Do you NEED prospector limpets to mine?

Are prospector limpets essential for mining?

Or can you find hotpots with DSS and then just use mining laser and a refinery?

I assume the propector limpets only highlights the fissures and sub terrain stuff. I'm putting together a build for DW and wondered if I really needed the prospector limpets, as I'd rather have collection limpets instead (in a cutter).

Thanks
 

Deleted member 182079

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They also increase overall yields. Personally I wouldn't mine without them.
 
You could in theory go scan a hotspot, use the pulse scanner to seek out asteroids with deposits, eyball surface deposits, shoot them off with abrasion blasters and collect the fragments. But that's about it.
 
Not in the same sense as you NEED a refinery.
But they are one of the two “wouldn’t want to live without” items. Collector limpets being the other.

But let’s clear something too - there is only one limpet. Everything else is a controller module. There are no Prospector limpets, Collector limpets, Repar limpets... they are all the same generic Limpet, just programmed differently.
 
Pretty sure hotspots are only for deep-core materials, so if you're only using legacy mining, there's no point in trying to target them.
 
The beauty of the new mining feature is that you can carry on mining the same way as you did before, if you choose to do so. Therefore, you can mine without prospectors but, as previously, the yields per rock will be less.

With the new mining, you have to do a surface scan from supercruise to identify the hot spots. If there are Res sites around, you will see the hot spots surrounding these. Which would seem to confirm what we suspected was the case before Beyond: Res sites give better yields than elsewhere in the rings.

But the prospector will give better yields still, wherever you mine. For surface or subsurface deposits.
 
How about universal limpet controllers with universal limpets?

well that would be a bit to much of easy mode.

A universal controller reduces the number or modules needed, to compensate for this, we cannot have the universal limpets as we have today, as that would be to much easu mode, so we get to choose how many of different limpets we want to take with us.


So today, who does pack a fuel limpet controller? Fuel rats, and a few others, but for regular play, noone, unless they are specific to go and help some friend.
Same with repair limpet controller, only people who specific want this do carry this one


But many carriers a collector limpet controller, as this is very useful to collecting materials



Now if we go and change this around to be universal controller and multiple limpet types, you could bring along a few repair and fuel limpets, for those random signal sources, in addition to all your collector limpets.


And in addition to this, a default limpet setting per ship would be nice, so I can have 5 fuel, 10 repair, and 100 collector limpets every time I restock my ship, and also limpets should not be treated like cargo when changing ships, instead these should stay on the ship when we change ships.
 
well that would be a bit to much of easy mode.

A universal controller reduces the number or modules needed, to compensate for this, we cannot have the universal limpets as we have today, as that would be to much easu mode, so we get to choose how many of different limpets we want to take with us.


So today, who does pack a fuel limpet controller? Fuel rats, and a few others, but for regular play, noone, unless they are specific to go and help some friend.
Same with repair limpet controller, only people who specific want this do carry this one


But many carriers a collector limpet controller, as this is very useful to collecting materials



Now if we go and change this around to be universal controller and multiple limpet types, you could bring along a few repair and fuel limpets, for those random signal sources, in addition to all your collector limpets.


And in addition to this, a default limpet setting per ship would be nice, so I can have 5 fuel, 10 repair, and 100 collector limpets every time I restock my ship, and also limpets should not be treated like cargo when changing ships, instead these should stay on the ship when we change ships.
I wouldn't call it easy mode but making gameplay mechanics more accessible.
 
The new mining mechanics are basically entirely dependent upon prospector limpets. None of the new mechanics are targetable without first using a prospector on the asteroid in question.

I guess you could eyeball surface deposits and shoot those off with an abrasion blaster if you really wanted to, but it would be super inefficient. During the beta I did attempt to do some of the new abrasion mining without prospector limpets and it was not enjoyable because I spent far too long examining each constantly revolving potato.

I don't know if sub-surface mining works at all without first using a prospector and targeting a node. I have no idea if you would be presented with the mini-game in the target window if you managed to actually hit a sub-surface deposit without actually targeting it.

