Newcomer / Intro Newbie Question about ASTEROID MATERIAL CONTENT

[barnett71]

hey guys ive searched all over google and most the answer are about people saying its rare to find an asteroid with high yield

anyway my question is this and it may seem obvious but I just want clarification

What is the difference between high medium and low material content asteroid? Is it the amount of the % shown I get back? so for example if i find an asteroid with 50% platinum will I get more back from the high content compared to the low?

Also say i find an asteroid with 50% platinum and nothing else, of all the rocks that i mine only 50% of them contain platinum? Im a little confused

ps. Ive found quite a few HIGH material content asteroids since ive been playing and one of them was 45% painite & 10% platinum (Yes im a lucky git)

Thanks guys

 

[barnett71]

Anybody help?

 

[metatheurgist]

Material = engineering material. Also known as elements.

% just indicates the potential value of the fragments that drop. A 50 means that it's likely 2 fragments will get you a ton.

 

[Rob_the_Sparky]

As I understand it each asteroid gives a fixed number of fragments and a high material content asteroid will give more materials so less of the minerals that it sounds like you want. For the same reason the higher the percentage of the mineral then the more you get as each fragment (or chip) contains a higher percentage of said mineral.
.
Asteroids in RES sites give more fragments per asteroid but you then also have to deal with pirates.
.
A prospector limpet not only identifies the mineral/metal content of an asteroid it also increases the number of fragments you get.

 

[d8veh]

Also, a prospector limpet increases the number of fragments you get. Don't ask me how because it doesn't make sense.

 

[Conde]

I'm filling in the blanks as we often have to do with ED. My theory has always been the prospector limpets transmit info back to the ship but also transmit a special "fragmenter signal" to the target asteroid thereby increasing the yield.

The good news is the Q4 update almost certainly contains a major upgrade and overhaul of the mining mechanics, supposedly making it much more "fun" and a better prospect (!) for making a decent living out of it. As usual though, no promises, no guarantees!

 

[Patrick_68000]

And welcome to the great family of the Elite ! Cmdr

 

[cmdr milesred]

hey guys ive searched all over google and most the answer are about people saying its rare to find an asteroid with high yield

anyway my question is this and it may seem obvious but I just want clarification

What is the difference between high medium and low material content asteroid? Is it the amount of the % shown I get back? so for example if i find an asteroid with 50% platinum will I get more back from the high content compared to the low?

Also say i find an asteroid with 50% platinum and nothing else, of all the rocks that i mine only 50% of them contain platinum? Im a little confused

ps. Ive found quite a few HIGH material content asteroids since ive been playing and one of them was 45% painite & 10% platinum (Yes im a lucky git)

Thanks guys

Amazing, not one answer regarding the actual question.....ok, one guy partially answered...
The rating listed as material content refers to as one person did happen to state, the engineering type materials, aka micro materials aka minerals aka elements.. the things like sulphur, phosphorus, iron, carbon etc...., not the actual Material such as Silver, Gold, Platinum, Painite, etc.. you are trying to mine, but extras that are a small portion of an asteroid, stuff that most miners would rather not see when mining. It is faster to mine these elements on a planet surface from meteorites using the SRV, for mining, they are simply a nuisance.
This rating is simply an extra and has nothing to do with the fact that a prospector tells you its is 50% or whatever platinum..you are getting a percentage for the mining material you actually want and a very useless high, medium, low or no rating for the extra micro materials that happen to also be there in mini amounts.

 

[Para Handy]

Amazing, not one answer regarding the actual question.....ok, one guy partially answered...
The rating listed as material content refers to as one person did happen to state, the engineering type materials, aka micro materials aka minerals aka elements.. the things like sulphur, phosphorus, iron, carbon etc...., not the actual Material such as Silver, Gold, Platinum, Painite, etc.. you are trying to mine, but extras that are a small portion of an asteroid, stuff that most miners would rather not see when mining. It is faster to mine these elements on a planet surface from meteorites using the SRV, for mining, they are simply a nuisance.
This rating is simply an extra and has nothing to do with the fact that a prospector tells you its is 50% or whatever platinum..you are getting a percentage for the mining material you actually want and a very useless high, medium, low or no rating for the extra micro materials that happen to also be there in mini amounts.

