Orbital iron mining for surface consumption: Is it viable?
I’ve recently decided to finally play Factorio properly. In my previous vanilla playthrough, I barely scraped my way to space science packets and then, for some reason, decided to tear down my entire main bus to transition fully into a bot-based factory. Looking back, I now realize that was complete madness LOL.
Anyway, I’m slowly exploring the Space Age DLC now, and my starter iron patches on Nauvis are starting to run dry. Since asteroids in space are infinite, they basically represent free, endless resources in the form of calcite, iron ore and carbon.
So here is my idea: Can I just build a space platform in Nauvis orbit to mine metallic asteroids, and use that as my primary iron ore source for the surface? This would give me an endless supply of iron deliverable anywhere on Nauvis via Cargo Landing Pads, plus it would drastically reduce pollution on the planet.
I know that asteroid density in Nauvis orbit is relatively low, but what's stopping me from building a massive fleet of independent platforms? Just a bunch of medium-sized space stations processing chunks into iron ore, storing it, and launching it down on demand whenever a landing pad requests it.
Does this make sense? How efficient is this approach, and is it actually viable in the mid-to-late game? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
I apologize if my English is broken, but I tried to describe everything so that you could understand.
EDIT: Wow, this blew up! This is my very first time posting in the Reddit community, and I am incredibly surprised by how kind and welcoming everyone is. I honestly didn't expect so much helpful advice and people sharing their experience without any toxicity. Thank you all so much for your insights, you guys saved me a ton of time and resources! The factory must grow!