Deep core mining would be almost totally pointless as even if you eyeballed a fissure you'd have no way to know what strength of charge to set upon it. I guess you could just set max strength charges to a few fissures (assuming you could eyeball several of them quick enough before the 1st one detonated), but again that would be super inefficient. I also have no clue if detonation charges would even stick to inactive (not prospected) fissure sites.
 
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So basically you need to dedicate 5 internals to mine?

Refinery
Cargo Rack
Collection Limpet
Prospector Limpet
Detailed Discovery Scanner?

Wow. Who at FDev thought that was a good idea?

Solutions:

Merge limpet controllers
Make DSS as standard too
or give all ships at least 2 / 4 tonnes of cargo space as standard
 
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So basically you need to dedicate 5 internals to mine?

Refinery
Cargo Rack
Collection Limpet
Prospector Limpet
Detailed Discovery Scanner?
...

Small correction: the DSS isn't essential. It doesn't help laser mining one whit. And for core mining - which is luck dépendent - it is actually not essential to enter a hotspot.
But yes, space mining is VERY intensive on internals. Thus it's really meant for a specialized ship, and not every ship can handle it elegantly.
 
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what we need is reprogrammable, rechargable limpets. not ones that disappear into the great limpet factory in the sky when the battery/fuel runs out.

seriously, its bad example when on earth today we are hammered with reuse and recycle, cut down waste the planet is gonna die because global warming... and yet we have throwaway AI limpets that are so dumb they can only accept ONE speciallised controller for ONE specialised purpose at a time.

my idea is that limpets can be damaged in use. you have repair kits for that kind of thing on ship systems, why wouldnt the limpet maintenance and controller module do all that while the limpets are docked?

limpet that hits the rock to prospect has higher chance of damage. that damage may prevent it being able to return on recall (yo would target the limpet and use left panel to tell it to come back.)

when a limpet is low on fuel it returns to the ship and docks inside the control module to recharge/refuel. the system will tell you when all limpets are busy or need to recharge. this gives you time to fly someplace else, or just keep blasting bits off and manually scooping them, until the limpets are back.

limpets cant recover other limpets. because the pressure destroys the circuitry and then the limpet is broken beyond repair. during refuel limpets are not repaired. you have to manually tell the module to repair each damage limpet. but that can be done while they charge/refuel. they draw fuel from the ship ready tank not the jump tank, ie the tank used for normal flight and supercruise. major damage (over 50%) would need special materials like molybdenum, or pollonium or some thing similar. that needs to be chose by the devs. but you pick those trace elements up anyway, and everyone should have some by now, i mean you use them for FSD injection etc.

you pick the type of limpet control to use either by a 3 version pseudo weapon so you can assign it on different firegroups to program the limpets for collecting, or fuel transfer, or prospecting. there is a pause before the limpet is launched because the correct AI programming is being uploaded to the limpet you are about to fire.

if the 3 function trigger thing is too complex for FD to implement the other option is you have to go right panel and select the controller and then select which function it is currently set to program limpets. then you just have a limpet launch gun. it will launch limpets that do whatever the controller is set to tell them to do currently.

anyway thats some quick ideas to get away from the bad example of the current non recyclable/non-reusable limpet system we have now.
 

Deleted member 115407

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can' t you just manufacter limpets?

Yeah, and you can strip-mine for the mats. You get 4 limpets for 20 mats (10 iron, 10... somethin'). And while you're laser mining you are collecting those mats anyways most of the time. If you really wanted to you could rely only on synthesis.

But let's be real, it's impractical. It works great at the end of a mining run when you have a few tons of space to fill.

Frankly I don't understand why so many people want rechargeable, recoverable limpets. And no, we shouldn't combine limpet controllers. Separate controllers mean you have to make meaningful choices with your loadout.

And technically no, OP, you don't need a prospector for mining. but as others have pointed out, it's one of the primary tools of the miner, and greatly increases your yield, and thus Cr/h
 
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