This was originally posted as a reply in
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=4351.0 <-that thread, but I think it would be best if it had it's own thread, so it could be discussed properly.
I will copy the original post in it's entirety, and just paste it here.
What I mean is, you don't do the mining yourself, you just toss a space station near an asteroid belt and on a daily basis it produces stuff you then take this stuff to another place for it to convert it into supplies/weapons/ships, wich in turn you can put in your other stations for them to be sold...Or just use'em yourself...
I'd actually like to do the mining myself, in the style of SPAZ, but slightly different.
You outfit a ship (like the venture) with one or more mining blasters, or other similar weapons, and shoot the asteroids. This should break them apart in smaller pieces, which can then be collected with tractor beams, and packaged so it will fit in freighters. You can have specialised tractor ships and packaging ships, making the process faster and better. You can of course also have fleets that automatically do this, if you don't want to do this yourself.
And if you don't like the idea of tractor beams, due to it being pretty unrealistic, you can always substitute it with "mover" drones. They are basically drones with large engines and grappling hooks, attaching themselves to asteroids, and moving them towards and into the freighters.
A good way of showing how the ores are stored in the freighters would be animated ship parts. On ships like the buffalo, the sides or other parts could open up, exposing the cargohold. The atlas is a different beast, as it has a tonne of small cargo containers on the outside of the hull. These could be animated as well, by only appearing when items are moved into it. These animations should only appear when you're mining in an area with no enemy ships, as it would endanger the ships too much with exposed cargoholds. This would also help diminish the effects on performance, as only relevant ships are on screen, along with only a couple of projectiles.
Of course, I don't know how hard it would be to animate sections of the hull, but I imagine it could possibly be done with fake built-in weapon mounts, as these can already be animated.
Also, if someone could send me a PM with instructions on how to make the link look like the one in the OP I posted above, it would be much appreciated.