Newcomer / Intro Core mining?

Is it still worth mining these? I want to try mining and found the normal laser mining a bit boring so wanted to try core mining cos you get to blow things up which is fun. All the core mining materials are in the same sort of range for price, around 600k+ so any of those would be fine. Anyone know of some good hotspots for any cores as ED Miner just says mine any hotspot you can find?
 
Core mining's what I do. I have a Krait set up for it. I don't enjoy the laser mining.

I just go to the icy rings in my home system. I did some the other day and there was a 1.6 mil sell station. But that's hit or miss, and it's ranged from 900k to 1.6 mil over the past few weeks for LTDs. With core mining what you get tends to be more focused, so smaller refineries are fine. I mostly go for LTDs, but I'll pop a VO or Alexandrite rock if the hunting's slow at the mo. I reckon any LTD hotspot is fine for core mining.

I use this ship, Krait II


Just 128t capacity, but that's just right for me honestly. A full load of top-price LTDs is 200 mil, but ti's rare I fill it all the way. I looked for jump and speed for evasion and making flying to far-flung sell stations to get the best prices a snap. I get interdicted a lot on the way to sell, so I wanted a ship I could engage the interdictor with for the combat rank opportunity and to make it stop. If you don't want to fight then mining lasers or maybe a subsurface drill-bang rocket to round out the mining possibilities

Core mining's fun and the pay is as good as any other type. It's fallen out of favor a bit as maybe it's slower to fill up than strip mining on average. But I enjoy the maneuvering to set the charges, blowing up the rocks and then flipping around some more to use the abrasion blaster.
 
Is it still worth mining these?
Depends on what you mean by ”worth it”. If you like doing it, it is a perfectly viable thing to do and you will make some credits doing it - it just will not be at the same rate as laser mining. You will still want to go for LTD hotspots, but the mechanics are different and you can indeed pick any LTD hotspot and do not need to hang in Borann (probably you should actully avoid Borann).

If laser mining would have you burn out and core mining wouldn’t, you will make more credits core mining in the long run just because you can keep it up.
 
Core mining's what I do. I have a Krait set up for it. I don't enjoy the laser mining.

I just go to the icy rings in my home system. I did some the other day and there was a 1.6 mil sell station. But that's hit or miss, and it's ranged from 900k to 1.6 mil over the past few weeks for LTDs. With core mining what you get tends to be more focused, so smaller refineries are fine. I mostly go for LTDs, but I'll pop a VO or Alexandrite rock if the hunting's slow at the mo. I reckon any LTD hotspot is fine for core mining.

I use this ship, Krait II


Just 128t capacity, but that's just right for me honestly. A full load of top-price LTDs is 200 mil, but ti's rare I fill it all the way. I looked for jump and speed for evasion and making flying to far-flung sell stations to get the best prices a snap. I get interdicted a lot on the way to sell, so I wanted a ship I could engage the interdictor with for the combat rank opportunity and to make it stop. If you don't want to fight then mining lasers or maybe a subsurface drill-bang rocket to round out the mining possibilities

Core mining's fun and the pay is as good as any other type. It's fallen out of favor a bit as maybe it's slower to fill up than strip mining on average. But I enjoy the maneuvering to set the charges, blowing up the rocks and then flipping around some more to use the abrasion blaster.
I did a couple of hours mining Void Opals last evening. Still getting the hang of it, particularly setting charges, but was better by the end. Think I could mine about 192t in an hour and a half with practice, which would make about 85 million an hour with Void Opals, presumably more with LTD’s. I find it quite relaxing, particularly having the pulse wave analyser to pick out good rocks to prospect, compared to firing off limpets at random looking for a good rock to mine. Also fair play to FDev the animation and sound for the detonation are very well done. I am now tempted to do a dedicated core mining build.
 
I did a couple of hours mining Void Opals last evening

Void Opals price is quite low post January neft.
So resume to LTD only and if you can sell them for 1.7 millions (rare, but it happens at least 2-3 times per month) you can still make a very nice profit
 
I am now tempted to do a dedicated core mining build.

That's what I did with one of my Kraits. The build is in the thread in the ships subfourm. One cool thing is a core mining ship just needs two medium hardpoints for the job, leaving the rest for weapons, allowing me to engage interdictors and put that to a stop, quick.

