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Interplanetary Multi-Stage Drop-Miner (Survival Ready! No Mods!)

Mining Ship Stage Original Version (I refitted it quite heavily): https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2235690913

Mining Ship Stage Reworked Version (Refitted for efficiency and Interplanetary Travel): https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2359141837

Also, if someone paints this before I do, post below so I can steal :P

If you're like me, and the idea of having to leave one ship to get into a smaller, less equipped ship to do X task or be capable of flying in X terrain is mind-numbingly tedious, then BOY is this the ship for you.

This has been a project of mine for the past few weeks, noting the severe (and surprising) lack of "All-Around" self sustaining vessels that aren't either modded or waaay outside the PCU limit.

Disclaimer: While this is easily possible to construct in survival, keep in mind that you will likely need to build up to the point where you can obtain platinum (and uranium for best results) as there are a LOT of large thrusters involved.

The "ship" itself is actually divided into 3 separate stages, all of which are connected by merge blocks. There are no pistons, rotors or other buggy nonesense on this ship.

The base ship, the one that looks like a real ship, is actually some other workshop item uploaded by someone else (linked above), but it's actually not important because the exact ship you use for the bottom doesn't make a difference, I just used that one as it had a good platform to work with (And converted the OP's setup to hydrogen as it was previously only Ion. So now you can access planets). It functions like a normal drop-miner. You get vertical, fire up the drills, and drop.

See, the problem with using just that ship, or any normal ship, for this kind of mining is that you're 100% going to get stuck in your hole and be too weighed down to get out. If it wasn't for that hiccup, the rest of this wouldn't be needed. You see, the second stage (which I call the Atmo-Lifter) is basically a giant platform with an obscene amount of large atmo thrusters on it. This will drastically increase the amount of weight able to be mined in a single go, and with this particular ship you can fill it all the way up and still fly no problem. But you see, then there's the problem with getting those resources OFF the planet. Because to save hydrogen and actually make the vessel efficient, atmo-thrusters are the only possibility for the lifter stage in atmosphere. And there's no room for Ions on it without increasing its profile even further.

Que the third stage, which I call "Space-Lifter". Now this guy here has about quadruple the lifting force with it's Ion thrusters, but this comes at the cost of power and ONLY functions once you're at around 40% gravity. It's also equipped with 2 jump drives, which the original ship had exactly none of surprisingly.

*SO! There you have it, folks. The last ship you'll ever need, as it functions as a sizable base/station, mining-refining-and-assembling facility, and a means of traveling basically anywhere in the solar system even with a full cargo hold. Just keep refilling that ice, and you'll never have to leave the ship... at all! Isn't that great? Oh, and both lifter stages have cockpits and hotbars setup already so if need be you can fly/park them separately. Just DON'T detach the Ion lifter while under gravity unless you want everything to die. Also, try to keep them upright, it's really only meant to hover vertically while the ship is attached to the platforms.

*Included:

Drills - Lots. Diamond-shaped drillhead allows almost total submergence of "base" vessel. Good for deeper ores.

Batteries - Dude it's like 73% made OF batteries.

Thrust Type - All 3, split into 3 neat little packages.

Power - Hydro gennies can support the entire system, but there are a few reactors that can take the load off some.

Cargo - About 70m I think. It's enough to keep the system running full thrust for 5.5 hours straight if you fill it with ice.

Range - Realistically for survival, 3 hours at full energy usage from all thrusters, but can be more depending on how much cargo space you have for ice storage.

Utility - 8 Refineries, 8 Assemblers, an absolute s***-ton of O2/H2 Gennies. Will fill all hydro tanks to full basically instantly.

Weapons - Basically 0, but you can outfit it however you like. System is built around a symmetrical network of conveyors from the drillhead to the back of the atmo-lift platform.

Lemme know what you guys think. If you figure out how to make it more efficient without making it even uglier, post it here!