Scientific ATV's can help you increase the amount of minerals that are extracted from each of the mining areas, and Power and Mining ATV's can be combined to form Mining or Power Stations which greatly increase the resouces collected from them. Scientific ATV's are the units used to gain control of an asteroid. To gain control of it, your Sci ATV must occupy the center zone. If another Chapter or Guild occupies the center area, you will not be allowed to control the asteroid, and therefore not recieve the research points from it. You will have to forcibly remove the current resident, and that is where the Combat ATV's come into play.
Some Guilds are more combat-oriented than others, and it shows up here.
You will have to overwhelm your oppenent with numbers if you don't have the better tech. Starting asteroid setup. Well, in fact it is very detailed. Now, almost every game has problems, some of them major, some minor. What really matters is how much they impact gameplay and the way the game functions.