The mining outpost is a small structure with a mining laser, and an observation deck. The lower half of the tower has the controls for the laser, and the upper floor is designed like an air traffic control tower; relaying communications from space ships to nearby bases. It also has a very detailed, but short range, scanning array. The mining outpost does not have a force field to hold in an oxygen atmosphere, so operators are switched out on a 5-hour shift. When an outpost had mined all the minerals it could it was often rebuilt into something more useful.