Miner

A Miner is a type of player that spends most of his or her resources on actions that will increase income. The miner often believes that any resource not spent on something that will pay itself back is a wasted resource. This is a more relaxed play style than others as it does not require constant time and attention. Some top miners only need to check on their accounts once or twice per day, or less.

Miners tend to focus on:
 * Building Mines, often to a very high level over time
 * Researching more levels of Astrophysics to make more colonies, which obviously contain mines
 * Researching more levels of Plasma Technology to increase production of their mines

It has become common for miners to use a spreadsheet or otherwise calculate the most efficient next upgrade. In other words, what provides a shorter return on investment? The next level of metal, or of crystal, or of deuterium mine? Or the next planet or plasma level? A pure miner will always do the highest efficiency upgrade.

Pure miners avoid spending resources on:
 * Too much defense (they fleetsave and promptly spend their resources instead)
 * Technologies that do not increase income (such as those needed for warships)
 * High levels of automation (robotics or nanite) since they often have to save for upgrades later in the game anyway and do not need to speed building up

However, many miners do not play such a pure style, but do also focus on other goals as they please. For example, since version 7 many miners also build a fleet for expeditions. As a result, a miner may often choose Discoverer class instead of Collector which would otherwise seem a more natural choice.

If a miner starts to build lots of defenses to keep their resources safe, the play style becomes more of a Turtle. This is less focused on return on investment than the miner, since defenses can not increase income.

At a certain point, a miner may reach such a high level of mines that it becomes impractical to upgrade them further. The next upgrade might take many months or even years to see a return on investment. At this point, miners often switch to playing as a Turtle or Fleeter. Of course, some continue building. In older universes, such as Universe 1, that remain active for years, such players can achieve truly high levels of mines.

Due to their play style requiring a high level of fields on each planet, a miner may be forced to terraform a planet if it does not have enough.