My first attempt at mining

Deekin Scalesinger

Deekin Scalesinger
I've been playing since 2015 and i have never mined anything appart from surface mats found on planets.

So i decided to pick up a new ship and outfit it. Got a Imperial clipper. Like the ship. Good handling and crazy fast. I tended to forget crucial things like pulse wave scanner and such so i had to return to a station maybe 3 times.

When i finally havd all i needed i went to a ring system and started firing away my scanner and prospector limpets. I found a good rock and started to blast it with pretty much everything but the mining laser. I'm so deadset on my old loadout that i have become utterly useless at the start of a new one.

I saw subsurface stuffs. So i needed my drill rocket thingy right? Did someone put a bouncy ball on the tip of it? I shot again keeping the trigger pulled as shown in the tutorials. Bounces off. Again, bounce. Hmmmmm the aim is utter rubbish. Off center and no crosshair.

After a while of hit and misses i'm still not sure what i'm doing wrong. I have a 50/50 chance to actually hit it correctly. But many still bounce off even if it seems that i hit them dead center.

Some help before i get too used to my play style? ;-)
 

khelek_ac

khelek_ac
Maybe you miss it because of the angle. You have to be "in front" of the subsurface point to hit it correctly or the drill will bounce off. I had the same problem until I realised that.
 

Deekin Scalesinger

Deekin Scalesinger
khelek_ac said:
Maybe you miss it because of the angle. You have to be "in front" of the subsurface point to hit it correctly or the drill will bounce off. I had the same problem until I realised that.
Click to expand...
I have more problems with this non existent crosshair. Being further away doesn't help because the "crosshair" is just a huge circle on the screen.
 

Vardaugas

Vardaugas
It's a fixed weapon, so it shoots straight out from your hardpoint. Which are on the clipper rather far out on the wings. Also you need to take asteroid rotation into account. All that, and the charge time for the shot, makes hitting the crack not very easy.
 

Jakester13

Jakester13
cheesenbiscuits said:
The clippers hard point positions are such that you need to aim off slightly off.
Click to expand...

This... Which ever side it's on, try aiming to one side or the other and you'll get it soon enough. The Clipper is perfect for mining, 128t cargo is about 1-2 hours of mining cores only.

My advice? Ditch the sub-surface missiles, go only with seismic charge launcher and abrasion blaster (+ pulse wave an., prospector & collector limpet controller, 100 or so limpets and a refinery), keep your weapons on the big hardpoints. Also Detailed Surface Scanner...

Approach the ringed body and when you're close enough fire a probe (DSS) into the rings to highlight any hotspots (icy rings for void opals and low temp diamonds).

Now go look for core 'roids in the hotspot(s), and only crack them open. Lots of guides online.

Get rich.

o7
 

Phil JMac

P
Keep trying - the drill thing is kinda fun. Not that profitable but hey

I use a T10 and I had the same thing, damn things bouncing off.. When you find the right aiming spot (way off to the right for me if I remember) it starts working

I like mining... Just heading back from Sag A and Colonia and I think the first thing Ill be doing is finding a new spot to mine - I don't really need the money, I just enjoy it
 

zipline

zipline
Yeah, I used the sub-surface drill thingy for the first time a few weeks back and struggled at first. As others have said, works better when target is in front of you and you may need to aim a little to one side to counter your ship's hardpoint location unless using a central HP. Keep trigger held down, and when it hits a scrolling bar will appear, so just release the trigger when the marker line is over a blue area. There are usually multiple blue areas so you can drill the same area again and get some more goodies out.
 

Deekin Scalesinger

Deekin Scalesinger
Jakester13 said:
This... Which ever side it's on, try aiming to one side or the other and you'll get it soon enough. The Clipper is perfect for mining, 128t cargo is about 1-2 hours of mining cores only.

My advice? Ditch the sub-surface missiles, go only with seismic charge launcher and abrasion blaster (+ pulse wave an., prospector & collector limpet controller, 100 or so limpets and a refinery), keep your weapons on the big hardpoints. Also Detailed Surface Scanner...