It was answered in post #3.

If you want to clarify the situation it is probably a good idea not to also refer to minerals (the stuff that goes in the refinery) as material (even capitalised ).

P.S. Material fragments when asteroid mining are not really a nuisance, in fact there are three elements that can only be obtained this way (or traded for of course) and any materials whose storage is full are ignored by limpets, you don't even need to put them on an ignore list.

 

[cmdr milesred]

as I said...partially answered...you obviously missed that part...

as you can see if you use some common sense, I used a number of common words that people tend to use rather than try to cause confusion by using one wrong word...hence the several aka's.....def: also known as... for those with apparently a mood to be overly picky today...and to remove any confusion I actually provided examples of each type of material.

Seems like someone is simply in an argumentative mood for super tiny things and somehow takes offence to clarification that doesn't meet with oxford standards....
It blows me away that so often people want to take a thread about one thing in turn it into a thread about their knowledge being better than someone elses.. that said, you could just as easily answered entirely with your own information rather than attempt to make someone elses information look inaccurate.

the whole point was to clarify specifics for the answer to the actual question and to make it clear that there are 2 rating given in mining and that one is for the things people are trying to mine and the other is for the more irrelevant items and then indicating that the high medium low or no rating is NOT relevant to the items that a person is normally mining for...

 

[Para Handy]

as I said...partially answered...you obviously missed that part...

as you can see if you use some common sense, I used a number of common words that people tend to use rather than try to cause confusion by using one wrong word...hence the several aka's.....def: also known as... for those with apparently a mood to be overly picky today...and to remove any confusion I actually provided examples of each type of material.

Seems like someone is simply in an argumentative mood for super tiny things and somehow takes offence to clarification that doesn't meet with oxford standards....
It blows me away that so often people want to take a thread about one thing in turn it into a thread about their knowledge being better than someone elses.. that said, you could just as easily answered entirely with your own information rather than attempt to make someone elses information look inaccurate.

the whole point was to clarify specifics for the answer to the actual question and to make it clear that there are 2 rating given in mining and that one is for the things people are trying to mine and the other is for the more irrelevant items and then indicating that the high medium low or no rating is NOT relevant to the items that a person is normally mining for...

You will notice in my post responding to yours that I was actually not at all rude but just pointing out that you used the word materials to describe both types of fragment. I even utilized a winking smiley to show my remark was good-humoured.

At no point was I taking offence but merely clarifying your oversight and rebutting what you were representing as a nuisance.

I invite you to consider your words "Seems like someone is simply in an argumentative mood for super tiny things and somehow takes offence to clarification..." with an expression relating to kettles and pots.

Your apology is overdue.


P.S. To others - sorry for taking this up on here in the newcomers forum but I just wasn't going to accept that calumny in silence. (No matter what Ben Johnson said. )

 

[Jenner]

Drop the handbags please. As always, keep on the topic and not the poster. Thanks.

 

[d8veh]

The percentage content is how much material you get from each fragment, i.e. 50% means that you have to collect 2 fragments to get one unit od material, 5% means 20 fragments for one unit.. How many fragments you get depends on whether you use collector limpets or not, plus other mysterious variables. When you find a high yield rock, you mine it.

 

[Factabulous]

The percentage content is how much material you get from each fragment, i.e. 50% means that you have to collect 2 fragments to get one unit od material, 5% means 20 fragments for one unit.. How many fragments you get depends on whether you use collector limpets or not, plus other mysterious variables. When you find a high yield rock, you mine it.

lol nice try

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

I've done a fair bit of testing on this.

For metal rich rings, this is the distribution of the roids:

Asteroid Type	Low	Medium	High
Ratio	1%	82%	17%

This is a rough distribution of the number of fragments per roid: