Exploit asteroids for resources using automated mining equipment as they hurtle through your space-claim in Astronomics
Earth. It's a great place to live, as far as you know. You've never been there, but all you have to do is earn a quick 600 million bucks and you'll be guaranteed your own little residence on that big blue marble.
That's gonna take a while because it turns out space-capitalism is even harsher than regular capitalism. As an asteroid miner in Astronomics, which is now in early access on Steam, the precious resources you collect from mining space rocks will make massive profits for the Cube Corporation, but you'll receive only the tiniest sliver of the profits.
On the plus side, mining those asteroids is tons of fun. Jump in your space freighter, blast off to one of the asteroids passing through your claim, then land on it with your shuttle craft. It's a little too dangerous to walk on the asteroid yourself, but you have a command bot you control as if it's your own body. Use a scanner to find the most valuable resources hidden across the asteroid, shoot a mining laser to break up rocks, and use a gravity tether to yank resources free and carry them to your ship.
That's a lot of manual labor (well, remote-controlled manual labor), but where Astronomics gets fun is in the automation. Slow-moving little worker bots that look like Roombas will trundle out to collect any resources you tag for pickup, saving you the trouble of dragging them back to the shuttle yourself. Problem is, asteroids are craggy, jagged places and those little wheeled bots can't always get where you need them them be, so you'll need to set up cranes on top of cliffs or across chasms that can lift your little bots and place them where they'll need to go. It's pretty satisfying to have four or five cranes lifting and placing your small army of carrier bots, all trundling back and forth across the asteroid you're mining, carrying precious metals to your cargo hold.
What turns Astronomics from a chilled-out automation game to a rather tense affair is the ticking clock. Asteroids aren't just sitting there
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