Newcomer / Intro LTD Mining

hawknerd

hawknerd
Ok so I have just mined my first LTD. I have a few questions:

I get an audio message that my prospector limpet has failed but it seems to work fine?
I use up all my prospector limpets (60 I believe). Is that all I get?
Do I have to wait and get all the collector limpets back to the ship without moving? Should I wait or can I move off to another roid?
How do you know when your refinery is full after the cargo bays are full?
My boost has stopped working?
I used up all my collectors before the cargo and refinery was full. Tips?
 

Ashnak

Ashnak
  • Depending on the size of your prospector limpet controller, you can only handle so many prospectors at a time. Fire more, and the oldest gets disconnected (and fails). Other failure reasons are when you move out of range or when they simply time out
  • you only need to shoot one prospector per asteroid, I don't know what you're doing
  • as long as the collectors are moving, they're still collecting stuff. When they hover under your ship, they're done and you can move on. If you move carefully, they'll tag along (unless their lifetime expires)
  • you get a popup in the top right, something like "unable to allocate...". Also, you can look in your right hand HUD in the Inventory tab, there's also a refinery screen
  • yep. You can't boost while the scoop or the landing gear is deployed.
  • happens. Get better at collecting chunks. Your positioning with relation to the asteroid (when you're doing laser mining) has a large influence on how far the collectors have to fly, which is how long they need for each chunk, which means how many chunks they can collect before they expire. Also, laser mining does tend to use up a lot of collectors. Bring more collectors the next time.
 

A C Ender

A C Ender
You only use 1 prospector limpet for each asteroid (it sounds like you may be trying to use multiple). There is a limit (decided by your controller) how many prospectors you can have active. When you fire a new one at maximum capacity, the first one will fail and you get that message.

You can't boost with cargo bay deployed.

Don't move before your collector limpets have returned their cargo.

Bring more limpets.
 

hawknerd

hawknerd
I only fire one prospector per roid. I have it set to secondary fire and only press once but get the fail message? I cant have used 60 prospectors can I?
I only have 64t cargo and I fill it with controller limpets. I had to jettison about 15-20 for cargo space. Tips?
 

hawknerd

hawknerd
My refinery had some rubbish in it which I got rid of. but it has 78% LTD. How do I sell these? I have a cargo bay full of limpets so should I dup them and get LTD to sell?
It says the hopper is empty?
 

Ashnak

Ashnak
I don't know how many prospectors you have used :)

You fired one prospector at asteroid #1. Then you mine (or ignore the asteroid) and move on. Fire one prospector at asteroid #2. If the prospector that is still stuck to asteroid #1 hasn't timed out by now, it will be killed when your prospector controller switches to the new limpet (#2).
You only have one kind of limpets - the controller you use determines what they do. So you have fired 40 (prospector + collector) limpets, and dumped 20.
 

Ashnak

Ashnak
You can't sell 78% LTD, but you can keep them for the next time round. When the counter reaches 100%, a new ton of LTDs is transferred from your refinery into your cargo hold (space in the hold provided).
 

hawknerd

hawknerd
I have collector limpets set to primary fire with lasers. Is this why I am using so many? I just keep the button pressed?
 

Ashnak

Ashnak
Hawknerd said:
I have a small amount of materials in inventory. What do I do with these? zinc phosporus and nickel.
Click to expand...

Keep them (can't do much else) for now. You may need them later for synthesis or engineering. If the corresponding bins fill up, you can also swap them for other materials at a raw material trader.

Hawknerd said:
I have collector limpets set to primary fire with lasers. Is this why I am using so many? I just keep the button pressed?
Click to expand...

Probably :) . You'll fire a new limpet whenever one expires.
 

hawknerd

hawknerd
How do I make thecontroller limpets last longer? In terms of letting me collect using less or for longer? I want to get about 72 tons including refinery. How do I get to that amount comfortably? I dont believe i am wasting prospectors but I do get the fail message each time. I only got 59t last time before I ran out of prospectors and limpets.
 

Shadow Quest

Shadow Quest
Set up the first two fire groups with Mining laser on 1 + collector on 2 and second group Mining laser 1 + Prospector 2

then when you begin select prospector fire group pick 1 or 2 (depending the prospector module) likely roids that are near each other scan the first that is hit by your limpit then (if you have more than 1 ) the second if they have ltd go to that one mine and then when done aim at the next

Change fire groups if you need a new collector dont discard limpets untill your refinery bins are full (right panel second scroll down in inventory)set to ignor other minerals that are not ltd,s but let your limpets collect (at least some )of the carbon,sulpher and rarer mats ) stuff you do want
 

Shadow Quest

Shadow Quest
Hawknerd said:
How do I make thecontroller limpets last longer? In terms of letting me collect using less or for longer? I want to get about 72 tons including refinery. How do I get to that amount comfortably? I dont believe i am wasting prospectors but I do get the fail message each time. I only got 59t last time before I ran out of prospectors and limpets.
Click to expand...
I ran out of 425 limpets on my first trip out last week so no sweat ration the use of your lipets as i posted above higher rated limpit modules last longer but thats may be for your next ship
 

Ashnak

Ashnak
59 tons of minerals for 64 tons of limpets? Sounds ok for me, there are days when I don't exceed that ratio either.
One way of improving on this is to ignore all roids with a low percentage of the stuff you want to collect. I never lasered LTDs (core mining for LTDs, laser was for Painite), but when I was mining Painite, anything below 50% was not worth the effort at the start of a run. If I prospectored too many rocks without result, my criteria got somewhat relaxed.

If you only lack a few limpets, you can synthesize them, if you have the materials. 4 limpets needs 10 Iron and 10 Nickel.
 

Ashnak

Ashnak
Hawknerd said:
Can I buy the materials or only collected items?
Click to expand...
That are collected materials (the same kind as you asked about further up). You can get them from asteroids (some of them) or collect from planetary surfaces. If you have some, you can also swap them at material traders (but they'll scalp you on all sides).
 
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