SaltEMike Reacts to the Arrastra Q&A

[@JollygreenFullSteam]

I think we can agree that the CIG marketing team is the most predatory commercial group to ever exists; only difference is, they have a very niche group to prey on compared to these other corporations.

[@greyeyes3333]

So I just wanted to set the record straight. The Expanse has 1 intake port, it can only take in one bag at a time. This port is located at the stern of the ship with its remote tractor turret. The Expanse has six individual refineries which can do 6 simultaneous refinery processes. That is to say that you can do different processes in each which I believe means that you can do different materials in a single refinery as long as they use the same process to get the best results. The Arrastra and galaxy will only have two separate refineries that can run separate processes but take in a lot more mass. So if you’re running a small fleet operation you are forced to plan what processes you will use for whatever particular commodity you are after. Mining is the first in game profession that you will have to plan your fleet around your task, the Arrastra has been positioned as a fleet command ship. It will preform all the functions of the Orion just on a smaller scale. Which is what CIG promised. As far as I am concerned they delivered. That said it did make the Galaxy redundant in my fleet. I think that’s why they announced that the Galaxy would have a base building module at citizencon. To make up for the fact that the Arrastra would have similar refining capabilities.

[@VanJr11]

This is all speculation until the ships are in game.

[@greyeyes3333]

@@VanJr11 True Facts.

[@ZurakciEntertainment]

So on the Expanse vs Galaxy/Arrastra refineries and their saddle bag intake. Expanse only have 1 Bag intake with 8 saddle bag holsters for storage of refined materials. All concept art showing off that shows where the bags go, and thats the single one in the back. The Galaxy and Arrastra has 2, but they also only have 2 refineries, meaning if you have more than 2 types of resources, Id believe it can only do 2 sets of materials at the time, while the Expanse can do 6 at the time.

[@bartasbxx]

"We are out of fuel sir we can't move any further" "We got nothing?" "Well we have all the stuff we need to make fuel and we have some fuel made already to sell but we have no way to actually fuel the ship" "So we're stranded and dead?" Peak design. You can make the fuel but you can't use it.

[@Deadmode]

No, you can MINE THE PRIMARY RESOURCE needed to make fuel, but can't MAKE the fuel and get it into the tanks. Not hard to understand the difference. The Odyssey has the equipment on board to facilitate that, the Arrastra just mines. I don't see people complaining that the Prospector or Mole can't fill their tanks with the Quant they mine...

[@joshua41175]

​@Deadmode because they don't have refineries that stabilize and prepare quantanium as jump fuel. The fact of the matter is we don't know enough about quantanium to make that determination either way.

[@DannoHung]

@@Deadmode The Arrastra's supposed to have two refineries. The issue is that there's no way to move refined quantanium into the ship's own tank. I think that's *kinda* lame. However, I think you could, later on down the line, make it part of the game's science and industry loop. Like, the Odyssey can refine quantanium into "quantum bunker fuel" and run on that. And maybe you have to buy special quantum components for ships running off its garbage. The Arrastra can only do the "stabilization" part of the refining that keeps it from going boom, but it can't enhance it to actual quantum fuel. HOWEVER (this could be something they could do), an Endeavor with the right module can setup a further processing pipeline to take stabilized quantanium into generally consumable quantanium. Then a Starfarer can distribute.

[@SkyeWolf310]

I do like that the Arrastra can carry two Ursa Size Rovers. That leaves room for not only mixed mining ops but also carrying crafting vehicles to use the materials. The Arrastra appears to be geared up for camp/small outpost operations startups.

[@zikurick6365]

Regardless of how they are marketing, I believe they have demonstrated sufficiently that when it comes to it they have the will and ability to ensure the ship will fit well within its intended roll as a stand between for the mole and orion.

[@moomanseven]

I think the ship should have come with a Merlin dock

[@AyatollahofRocknRola]

They most likely will and should add some larger asteroids and rocks into the mix for this ship, it would be pretty cool to see some gigantic asteroids you could mine. This ship isn't coming out for another 5 years anyway, so it could be good timing for the devs to return their focus on mining gameplay again. Then years later they can work on the Orion and revisit the loop again for capital mining. If they use color maps to define mineral locations on planets (like starfield) for base mining operations I would think the Orion would utilize that system instead and hopefully there are a lot more systems online to fill out the gameplay. By then I'll be able to use my social security checks to buy the new, even larger mining concept ship that makes the Orion obsolete.

