Mass Driver

Mass Driver
Mass Drivers are facilities built on planets or transported there that can transport 5000 tons of minerals per year to a intrasystem destination with another Mass Driver.

Function of Mass Drivers
Mass drivers can allow you with minimal micromanagement to set up a main industrial or resource planet in a system. Where all resources are sent to this single planet that arrive in system. You can create a galactic resource chain via mass drivers and transports linking between these Main Resource nodes, all eventually linking back to your Homeworld which should be a thriving industrial base requiring these minerals.

Note that mineral packets cannot travel through Jump Gates. You need freighters for inter-system transport.

How to use Mass Drivers
Mass Drivers are manufactured by Construction Factories. Typically, early in the game this means that they will be built on your homeworld. A Mass Driver takes 25,000t of cargo capacity to move, and can be moved just like other installations. Once you have a Mass Driver on a colony with mineral resources, you can set a destination for its mineral packets.

F2 (Population and Production Window) -> Mining and Maintenance Tab

To the right of the mineral report, there is now a drop down menu. Simply select a destination and watch the resources fly.

A Mass Driver can send a limited amount of mineral during a year (depending of its rating), but have an unlimited capacity for receiving.

Mass Driver Genocide
If you build a mass driver on your homeworld, and build or have one on a colony, you have a system of sending and receiving.

If you have your colony send a mineral packet to your homeworld, but while it is en route you deconstruct or move the mass driver off the homeworld, the Mineral Packet will strike your Homeworld with a destructive amount of force, killing millions and making your own population rebel against you.