TheSoutherner

I think in a larger sense, mining a planet dry wouldn't be accurate, but I do think resource depletion is a good idea. I think of it like oil on earth: after a while, you've tapped all the easily accessible resources, and you hit a point where you expend more resources than you get in return. After a region is depleted, it's probably easier to move shop than it is to keep mining for little to no return. On that note, what I use is effectively a series of terrestrial tankers for ore extraction, which move to ore rich sites and then return to a central refining base, which ships refined fuel (via tanker-landers) to an orbital refueling station. Granted, it's not the most effective method in terms of launched mass, but it works pretty well for me since I don't need to burn any fuel to extract/refine ore once the base is in place, and it prevents lugging the ISRU around on rovers or on landers. It's also pretty nice because I only have to worry about putting the refining base under the path of the orbital station, which is a lot easier (in my opinion) than frequent normal/antinormal burns to visit ore-rich sites with landers.