Mining barges are industrials at heart, borrowing much of their core design from their elder cousins. They have very little in the way of weaponry and defensive capabilities, stripping out related systems for additional cargo space. Conveyor belts criss-cross the ship, carrying ore deep within the vast cargo compartments.

The most significant difference is the specialized systems designed to utilize strip miners. Strip miners are rather crude in execution, slowly shearing off large chunks of rock, but require advanced power and electronics systems to keep from rending the ore unusable. The lasers must be aimed precisely and utilize tremendous amounts of energy. Advanced computer systems keep the strip miners from reducing an asteroid to rubble, while a specialized power grid allows the ships' capacitor to feed the lasers energy needs.
If you read all this well you know now i am miner.