[@grast5150]

3:32 LOL - "that is what our special Whale Bait Ship does!!!!" - LOL

[@furiousfelicia5751]

Arrastra: can refine high quantity of 2 different ores at the same time Expanse: can refine smaller quantities of 8 different ores at the same time I generally dislike the fact we only have 1 solo, and 1 MC mining ship while mining just might be the only gameplay loop that feels sort of complete. Prospector is so damn good it deserves some competition since it would be cool to see how they make a worthy or equal competitor. I love the Mole but I think some short cuts were made there, it should have at least had enclosed cabs for operators. If you're a Mole captain I really see little reason why one would pass on upgrading to Arrastra. The way I see it, even if you break up the manpower between a Mole+Expanse, you're now 2 assets with minimal defenses. I dunno I guess it's a thing of preference.

[@baconious1380]

I just got the CCU for it. And the Orion bc that’s definitely going up in price

[@awerges2205]

"What is the point of the galaxy" was what I was thinking as well. Not only is the galaxy going to be working with loads from smaller ships, but it also involves having to tractor beam satchels into the ship. Meanwhile, the Arrastra removes all the extra work by pumping it straight into the refinery. Perhaps they can make the galaxy refine scrap? Wouldn't that get immediately invalidated the second they release a salvage ship with a built in refinery?

[@owenlyell8675]

It would be good if they made ships like the MOLE better at purity of minerals so that not as much inert crap was vacuumed up, or a way to dump the inert stuff.

[@expendability4813]

Regarding the bag issue.. I suspect they will just do what they did with salvage... add a magic "internal buffer" that can store the ore from the bags.. then that's what you process from.. because you know they will..

[@durtyred86]

Or, idk, have it spit out different scu boxes that snap to the outer grid?

[@michaelsmith2039]

The internal buffer is comprised of the internal piping and refining structures similar to a stomach in humans with the cargo being similar to the intestines. Basically they start empty and can be filled but unless you offload the cargo there will be a backlog. Otherwise you can process the buffer and then refill, which makes sense.

[@expendability4813]

@@michaelsmith2039 point being that the "two bag at a time" does not necessarily mean it cannot process just as fast.

[@Anachroschism]

It answered all my questions, and I feel I can now skip the Mole, which I was never happy with.

[@reamoinmcdonachadh9519]

Two types of Mining, Peaceful CIVILIAN Commercial Mining, and Dangerous Military/Faction Invasive Mining.

[@bomberboyz1308]

i burned out on mining in 3.17 the arrastra looks cool but at this point im more excited for ships like the liberator and legionnaire

[@reamoinmcdonachadh9519]

Structural Salvage??? Ooooh! You mean the new Microwave Salvage mechanic!!

[@JJS563]

11:44 SM - "We cant keep doing this" Cig - "Hold my beer"

[@fatman9994]

The only way I can see the having 2 ports being ok, is if you can load multiple bags into one port before starting the job. So that maybe, if the reactor or whatever it's called, is big enough to hold 32-48 SCU of raw materials (if you swap out bags on the Prospector) or even the 96 that the Mole can hold, maybe you can empty one bag in, put that empty one back on your Prospector/Mole, empty the next one, etc until your entire load from your Prospector/Mole is in one reactor and is technically only one job. If it turns out 1 bag=1 job, then yeah it feels like 0 reason to ever use a Prospector in pair with one of these. Still I think the Expanse would have a role. You will hopefully eventually, probably by the time we get the Expanse or anything, have persistent hangars where you can have multiple ships sitting there. So easy enough to have the Expanse sit there always and you bring your Prospector back. Land and move bags over. Do your loop for refining (hopefully there are some manual methods and some automatic methods for those that want to do both, or those that just want their own private refinery and get right back to mining while that load runs) and then store your refined materials at your hangar to sell later. Or if you're like me and get pulled into shit far too easily and spend money too easily, throw the Prospector and Expanse on the Liberator and have a mobile but somewhat solo mining operation.

[@animusnocturnus7131]

I'm absolutely sure that their stance to "quantanium is only for selling" will change either once the refining ships are in, or potentially once they have an actual trade system, depending on what of those two comes later. There's no way they will stick to this. As for revisiting mining... that would have to be done for the Orion again anyway. I'm pretty sure CIG will have to reiterate on the rocks miners crack for each size category of mining ships.

