Capturing asteroids

How does one capture asteroids with Crystal or Metal resources? They're listed as invulnerable but have resources on them.. I haven't been too far into a single-player small random map yet - thanks for any suggestions.
12,525 views 6 replies
Reply #1 Top
Playing TEC, i just built mines on resources in an asteroid belt, using a Colony Frigate as the builder.

I believe you can also use a special ship designed to collect resources from those. Check into Orbital Refineries in the manual. I have not tried that yet.

Reply #2 Top
Asteroids that have resources (Crystal or Metal) are constructed from the colony. You should have the option that allows you to auto build on them so you don't have to designate which asteroid to build them on. Click the planet, then the civilian structures, left two (Q key for minerals and A for crystals) will allow you to build the structures. You have to establish a colony there first.
Reply #3 Top
The colony ship for advent/tec has the ability that creates the extractors on those asteroids that cannot be colonized, but have mines.
The scout ship for vasari has the ability.

Reply #4 Top
This particular system did not have a planet, only 2 small asteroids with resources. If I can't build a colony, can I just use a Colony Frigate (haven't researched Orbital Refineries either) - SS Sugar?
Reply #5 Top
you dont need to research anything, the things I mentioned start with the ability once you build them, vasari can create extractors on the asteroids with resources that cannot be colonized with the first scout.
Reply #6 Top
To combine what they said:

* Any resource asteroid that's in a colonizable system is handled by selecting the colony, clicking the Logistics structure button, and building extractors (the two leftmost buttons).

* Any resource asteroid that's in a NON-colonizable system (space junk, gas giant, asteroid belt) should have an invulnerable extractor already built. You have to capture that extractor to make use of it. For TEC and Advent, the colony frigate has the capture ability, while Vasari capture them using the scout frigate.