Hey guys.
Before you bite my head off, let me just begin that, in my view, this is NOT the same thing as an upgraded miner.
Instead, these are 3 upgrades that you could install on the Miner, kind of like the overclocker/energy storage/transformer upgrades you can have on your other machines. However, for the sake of balance (though as I play SSP exclusively, it would be a non-issue in my case), you can only have ONE of these upgrades on the miner at a time, and they can't stack with themselves.
First off, let's have a look at the Topographical Scanners Upgrade. This is aimed at people who want something that can compete with the Quarries of Buildcraft, while still maintaining the miner's precision - when installed on your miner, it will upgrade your OD or OV scanners to allow the miner to search in a 7x7 or 13x13 area, respectively. However, the boosted scanning range results in a higher power draw of...I dunno, 10-15 percent more EU/t, maybe? Gimme some ideas with what you'd think would be acceptable. It'd be made as follows:
G W G
R C R
X X X
G = Glowstone dust
W = Gold Wire
R = Redstone Dust
C = Integrated Circuit
X = Nothing
Next up, we have the High Speed Rotors Upgrade. With this installed on your miner, it'll mine its standard 5x5 or 9x9 area...except it'll do the job 25% faster than a miner without this upgrade installed. The problem is that those rotors require a rather substantial power draw to keep going, not to mention cooled - a 20% increase to the normal draw, in fact. To make it, here's how:
O I O
W C W
X X X
O = Cooling Cell
I = Refined Iron
W = Gold Wire
C = Integrated Circuit
X = Nothing
Finally, let me introduce you to the Precision Mining Upgrade. I wanted to save the best for last, and I felt that this would do it. Ever felt that, good as the miner is, you wish that it'd let you know it'd stumbled across some coal, redstone, lapis or diamonds so you could take your Fortune III pick to get more of each? No more! By installing this upgrade on your miner, the drills will target these veins in the most efficient manner, guaranteeing double drops of those four blocks - all other ores (Iron, Tin, Copper, Uranium, etc.) will still only yield one block of each. Though as you might suspect, such calculated precision means that the miner not only harvests these veins at a slower rate (a 50% drop in speed, in fact, if it comes across any of them), it also takes 30% more energy than normal for the miner's computerized brain to perform all the high-level calculations to most efficiently harvest these resources. Hope you've got some deep pockets, because it requires the following to be crafted:
P L P
F A F
X X X
P = Carbon Plate
F = Glass Fiber Cable
L = Lapotron Crystal
A = Advanced Circuit
X = Nothing
These are just tentative recipes, but I at least wanted to get them out here for review. That said, what do you guys think?