Excavator Mk.II
Faction: universal
Overview
Industrial heavy-mining platform built to strip entire asteroid fields and gas giants at scale. Its quad extraction arrays and reinforced refinery hold dwarf the Mining Hauler Mk.I's output, processing raw ore into refined resources on-site to cut return trips. The trade-off is mobility: the Excavator is ponderously slow and needs an escort, but no other single ship feeds a war economy faster.
Base Stats
Weapon Type
Strong vs shields. Weak vs heavy armor. Reliable at any range.
Module Slots
| Weapon Slots | Defense Slots | Utility Slots |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 3 | 6 |
Special Ability
On-Site Refinery
refines extracted ore in transit, yielding +40% effective resources per haul
Lore
Logistics officers have a saying: one Excavator is worth a fleet you don't have to build. Without the ore it pulls, those battleships are just blueprints.
Tactics
- 1
Assign Excavators to asteroid fields in the highest-yield sectors you control — their on-site refinery turns each haul trip into a 40% yield bonus that compounds enormously over a full session of play.
- 2
Always escort Excavators with at least two combat corvettes; at speed 3 and with near-zero attack, an unescorted Excavator is effectively a free resource gift for any pirate who finds it.
- 3
Combine the Excavator Mk.II with a Freightliner Mk.II in a logistics chain — the Excavator strips the asteroid field while the Freightliner transports the refined ore, eliminating the refinery's already-fast return trips.
Strengths & Weaknesses
Strengths
- +On-Site Refinery provides 40% effective resource yield increase per haul — over a full play session, a single Excavator outperforms multiple Mining Hauler Mk.Is combined.
- +6,000-unit cargo hold is three times the Miner Mk.I's capacity, dramatically reducing the number of trips required to clear an asteroid field.
- +Armour of 500 provides reasonable protection against casual pirate harassment while the escort handles the serious threats.
Weaknesses
- −Speed of 3 is the slowest in the game — route planning must prioritise short extraction loops or the transit time negates the efficiency advantage of the on-site refinery.
- −9,000 metal build cost is substantial for a non-combat vessel and represents a significant early investment that takes time to pay off.
- −Requires a dedicated escort at all times; the opportunity cost of tieing down escort ships is a real consideration against deploying Excavators in dangerous sectors.
Recommended Modules
- quad extraction array
- on site refinery amplifier
- cargo hold expander