For me I go for LTDs, yeah, but I'll mine other stuff. I don't much care about stuff like credits per hour. Over the past few days I've read two threads debating what is the fastest way to mine to get the maximum credits per hour and one about credits per hour in exploration. I couldn't care less about that. Core mining's cool. I like it. I don't mind if some of my hold is filled with suboptimum ore or minerals. So VOs, alexandrite, or other well-paying fragments are fine. If the LTD hunting is slow in that particular ring I don't mind going bird in hand so that I'm not trying too hard.

My mining Krait's hold is 128t. A full load of top-pay LTDs is 204 million. But making half of that is fine too. I've already got way more money that I'll need, so maximizing it all just to get more isn't really the point. I just do it for activity rotation, constantly switching up what I am doing so it takes longer to go stale.

Building a dedicated miner is a really good idea. It's the one role I do that requires the most conversion of a non-dedicated ship. Gotta install a refinery, and a pulse wave, the blaster and seismic charges, prospector and point defense for hatchbreakers. Once that's done, I want to re-do priorities and then it's necessary to re-do the fire groups. So that's a lot of work converting the ship over to mining. So much better to have one always ready to go. And beyond that, it allows you to whistle for it anywhere, arriving fully kitted out for the job. No need to fly to where your mining modules are stored.

So yeah, that's a longwinded way to say a core mining ship is a fine idea :)
 
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Void Opals price is quite low post January neft.
So resume to LTD only and if you can sell them for 1.7 millions (rare, but it happens at least 2-3 times per month) you can still make a very nice profit
I got over a million each for the last lot of Void Opals although that is not common. I might try core mining LTD’s though. Anyway the prime motivation is not to make a lot of cash, although that is nice, rather to do something that is fun and different to avoid the grind. The other thing that is nice is you have the whole place to yourself. No annoying ganker chat, just the obligatory NPC pirate that Scans you when you drop in and then leaves.
 
That's what I did with one of my Kraits. The build is in the thread in the ships subfourm. One cool thing is a core mining ship just needs two medium hardpoints for the job, leaving the rest for weapons, allowing me to engage interdictors and put that to a stop, quick.

For me I go for LTDs, yeah, but I'll mine other stuff. I don't much care about stuff like credits per hour. Over the past few days I've read two threads debating what is the fastest way to mine to get the maximum credits per hour and one about credits per hour in exploration. I couldn't care less about that. Core mining's cool. I like it. I don't mind if some of my hold is filled with suboptimum ore or minerals. So VOs, alexandrite, or other well-paying fragments are fine. If the LTD hunting is slow in that particular ring I don't mind going bird in hand so that I'm not trying too hard.

My mining Krait's hold is 128t. A full load of top-pay LTDs is 204 million. But making half of that is fine too. I've already got way more money that I'll need, so maximizing it all just to get more isn't really the point. I just do it for activity rotation, constantly switching up what I am doing so it takes longer to go stale.

Building a dedicated miner is a really good idea. It's the one role I do that requires the most conversion of a non-dedicated ship. Gotta install a refinery, and a pulse wave, the blaster and seismic charges, prospector and point defense for hatchbreakers. Once that's done, I want to re-do priorities and then it's necessary to re-do the fire groups. So that's a lot of work converting the ship over to mining. So much better to have one always ready to go. And beyond that, it allows you to whistle for it anywhere, arriving fully kitted out for the job. No need to fly to where your mining modules are stored.

So yeah, that's a longwinded way to say a core mining ship is a fine idea :)
Thanks for your Krait build. I am going to pinch some ideas from that for my core miner. I think you are right 128t will be enough for me. Easy enough to fill in a reasonable time. This is about fun not huge profit.
 
The other thing that is nice is you have the whole place to yourself. No annoying ganker chat, just the obligatory NPC pirate that Scans you when you drop in and then leaves.

yea, you can deep core LTD's in any ring that has a LTD hotspot... no need to go to Borann for that
 
Well, i just combine all mining techniques, since i would get bored with just one thing.
It might be a tad slower, but beeing able to blow up a rock once in a while or shootong missiles at it
keeps me entertained while watching my limpets collecting the good stuff.