[@yonoqueriacuenta]

Star citizen gameplay loop is now comparing a ship that doesn't exist with a price tag of 10 full AAA games that will do just one thing differently than other 4 ships, some of them even more expensive that also don't exist.. and we will say "it is worth it" just because you can click a button on it. Meanwhile we will say that other game is not worth it, even if it can do all the things we still can't in this one.

[@Ragecon87]

I wish they woulda gone more into the cargo stuff, so can we load goods and also use it as a dedicated cargo ship if we wanted too? Because it would be cool to have a ship where I can mine refine and do some cargo running if I want too

[@joshua41175]

Theyve written in a ninja miner. Now to wait and see how well it works.

[@stepstv4466]

I mean Mike you get that last question when you dont release a deck plan with the concept. This is the first ship we dont know the layout off, from concept.

[@TairnKA]

My first thought: what level of quality of refined material will these ships produce, compared to a station or surface bound refineries? A small ship refinery should be limited to low quality material (just above making the material safe), while larger ship refineries are limited to medium quality materials. No ship with a refinery should be able to produce high quality (or better) material than a station or surface bound refineries.

[@duramirez]

Cries on the Orion 😢 I own since forever.

[@martinschemmel84]

I don't think the ammount of docking ports for the mining bags really matters that much, because you got the cargo space. So while with the Expanse you only got the ports you need to have more ports to be able to mix and match refining jobs from multiple ports. You cant just decide to goble up a bag of different material later down the line. With the Arastra you know you want to melt gold for instance so you suck up all the bags of gold one after another into a refinery chamber and thats then a bit of manual selection of bags and tractorbeaming, but I dont think it will make a big difference in ways of overall time, as the refining itself most probably will be the major time killer. That being said, I think Prospectors + Expanse will have the best efficiency costwise and allows for more individualism. different players can work together using their own ships and finding new recources will be faster with multiple ships and a Prospector can operate way longer than a Mole for reasons of fuel consumption. You could easily add a fuel tanker to that equation, as it can a) refuel, b) carry off the refined goods in a fluent support role.

[@rixxy9204]

"...so they said a lot of nothing" TRUTH !!

[@alexpetrov8871]

"How do the Arrastra refining capabilities compare..." - "Arrastra has two reactors". Lmao this is so fun to watch half a year later. Where is Arrastra, hello, anyone saw Arrastra, any news? No, forget Arrastra, there is hot topic about Ironclad VTOL trusters. Does assault Faterpiller have folding rooftop or not? Should you BUY Ironclad or not?

[@Sarsour_]

good stuff!

[@justalex4214]

That's why I only buy straight to flyables. There's no point in buying into something that's not available for years to come with gameplay that will most likely be different than what was promised (like the reclaimer claw). Even the C1 spirit which is a rather small ship changed during its short develolment cycle from 48scu in concept to 64 so it's not unreasonable to expect massive changes to these more complex and larger concepts...

[@scottwhitney1015]

With a few "Miner" changes this ship will be good. I'll see myself out.

[@zikurick6365]

Should Quant be a 2 step refining process and refinery ships can complete only the first step. The odyssey can complete the second step and potentially player built bases aswell??

[@zikurick6365]

The con is that the the bigger ship is more expensive and cumbersome. The con for smaller ships is they have limited capability. Idk why the big ships need handy caps irrespective of their existing flaws.

[@BegForMyMercy]

I think since the tanks are larger on arrastra, the 2 ports business isn't a big deal.

[@AtlasRandGaming]

Mike seems to have misread some items... The Arrastra can run 2 separate... not 2 per refinery. Each reactor can do what 1 expanse can... so 2 total not 2 each.

[@Wh1terider]

Since the Arrastra won't have any medical. It's going to be important we have a Ursa or comparable sized ground vehicle we can stow away if desired.

[@durtyred86]

I'm sure medical will get a face lift to the point where an individual onboard can keep injured crew alive long enough to make it back to a tier bed.

[@Wh1terider]

​@@durtyred86oh I'm sure youre right about the medical gameplay. I'm thinking about the poor unfortunate souls riding around in the ROC after they just got attacked by a pirate, and needs to be able to rescue them with some sort of protection.

[@durtyred86]

@Wh1terider very true. Solo players essentially. I think the best thing for these players "including myself at times" will be NPC's. Bring an NPC with a medical background, have them man the turret and provide overwatch while you do your thing, then keep going. In the off chance you are attacked or otherwise injured, hopefully the NPC will be there to get you patched and escape. If not, then you'll have to put out an alert to the- "incoming theorycraft" Medics board. They'll send someone out to you to patch you up. Someone with rep. Not just someone who comes in, loots you and leaves...A true blue medic. If you don't have the credits, no problem. A contractual agreement will be made that you pay them by X-date. One and done.

[@BizzMRK]

it should fit a c8r pisces if you are willing to sacrifice some of the 64 scu capacity on the sides, but yeah something like a medical version of the Spartan/Atlas platform would be nice. I wouldn't be suprised if they started to sell facility modules for your cargobay at some point, like a portable first aid station inside a 32 scu container or a refueling station which is basically just a big fuel container with an integrated fuel pump for example.

[@deadlyhydra]

One thing that’s bugging me is shouldn’t Quantanium be stored in a spherical tank and not in a box I assume that it’s a liquid or a gas

[@math1103]

Why Arrastra ? For me it is a platform for a group of friend that need ressources for their small base. Self contained, from rock to refined materials.

[@kishkin8743]

I wonder what the refining is compared to the Odyssey

[@Terran0va_Plays]

With a ccu chain you can get the orion for $25 more and get every miner under it (including the arrastra when it comes out for sure) and a hull C as a loaner. Why buy the arrastra at all

[@project.jericho]

No, there is no application of the english language that makes that read like each reactor will process double the expanse.

[@SpaceShortsYT]

Here's a concern I'm beginning to have. Mining produces all these ore's and Salvage now has RMC and Construction Stuff. I always thought "MUNCHING" would produce the same resources as mining after a vehicle was "munched". Where are we heading with crafting & or Manufacturing? Is manufacturing going to be using this atomized "goo" or ore's? It's a little wonky at this point.

[@TACTICAL_REAVER]

And everyone has forgotten the misc odyssey exists and only compares mining and refinery ships to the orion, galaxy and expanse

[@JayKnows]

the Odyssey is a exploration ship not a mining ship, yes it can mine Quantum but only to use it for it self. ( i love the odyssey btw )

[@steved4475]

So this implies the Carrack can't carry spare fuel to expand it's range?

[@sentokie]

I hope they never change to a mostly playerdriven economy live eve because that mostly kills off casual players because of the big grind and limitations of profitable professions because orgs people with multiple acc or bots can grind some professions to death

[@esmith7194]

I just want to say a lot of times you are very informative but this time you are creating a negative narrative for no reason at all.

[@itllBuffGaming]

I’d have to agree, watch his stuff everyday, but this one was pretty negative for no reason. He explains they keep vagueness because they don’t know what they’re doing with it yet, then randomly grills them for not explaining the cons, they don’t know yet 😅

[@ChanTheman-fe3wf]

Agreed. Alot of people are clearly a fan of this new ship.

[@TwoCatsNoMrs]

The issue is that idiots keep buying concept ships which makes CIG think it’s okay to sell them

[@vahnn0]

​@@TwoCatsNoMrsYeah, these guys are missing the point. The team that will work on this ship has half a decade of workload already, and that's working on the systems this ship uses. Those things are going to change, which means this will is going to change. But more than that, he's harping on this whole idea of unending ship concept sales. Every new ship is the coolest thing that makes all the previous ships look lame. Don't forget that those ships used to be the new hotness, but we eventually get them and they're not what was advertised. Over and over and over this happens. It's insanity.

[@RicoZaid_]

Salt E E E E EEEEEE

[@Kyle-sr6jm]

I think there is a reason they released the Galaxy first...

[@RegisBladeStudios]

The will never build the Expanse ..

[@thomasinlondon2849]

Large flies slow? Lol Mike maybe stick with the Prospector 😂

[@Trikie77]

the Mole need to have 140 SCU an they need to make the mole faster as it is now it hard to support 3 people with money unless you have a refinery like the exspanse next to you also how will this even work if you only have 8 slot of refinery an it takes 8 hours then your refinery ship get useless in no time you cant use it when its fill up i think the Arrastre is a great ship perfect for men my 2 freinds but it dont Changes the problem there will be if the Expanse do not refine faster then the ore comes in for processing

[@BizzMRK]

the mole already has 288 SCU (24 bags x 12 scu) of ore capacity, only issue is that we still don't have the eject mechanic that allows pilots to eject full bags (without manually pulling them out with a tractor beam from the outside) and use the folded up spare ones, while the first ones are hauled away.