Approach the ringed body and when you're close enough fire a probe (DSS) into the rings to highlight any hotspots (icy rings for void opals and low temp diamonds).

Now go look for core 'roids in the hotspot(s), and only crack them open. Lots of guides online.

Get rich.

o7
Click to expand...
Is there any way to detect the roids i can crack open from afar or do i need to prospector limpet the everlasting crap out of the glowing ones? 🙃
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
It's kind of interesting the way FDev have developed a bunch of mining tools which all, to a greater or lesser extent, compete for a position close to your ship's centreline.

The sub-surface missile definitely seems to be the thing that especially requires a central position, for ease of use.
Course, it's also a thing which isn't actually terribly useful* so you can just forget about it completely instead.

On my mining T10 (which probably has the greatest potential for poor weapon placement) I have the Abrasion Blaster and the SSD missile-launcher in the C1 slots either side of the cockpit, where they're pretty close to the ship's centreline.
I then have the Seizmic charge launcher in the central Medium hardpoint, to make that easier to aim too, and then mining lasers in the two other medium hardpoints.

With a bit of practice you can aime any tool from anywhere but it's certainly more straightforward to have the SSD missile launcher mounted somewhere central.


*I guess when you're earning up to ~Cr30m from each core-roid, it's easy to dismiss the SSD missile launcher as "a waste of time" but it can yield reasonable rewards.
I've had SS deposits that yield 5 VOs although 2 or 3 is more common.
I wouldn't fit an SSD missile launcher instead of some other mining tool but if you have the hardpoints for one, such as on a T10, it's worth fitting one IMO.
 

zipline

zipline
Deekin Scalesinger said:
Is there any way to detect the roids i can crack open from afar or do i need to prospector limpet the everlasting crap out of the glowing ones? 🙃
Click to expand...
Well, some say ftom afar you can see black lines betwen pulses but on ps4 I've not seen that. Up close you can visually look for the fissure cracks but IMHO may as well just fill up with limpets and fire a prospector. The cores normally glow bright gold on poth pulses from both afar and close up and look popcorn shaped, so better to memorise the shape to reduce the failures.
 

cheesenbiscuits

cheesenbiscuits
Deekin Scalesinger said:
Is there any way to detect the roids i can crack open from afar or do i need to prospector limpet the everlasting crap out of the glowing ones? 🙃
Click to expand...
In my experience they are exclusively small,smooth and brightly coloured and sometimes have black grid lines when you get in close. Turning night vision on makes them pop a little more. There does seem to be a 20 minute fly around getting nothing thing going on.
On a side note apparently we can synthesise limpets now,I discovered that last night.
 

Jakester13

Jakester13
At first, I used a lot of prospectors. Also: Switch on night vision (it shows the fissures as green spidery lines) and mine in the shadow of the planet... this way you can visually see the core ones without using prospectors. You should be throwing away 10s of prospectors as you fill your hold.

Also: Keep the pulse trigger held down, because the weird black and red lines appear on the second pulse, and are good indicators of a core 'roid.

You will learn which ones to ignore (very large / very small: nothing. Medium popcorn shape and always bright yellow: Bingo!)

o7
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
zipline said:
Well, some say ftom afar you can see black lines betwen pulses but on ps4 I've not seen that. Up close you can visually look for the fissure cracks but IMHO may as well just fill up with limpets and fire a prospector. The cores normally glow bright gold on poth pulses from both afar and close up and look popcorn shaped, so better to memorise the shape to reduce the failures.
Click to expand...

Must admit, I tend to rely on Prospectors to identify core-roids simply cos launching them in creative ways can provide a bit of entertainment.

I buy 100 limpets for, erm, peanuts (is it bad that I don't know, for sure, how much a limpet costs? Cr100?), go out mining and come back with 138t of VOs so it's not like I'm losing-out by "wasting" limpets.
At worst, I guess I'm earning Cr10,000 less - per load - than somebody who saves their limpets and visually identifies core roids.
 