And the rocks from DCM yield way more minerals than the Surface scraping i think.

You need a rather big ship though.
 
Well, i just combine all mining techniques, since i would get bored with just one thing.
It might be a tad slower, but beeing able to blow up a rock once in a while or shootong missiles at it
keeps me entertained while watching my limpets collecting the good stuff.

And the rocks from DCM yield way more minerals than the Surface scraping i think.

You need a rather big ship though.
I should give laser mining another try. Couple of times I did it, found it very frustrating. Prospecting Rock after rock and not finding much worth mining. At least with the cores you have the pulse wave analyser to pick out the likely rocks to prospect. Half way through the first run I was getting the hang of spotting the fakers from the real deal. Looks like each chunk from a core is a Void Opal so each rock nets a dozen ton of cargo. You don’t need many rocks to fill your hold at that rate.
By the way it looks like your Avatar is taken from the original Wing Commander game. From The Maniac by the look of it. I played all the WC games. Loved them.
 
Ah, i see another man of culture!
It´s indeed the "original" Maniac and namegiver to most my Avatars in countless Games :)
The Original Wing Commander brings back a lot of memories...

But as said - if possible, combine Mining techniques. It helps keeping it interesting. Oh, and it´s possible to laser-mine the Deep-Core Asteroid after blowing it up.
 
Core mining can be very rewarding, especially if you set the charges properly and get a good blast yield. Laser mining also has it's advantages, although Painite isn't as lucrative as it used to be. One thing I like about laser mining is puts you in a slightly better defensive position since you don't need multiple hardpoints to effectively laser mine; you can get by with just one mining laser (as long as you can be patient). I was just core mining in an LTD hotspot today, as soon as I cracked an asteroid, 2 NPC pirates jumped in and I had to fend them off with a single pulse laser .... that got a little frustrating toward the end.
 
Not many laser mine for painite any more. Triple hotspot laser mining of low temp diamonds is currently ”the thing”.
Yeah, I had decent success tonight doing that....not a triple hotspot, but a private fishing hole one jump from my main hangout. But seems like it's LTD, Bromellite, or bust.... can't make a living off selling hydrogen peroxide. With a painite hotspot, you stand a pretty good chance of finding platinum, palladium, osmium, gold, yadda yadda yadda.
p.s..... love the ship name!
 
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Yeah, I had decent success tonight doing that....not a triple hotspot, but a private fishing hole one jump from my main hangout. But seems like it's LTD, Bromellite, or bust.... can't make a living off selling hydrogen peroxide. With a painite hotspot, you stand a pretty good chance of finding platinum, palladium, osmium, gold, yadda yadda yadda.

Generally, it is a waste of time (if you are looking to maximise profit) mining other things than the highest value commodity. This is true for LTD laser mining now and it was true for Painite mining before the nerf.

p.s..... love the ship name!

Then check out the names on the rest of my fleet. ;)
 
This is why I put additional core mining equipment on my laser mining Python. Blowing a core asteroid up is very good diversion from the regular mining. FDevs sound and animation crews always deliver.
This is what appeals to me and may be my next goal - I think I could realistically get into a Python by the weekend ... may as well use scheduled maintenance time to do a bit of reading on decent builds then
 
This is what appeals to me and may be my next goal - I think I could realistically get into a Python by the weekend ... may as well use scheduled maintenance time to do a bit of reading on decent builds then
Here is a starter core mining Python without engineering, much like what I used when I started out. It will set you back 110 Mcr, but honestly you can already afford it as the rebuy is just below 5.5 Mcr. The main things to understand are how to identify core asteroids using the PWA and seeing the cracks and then how to crack the asteroids open. There are several good YouTube videos on this so it should not be a big problem.
 
Here is a starter core mining Python without engineering, much like what I used when I started out. It will set you back 110 Mcr, but honestly you can already afford it as the rebuy is just below 5.5 Mcr. The main things to understand are how to identify core asteroids using the PWA and seeing the cracks and then how to crack the asteroids open. There are several good YouTube videos on this so it should not be a big problem.
That is super helpful thank you....

ETA: I also would like to try and move back closer to my home base and not be so 'reliant' on Borann for the initial wealth... this feels like the way to go...
 
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