[@Spike.SpiegeI]

I'm pretty sure they just take the top questions asked on spectrum and answer them, so if you wanted to see different questions answered it seems that's on the community for not asking or upvoting better ones. I think they've told us enough to make a decision on if we want to buy it. It's a mining ship that's bigger than a mole but smaller than an orion. It will be able to break bigger rocks and also refine the materials, which the mole and prospector can't do. It can also defend itself.

[@itllBuffGaming]

Pretty much yeah, he said he asked about the cons, but I found his question, and it wasn’t even close to top voted to be answered sadly. That one that asked who fires the missiles bugged me cuz it was literally answered in the Arrastra manual on the store 😂

[@AdhdGamerDadPro]

If they never stop working on it they will never stop making money

[@madcatandrew]

Man, it sure sucks that I can't put this gallon milk jug of gasoline in my car. Better go to a gas station, sell my milk jug of gas, watch them place that gallon in a different tank, and then re-buy my gallon of gas in a different "format" so it can go in my car. If only funnels or tubes were real rather than imaginary items.

[@gregsutton2400]

so none of these ships exist, what order will they be delivered?

[@michaelsmith2039]

Sorry, but the Arrastra being part of the RSI lineup needs to be finished during this year as this is the manufacturer of focus for the vehicle teams over 2024. Considering that CIG isn't going to resolve the backlog of the other long hangered concept ships... we can expect this to now be relegated to the back of the pile when the vehicle team will be pulled off of RSI and re-tooled to work another manufacturer. It would make more sense that if the teams are focused on RSI specifically, pushing for this manufacturer while that development is focused is a positive. If this is not the case then backers will see this pushed ... how many years down the road???? ie. BMM

[@moltenmetal5645]

Visually SC is stunning, visuals are the easiest part of game making these days. What makes or breaks a game is gameplay, which is the hardest and longest to develop. I don't currently have a dog in this hunt, other then i hope it gets finished before i die. In my mid-50's how long before SC is feature complete in Beta? Another 10 years?

[@vik12D]

I can't get a space jerry can and move the fuel? Future tech has regressed.

[@drakadarkon1458]

TAG , 31 seconds !

[@Wangchuk-Champa]

solo mine for longer at a time, more income. a 2nd home

[@aguspuig6615]

Random thought unrelated to mining: What if controling missiles wasnt tied to a seat, but rather to a role within the ship So just like you can allow people to have access to components or open and close doors you can give someone the ''missile operator'' role Then that person can use missiles from anywere, even while walking arround, so you can maybe open the cargo hold and lock onto another ship with your visor and fire missiles ''backwards'' I think that would be cool and wouldnt break the game too much, since the whole missile operator mode is already tied to your helmet.

[@BigBobBlazer]

Didn't answer the questions people wanted to know? I went through the questions being asked by players and which ones were upvoted the most. These were it. In fairness, the people were asking dumb questions. Can't blame that on CIG. Doesn't matter what CIG does, it never pleases everyone. Conversely, even the f'd up things CIG does, some people are ok with it. I liked the ship concept, I like what they're saying so far and I can certainly see me and my crew getting a lot of use out of it. The Odyssey is dead to me though, lol. As time continues, it looks more and more like a useless ship. A glorified cargo hauler. Mike, I think you called it on that one. Just a concept for making money. Won't see it for years to come either.

[@Fragnatix]

Buy an Aurora and grind and play the game, at this point, nobody needs to buy with real money Jpegs. The only argument now is the instability of the database wipes that cannot garantee you will keep your ships bought, but that will change in the future. Unless they intend to official wipes every patch in the future like tarkov, which will kill the game.

[@Watchdogger]

Arrastra has better loaner ships than Orion.... kind of an F-U to Orion backers

[@negativity1564]

This is too negative even for me.

[@shield-sc]

SC works in the same way the real world works. Tesla announces the Roadster 7 years ago - and in that announcement releases a number of features and specs. They allow people to put down deposits and pre-purchase the car. Those that do, do so knowing specs are likely to change, release dates are likely to be missed and there is a possibility the car never sees the light of day. Yet millions of people pre-buy. And whether it's tesla with their cars or CIG with their ships -- this is how the world works. If you dont have enough confidence in the intel received DONT buy it. I have a hard time with this channel as it feels purposefully salty but lacks critical analysis in doing so - and comes across more like complaining for complaining sake.

[@Marlax-101]

arastra= pirate miner. steal the gold, shoot other miners, steal other miners bags and add it to your load.

[@Zantherion]

second