The Hauler doubles the scrap you get from each asteroid harvest.
It's not shown in-game right now, which is my fault.
Next patch adds a short description to every build option.
Good catch — right now there's a single shared gather cooldown, so harvesting one asteroid locks them all, which definitely reads like a bug.
I'm reworking it so each asteroid harvests on its own cooldown (so you can work several at once), and bigger asteroids will yield more but take longer to recharge.
Thanks for the sharp eye — patch coming.
You're right, and thanks for calling it out — right now the manual collect/net-checking fights the "idle" tag.
I'm reworking it so those get automated once your station's automation core comes online,
and I'm cutting the early cooldowns way down so the manual opening stretch isn't such a slog.
Patch coming soon — would love for you to give it another shot once it's live.