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zipline

zipline
Stealthie said:
Must admit, I tend to rely on Prospectors to identify core-roids simply cos launching them in creative ways can provide a bit of entertainment.

I buy 100 limpets for, erm, peanuts (is it bad that I don't know, for sure, how much a limpet costs? Cr100?), go out mining and come back with 138t of VOs so it's not like I'm losing-out by "wasting" limpets.
At worst, I guess I'm earning Cr10,000 less - per load - than somebody who saves their limpets and visually identifies ore roids.
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Yeah, same here Stealthie. I fill up with limpets and fire at prospects, yes I recognise the 100% duffers and don't bother with those, but if I do prospect and don't find it's a core, I'll sometimes find some decent subsurface deposits or hit it with the mining laser anyway and get something. I normally go mining for a whole session, I find it relaxing & peaceful so I'm never in a rush to find just cores.
 

Winterwalker

Winterwalker
Agreed, core-only mining is total min-maxing - and probably frustrating too - so not into that. 1 ton of Low Temp Diamonds buys a LOT of limpets and after a few runs I don't know why anyone would care about the occasional 'bust run' when you come back with some empty cargo space.

Took me a while to work out though that targetting the prospector gives detailed reading of what's in the rock! Up to then I was just looking left panel for deposits of various types, mostly because I stoopid and never bothered with prospectors in mining 1.0 (small-medium ships, I still am, Cheiftain with 64t cargo is my everything ship)

My mining gear fire groups are in the order I work in ....
1. Prospector Limpets (Primary Fire) Wave Scan (Secondary)
2. Mining Laser (Primary) Collector Limpets (Secondary)
3. Subsurface (Primary) Wave Scan (Secondary). . I find useful for finding your way out of the ice cloud.
4. Seismics (Primary) Wave Scan (Secondary)
5. Abrasion Blaster (Primary) Collector (Secondary)

Subsurface Missiles are tricky - getting better at - and for me the gun sometimes seem to think I let go of of the button. I suspect it's got something to do with accuracy though and ideally I try to keep the double bracket HUD overlay on after firing until the drill starts up. Hard as it is I think subsurface is probably THE most satisfying method when you do get a chunk though, both hard earned and because when the chunk emerges it's on fire!

Also finding paying attention to the fissure strength when putting down seismics, even though I thought it would take time off to look at it, gives me a much better result anyway. Much more accurate and as a result faster total charge laying.
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
Winterwalker said:
1. Prospector Limpets (Primary Fire) Wave Scan (Secondary)
2. Mining Laser (Primary) Collector Limpets (Secondary)
Click to expand...

Getting a bit OCD now but still...

I always put limpets on my secondary fire-button.

When mining, or in combat, it makes sense for collectors to be on the secondary fire-button and then launching them becomes a reflex action.
I don't want, in other circumstances, to have to think about which fire-button launches a prospector or a hatchbreaker or whatever.

For a while I did have various limpets on fire-1 but I constantly found myself launching them when I meant to do something else.
 

Werewolf13

Werewolf13
Jakester13 said:
This... Which ever side it's on, try aiming to one side or the other and you'll get it soon enough. The Clipper is perfect for mining, 128t cargo is about 1-2 hours of mining cores only.
Click to expand...

Geez...
I shop in out of the way systems with major or pristine ice rings way out in the 100,000 LS or so from drop in point. Figure that way the place won't be mined out.

Find plenty of hot spots. I've tried landing at the edge, 1/2 way in and right on top of the hot spot. Takes me 1 to 2 hours just to find one popcorn shaped chunk of ice with a core which is all I go for. Normally only get 2 to 4 resource chunks out of it which turns into 20 to 40 of what ever was in it. $100,000,000/hour like the videos claim? Not here it isn't.

What am I doing wrong?
 
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