Mining - any love?

[DrDeathO5]

An easy way to improve the experience is if they add precious stones that are visible from the surface or become visible after you laser some fragments.
They need to be rare just like the rare trading items . You could sell them to black market near you or you would have travel further to sell them legal in specialized shops. These precious stones with high profit should however attract more pirates and scum.
If you decide to only mine or keep regular minerals or metals pirate activity should be almost none existent.
This way you can develop 2 kinds of mining. A regular normal job with lower profits and a secure working environment guarded by the local police or a more adventurous eventfull life of a gem stone seeker in places abandoned by the law.

 

[Blastbeats]

Hopefully they make mining more fruitful. They wouldn't need to increase Profits, but the speed you can mine. I hear rumors that they might add drones of some kind, ala Eve. If you could send drones to mine, while you used your lazer, even simply doubling the speed at which you can mine would make it worth while to do instead of just trading. We will see I guess.

 

[IEatPelicans]

Mining was an okay way to get from sidey - Cobra or even t6. But boy oh boy is mind numbingly boring. It used to fully mess with my head. I had a few nights where prior to going to bed I had been mining the same asteroid over and over four hours on end. When I went to bed and shut my eyes I kept seeing the same asteroid, spinning around… and around… and around and around.

I think they need to bring in mining machines with built-in refineries that we can leave on an asteroid somewhere and come back later to retrieve, because right now, no one bothers with mining once they’ve got a decent sized cargo ship. The rewards of mining versus trading are just so poor. "Leave-n-Retrieve" mining machines could attract players with bigger ships back to mining because they could return to the mining machine between trade runs.

I like the idea of mining machines not only because it would bring mining back into the game people own anything bigger than a cobra, but also it potentially adds a fun dynamic of stealing someone else’s mining machine or perhaps just the contents therein.

And it could also be a way to draw players back to mining extraction points because it would be easier to hide your valuable mining machine on one of the countless asteroids at these extraction points versus the dozen or so asteroids that are present at each instance of asteroid belts close to stars.

 

[metatheurgist]

Specialized mining cargo bay with tractor beam attached?

I'd prefer mining drones since tractor beams aren't in the lore.

 

[Rude Tune]

no, No, NO!

If you find Mining boring then I'm sure you can find many other things to do in-game that will be fun and make you credits. Mining is fine, sure its not as profitable as say trading but I can make a decent living with it. Approx 290-350,000cr per hour. which is fine for my needs.

Dont ask for mining fragment collection to be dumbed down just because you are too lazy to do it. go trade or bounty hunt or whatever.

That is an awesome profit! What is your technique? I must be doing something wrong...It seems like I spend forever and make no money for the time investment.

 

[Ketzerfreund]

I only do small bouts of mining every now and then in a Cobra in known pristine metallic rings for quick boosts in cash and to catch up on podcasts.
I have no idea what a dedicated mining career might look like.

 

[Spork]

If we could get a module which added ore collector bots I could enjoy mining. I don't have enough autism to want to scoop up every chunk individually.

 

[Jerakeen]

Dont ask for mining fragment collection to be dumbed down just because you are too lazy to do it. go trade or bounty hunt or whatever.

It's not just a case of being too lazy, it's a poor game mechanic that puts the majority of people off one of the aspects of the game. I understand that you enjoy it and that's cool, but you seem to be in a very small minority.

If you have unlimited time to play then I'm sure it can be quite rewarding, but the majority of people have jobs and families and when they get a chance to play mining is just too time consuming and unrewarding. You fire at an asteroid until something falls off, find that it's next to worthless, move on to another asteroid, same thing, move on, find a good one, wait until the chunk has drifted far enough from the asteroid to be collectable without you crashing into the steroid, line up, pick it up, process it, get a ton or two of minerals. Rinse and repeat.

I bought myself a hauler and kitted it out to give mining a try. Went out and spent an hour in a RES then promptly went back and sold the hauler again. The actual mining wasn't so boring, it was the faffing about collecting the bits of rock one at a time that stopped me enjoying it. Automating that won't stop you collecting the bits manually if that's what you enjoy doing but it would open mining up as a reasonable career choice to many many other people.

 

[metatheurgist]

If you have unlimited time to play then I'm sure it can be quite rewarding, but the majority of people have jobs and families and when they get a chance to play mining is just too time consuming and unrewarding. You fire at an asteroid until something falls off, find that it's next to worthless, move on to another asteroid, same thing, move on, find a good one, wait until the chunk has drifted far enough from the asteroid to be collectable without you crashing into the steroid, line up, pick it up, process it, get a ton or two of minerals. Rinse and repeat.

I bought myself a hauler and kitted it out to give mining a try. Went out and spent an hour in a RES then promptly went back and sold the hauler again. The actual mining wasn't so boring, it was the faffing about collecting the bits of rock one at a time that stopped me enjoying it. Automating that won't stop you collecting the bits manually if that's what you enjoy doing but it would open mining up as a reasonable career choice to many many other people.

It's a lot faster if you blast all the fragments off and then collect them all. There's some skill in aiming your laser so the fragments fly off into clear space and line up for collection. Even so, it takes too much time to make collecting anything other than the precious metals worthwhile. It also seems like pirates like to show up just after you strip that 60% Pt rock of all it's fragments. Now if I had some drones doing that collection for me....

 

[Ketzerfreund]

A means of scanning asteroids quickly for their percentages would make mining noticeably more useful in two ways - not only would it spare the miner the probing shot when wandering from 'roid to 'roid, but it would also make mining a viable venue of fulfilling resource collection missions.

