A miner is a player that invests almost all of his resources into his mines. Because of that he has very high leveled mines and he has a powerful economy. this is a no risk, stress free strategy, because you are getting a good income of resources from your mines and you don’t rely on raiding to further develop your empire (unlike the raiders who are constantly relying on their fleet to supply them with resources). You also don’t have to worry about the fate of your fleet, since a miners fleet consists mainly of small cargoes, large cargoes  and recyclers which are used for fleet save. fleeters aren’t interested into chasing cargoes around the solar system, so with proper fleet saving, you’ll be safe.  Since a pure miners fleet doesn’t spend much deuterium, you can always trade it to fleeters for the resources you need and you might be able to get some protection just in case someone is trying to raid you. Miners do not build a large amounts of defense, but they do build enough defense (basic anti – farming defense) to protect their resources that accumulate over night. If you protect your resources via fleet saving and the anti – farming defense, you economy will grow more and more every day.

There are a couple of bad sides to being a pure miner, though. Constantly clicking on mines isn’t very fun and your progress will go slower than it would if you were a fleeter. However, fleeters are in trouble if they lose their fleet and they will drop significantly in the rankings and since they don’t have a strong economy, it will take a while before he will be able to build his fleet back up. If you find being a pure miner after some time boring, you can always become a corny or a fleeter (with strong economy, you will be able to build a powerful fleet or a massive defense very quickly).

Personal opinion about mining:

No matter what game style you’ll be playing, you have to have a powerful economy. Therefore, keep upgrading your mines as high as possible.

When transporting resources I usually never build small cargoes, because their only advantage is faster transport of resources from a planet to a planet. In my opinion the large cargo is better because it has more room for resources, it’s cheaper (considering that a large cargo costs 6k metal and 6k crystal and has 25k room available, while you would have to build 5 small cargoes for a price of 10k metal and 10k crystal to have an equal room available), it has a greater chance of surviving in a fight then a small cargo would and the large cargo is more fuel efficient (especially, when you upgrade small cargoes to the impulse drive). With that said, I’ll stick to building large cargoes.

In order for mines to produce resources, you have to have energy. Between the solar plant, fusion plant and solar satellites, solar plant is the best choice. It get’s pretty expensive after lvl 25, but it can be upgraded all the way to lvl 30 without too much trouble. After that, it’s best to build solar satellites, because they will be cheaper. don’t rely too much on satellites, though, because they can be destroyed by other players, so make sure you have a strong enough anti – farming defense to protect them. The fusion plant is my least favorite choice, because it spends deuterium to produce energy, deuterium that could be used to trade with other players to build a solar plant or solar satellites. It can be useful to have for a rainy day if your satellites get destroyed. Other than that, I say solar power is the way to go.