Tritium Should Be Mined From Asteroid Belts

[sidereal6]

Tritium (or Hydrogen 3) is a real substance. It's produced by stars, and over time it would accumulate on airless bodies. For example, there are proposals here in the real world to mine Tritium from the surface of the moon (where it's been building up for 4 billion years) to use in fusion reactors.

There are asteroid belts in ED, but we currently have no reason to go to them. There are too few asteroids, and there are no hotspots.

Tritium shouldn't be yet another ring hotspot. It should be in asteroid belts. And it should be there in sufficiently high concentrations so that mining it isn't laborious. For explorers, this would make refueling your FC easier because all you have to do is jump into a system and you instantly know if there's an asteroid belt. You don't have to find a gas giant and fly out to it to scan its rings.

The is the perfect opportunity to make use of something that's already in the game, but currently without a purpose.

 

[777Driver]

The is the perfect opportunity to make use of something that's already in the game, but currently without a purpose.

You can get cores in those belts. Extremely unlikely the devs are going to change the carrier fuel system, in fact almost zero chance. These carriers have a 70,000LY range, not sure why everyone keeps going on about mining. Only the hardcore explorers living permanently out in the black need to mine fuel.

 

[Bigmaec]

You can get cores in those belts. Extremely unlikely the devs are going to change the carrier fuel system, in fact almost zero chance. These carriers have a 70,000LY range, not sure why everyone keeps going on about mining. Only the hardcore explorers living permanently out in the black need to mine fuel.

But but it only has a 1000 ton fuel tank.

 

[777Driver]

But but it only has a 1000 ton fuel tank.

Does make remote refuelling tricky without an alt account. Max 7 500LY jumps with a light carrier.

 

[Bigmaec]

Does make remote refuelling tricky without an alt account. Max 7 500LY jumps with a light carrier.

See? Doomed.

 

[CAPT. Ho Chi Minge]

Asteroid belts are where i honed my skills as a young miner before all you kids got your fancy new tech ... but to be fair at the time i didnt know about ring mining and never knew you could actually fly into one.

 

[zombieapocalypse]

It would be nice

Asteroid belts are where i honed my skills as a young miner before all you kids got your fancy new tech ... but to be fair at the time i didnt know about ring mining and never knew you could actually fly into one.

In the early days of mining in ED, I think a lot of us did the same. It would be nice to have a good reason to visit asteroids belts.

 

[sidereal6]

It would be nice
In the early days of mining in ED, I think a lot of us did the same. It would be nice to have a good reason to visit asteroids belts.

Hopefully this suggestion can get some traction. I doubt we'll ever get another chance (let alone such a perfectly "realistic" chance) to make use of belts.

 

[sidereal6]

Extremely unlikely the devs are going to change the carrier fuel system, in fact almost zero chance.

how much work is involved in my suggestion? Very little.

 

[777Driver]

how much work is involved in my suggestion? Very little.

Apologies, I read your op incorrectly, it could work. Although tritium is only found in ice deposits, so they would have to scrap that idea.

 

[CAPT. Ho Chi Minge]

Apologies, I read your op incorrectly, it could work. Although tritium is only found in ice deposits, so they would have to scrap that idea.

This would be the biggest hurdle for the original idea , as far as im aware there are no ice asteroids inside asteroid belts (well not the smaller ones that usually get filtered out of my nav panel these days.

 

[sidereal6]

tritium is only found in ice deposits

No, I don't think that's true. Here's what the wiki says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3#Extraterrestrial_mining

tl;dr individual atoms of He3 are deposited on the surface of the moon (not in ice, just on the surface). To mine it, they propose processing regolith - that is, soil. Not ice, just dirt.

They also mention that it would be available from the atmospheres of gas giants - but that's not currently available to us in Elite Dangerous.

In the game we currently have, the most realistic place to mine for tritium is in rocky asteroids found in asteroid belts, NOT in ice rings.

And I think this is a simple change for FDev to make - at the very least, I'd love an official response. If there is some technical reason I'm not aware of, then fine I'll accept that.

 

[777Driver]

No, I don't think that's true.