 

[Whiterose]

An easy way to improve the experience is if they add precious stones that are visible from the surface or become visible after you laser some fragments.
They need to be rare just like the rare trading items . You could sell them to black market near you or you would have travel further to sell them legal in specialized shops. These precious stones with high profit should however attract more pirates and scum.
If you decide to only mine or keep regular minerals or metals pirate activity should be almost none existent.
This way you can develop 2 kinds of mining. A regular normal job with lower profits and a secure working environment guarded by the local police or a more adventurous eventfull life of a gem stone seeker in places abandoned by the law.

I agree. There has to be an additional incentive for mining. I like the diamonds idea, or possibly a rare artefact (no dont ask me how it got there).

 

[Perseus]

I have an Adder for mining and I do it to get away from it all. I like it but understand how some people might find it dull and unrewarding.
I wish that trade was subject to more costs and risks than it currently is. There should be taxes for traders, something to dent their potentially huge profit margins. Maybe even licences that would have to be earned or bought. This tax could ease off as a system security level became lower but at the cost of increased risk of piracy.
Maybe mining could be more like prospecting, finding a potential RES for the system authority. It would also be good if Miners were more likely to stumble across interesting finds - anything from derelict vessels to secret bases to Thargoid 'roid picnics.

 

[Zebarmy]

To be clear, I like mining as it stands, but there are a couple of good ideas in this thread

Specifically DrDeathO5's rare's idea (just make sure it is an actual rare event!), and gems, and Perseus's Prospecting for RES idea (mining scanner perhaps?). Also Ketzerfreund's comment about mining missions viability with a % scanner. Perhaps have it work in a similar way as ECM does at the moment, a 2km expanding pulse?

I'm not against the idea of collection drones, but make them slow, and take up a large slot (size 4 or above perhaps, certainly at the cost of a decent sized cargo bay) in a ship. That way those skilled at the thruster dance pickup game, are still more efficient.

Also... So glad they fixed the cargo scoop on the Python, you can actually use it for mining now

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

Long term dream for mining is to buy a mining machine, go out into the dark and get down to the surface of metal rich planets and leave them there for a week or so.

I'm combining mining with Exploring. I can jump nearly 20ly. Instead of just scanning each planet and running, I jump in to each resource point and ring and run a couple of samples. (So glad they fixed that RES wanted spawning problem.) If I pick up something nice (like 5 tonnes of silver from a pristine source pulling 40-60% chunks.) Then when I drop back to my prefered drop off point for carto, I make an extra 40k on top of 40k for returning exploration data. Draws out exploration.

I call myself a prospector rather than an explorer as once I've done one system I head off exploring again till I find another vein to sample.


Cmdr Sheehy in his trusty Cobra "Mah-Ze"

 

[Zebarmy]

Long term dream for mining is to buy a mining machine, go out into the dark and get down to the surface of metal rich planets and leave them there for a week or so.

I'm combining mining with Exploring.

If Planetary Landings don't bring back the MB4 mining machines with them, I will drive to Cambridge and personally stand outside the Frontier offices with a Placard and quiet protest until they add them. Or invite me in for a coffee at least.

I have a bunch of planets that will be getting a machine dumped on their surface once it's in

 

[Raz0rking]

as long as mining does not get automated (drones scooping the ore) and the ores beeing transfered into the refinery...nah. Leave mining be. Or at least setting up a filter or so, that if you have cargo hopper a doing just ore X, cargo hopper b just doing ore Z ect...the ores you dont want will get thrown out or stashed in the cargo space for later refining...

If Planetary Landings don't bring back the MB4 mining machines with them, I will drive to Cambridge and personally stand outside the Frontier offices with a Placard and quiet protest until they add them. Or invite me in for a coffee at least.

I have a bunch of planets that will be getting a machine dumped on their surface once it's in

me to...me to...

 

[Jay8ch]

I started out with mining. Even a couple of tonnes of platinum very early on in the game is worth getting.

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

If Planetary Landings don't bring back the MB4 mining machines with them, I will drive to Cambridge and personally stand outside the Frontier offices with a Placard and quiet protest until they add them. Or invite me in for a coffee at least.

I have a bunch of planets that will be getting a machine dumped on their surface once it's in

Of course, it will be the MB5 by now, surely...

Yeah... I might just join you on that trip. Tea with DB and Co?

 

[Kyle_Brennan]

as long as mining does not get automated (drones scooping the ore) and the ores beeing transfered into the refinery...nah. Leave mining be. Or at least setting up a filter or so, that if you have cargo hopper a doing just ore X, cargo hopper b just doing ore Z ect...the ores you dont want will get thrown out or stashed in the cargo space for later refining...

I can absolutely understand if someone is not into mining, but I don't follow your argument. If you apply that logic there is so much more in this game that should be automated, but isn't. Even in the real world today you will find a higher degree of automation in industry, logistics, trade... than there is in E.D. Guess that's just the philosophy of the game, that you're supposed to be doing as much as possible "by hand". If collecting rocks should be automated, why not autopilots too? And trade route finding software. And just staying at home and remote control your ship...... oh, wait....

But I do like the suggestions in here for spicing mining up a little with rare materials, having to cut a specific points etc. Although I'm afraid making mining more interesting is very low on FD's list.

That is an awesome profit! What is your technique? I must be doing something wrong...It seems like I spend forever and make no money for the time investment.

I may be wrong but I have the impression a lot of people (not everyone ofc) try mining once, do it wrong, hate it and then never do it again. If anyone here is interested in some pointers, you'll find a link to the Essential Mining Guide in my signature.

 

[Zebarmy]

Tea with DB and Co?

You're right... it would be Tea, NOT Coffee!