet type in the inventory the numbers below the inventory show how many kT of each mineral is required to build the packet. The inventory will also include an auto-build item for sending mineral packets.

5.        Select the packets you want to build/send, then Add them to the queue. Fling packets automatically by adding the Auto Build Mineral Packets item to the queue. Your planet will build and fling packets until you remove the item from the queue.

The packets are flung as soon as they are built.

The Messages pane informs you each time a packet is sent. Mineral packets in scanner range appear in the Scanner as a green square if they belong to you or a red square if they belong to an opponent.

You can't attack mineral packets. You can intercept them and use the Other Fleets Here tile to transfer their contents to your fleet.

Displaying any Packet's Destination

When you click on any mineral packet in the Scanner, its destination is displayed in the Summary pane.

Learn more about:

Mass Driver Basics

The Guts of Mass Drivers

Adding Auto-Build Items to the Queue