No, I meant the devs have stated that ingame it can only be found in ice deposits, changing that to another type is unlikely, although it is worth a try bringing this up in the next beta, i'd give my vote. Would also save the Borann LTD3 hotspot.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Well, if anything, a 2nd (or 3rd?) alternative to pure Ring Mining sure wouldn't hurt?

I'm for example missing an ability to get this stuff (along with everything else related to conventional Mining) from Planet Surfaces.

I'd welcome having more Options vs. having to perform a single specific activity, simply because it's the absolutely only way to get it.

 

[ratchet5000]

There would be trace amounts of Tritium/Hydrogen-3 in any source of hydrogen.

So realistically you should also be able to scoop from a main sequence star or gas giant, albeit slowly. One of the few cases where realism actually provides convenient gameplay, and would help out deep space explorers.

 

[sidereal6]

I was thinking in a similar direction. An alternative mechanism that collects small particles of Tritium when parked in an ice ring of a gas giant.

I like this idea as a purchasable service for an FC. I would recommend that you have to stay parked near a star though, not a gas giant.

 

[varonica]

No, I meant the devs have stated that ingame it can only be found in ice deposits, changing that to another type is unlikely, although it is worth a try bringing this up in the next beta, i'd give my vote. Would also save the Borann LTD3 hotspot.

Scooping it from the tails of ice comets, I would be happy with that, some challenge involved, after all the comet is moving, and a new thing to play around with.

 

[Masta Squidge]

Tritium shouldn't be mined at all. Its an isotope of hydrogen with a half life less than 13 years.

It makes no sense at all. It should be refined, using a dedicated refinery module, from scoopable stars, at some reduced rate - say 2:1 (even though in reality its much more rare than that).

 

[sidereal6]

Tritium shouldn't be mined at all. Its an isotope of hydrogen with a half life less than 13 years.

It makes no sense at all. It should be refined, using a dedicated refinery module, from scoopable stars, at some reduced rate - say 2:1 (even though in reality its much more rare than that).

I like this idea too. Anything that's different from existing mining!!

To implement your idea, you'd need a ship with a fuel scoop and the special refinery module. You'd want to design a very cool-running ship so that you can scoop for as long as possible. Then, as you scoop, you occasionally get a "tritium refined" message.

For explorers, they're always scooping anyway. They would be okay with a 1-bin refinery and occasionally picking up a ton or two of fuel.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

This would be the biggest hurdle for the original idea , as far as im aware there are no ice asteroids inside asteroid belts (well not the smaller ones that usually get filtered out of my nav panel these days.

Icy belt clusters are rare - you need a dim star (class K or M), a distant asteroid belt, and a bit of luck - but they certainly exist. I know of three just in the populated systems near me.

Tritium shouldn't be mined at all. Its an isotope of hydrogen with a half life less than 13 years.

It makes no sense at all. It should be refined, using a dedicated refinery module, from scoopable stars, at some reduced rate - say 2:1 (even though in reality its much more rare than that).

The big problem with scooping as a mechanism for obtaining Tritium is it's (currently) entirely automated:
- get cool-running ship that can sit in supercruise indefinitely
- park in corona at minimum speed
- make sure you're not actually pointed at the star
- check in every hour to adjust heading or just pick a really big star and come back in the morning.

For something which can be sold for about 45k/tonne being able to get 36 million worth of cargo / several jumps for your carrier automatically overnight into your T-9 would be a bit silly.
(8A fuel scoop is 1.68 tonnes/second for hydrogen, which would be 272 million credits/hour at a 1:1 ratio, or still better than most actual ways of earning credits at 5:1, or still enough to fill up your tank while you slept at 60:1 ... but a tonne a minute would be painfully slow for anything but leaving your ship there overnight)

If they made an entirely new star-scooping mechanism where you had to interactively fly through Tritium-rich hotspots in giant/supergiant/B-class stars (easy to avoid if you don't want Tritium) which cause immense heat buildup so you've got to be diving in and out (or using heatsinks, or just tanking the heat damage and repairing at your carrier later) and actually interacting with the game, then great, absolutely ... wouldn't even have to replace mining for it, necessarily.

(And sure, the half-life makes no sense, but on the other hand having your Polonium and Technetium raw materials decay rapidly wouldn't be much fun either)