I don't understand why everything in this game needs to be so trivial all the time. Pay someone else to haul out Tritium if you don't want to do it yourself, or just don't fly a carrier at all! You say that fuel was no issue before carriers were introduced, but that's still true, my Cobra can scoop just fine and doesn't need no Tritium...
Tritium Mining in the black
- Thread starter Dziondziak
- Start date
I'm not grinding, I mix some very little mining with mostly exploration.
And my figures are not optimistic, it's what I have been doing since the launch of FC.
Even if there is one hour of mining for one jump, it's a tiny price to pay.
You want to be outside the civilised part of the galaxy, can't pretend to be spoon-fed for anything you don't like to do.
This thread has been very informative. Great information on how FC can really be used by explorers.
It would seem that just as we min/maxed our exploracondas, we need to do this with FCs as well. Tritium=time. There is no way around this out in the black. It must be mined. It seems that living the "hand to mouth style" is the most efficient way to go, as 155t vs 250t per jump is a substantial time difference. I was hoping to keep 10kt in my hold at all times, so I could always get back to the bubble (or at least close) but it looks like thats not the mechanic FD have in mind.
I will burn through my 23kt I have, and then begin my hand to mouth lifestyle.
I implore people to continue reporting on success of finding tritium. I feel this is now the variable that needs to be confirmed. We seem to have some wildly differing experiences.
It would seem that just as we min/maxed our exploracondas, we need to do this with FCs as well. Tritium=time. There is no way around this out in the black. It must be mined. It seems that living the "hand to mouth style" is the most efficient way to go, as 155t vs 250t per jump is a substantial time difference. I was hoping to keep 10kt in my hold at all times, so I could always get back to the bubble (or at least close) but it looks like thats not the mechanic FD have in mind.
I will burn through my 23kt I have, and then begin my hand to mouth lifestyle.
I implore people to continue reporting on success of finding tritium. I feel this is now the variable that needs to be confirmed. We seem to have some wildly differing experiences.
I've seen/read indications that yields from Tritium SSD mining can be influenced by overlaps - the DSSA group seems to think it can, but I don't know if that's changed (or was simply false) or not.
Here’s the problem,currently as things stand,my exploration game loop is,buy the fuel in the bubble,use the carrier until the fuel runs out and then decommission.
Any refuelling mechanic is competing with that,from a logical point of view and disregarding immersion,mining makes no sense if I can take a short trip back to the bubble and rinse and repeat.
It makes carriers in respect to exploration an after thought.
There is no point of using the FC if this is your loop. After buying all that fuel and taking 15 minute to jump each 500ly, you are in the red on both time and money. May as well build a paper conda.
It costs me a couple of days mining,then I’m just exploring.
Plus a carrier can get to all the most remote areas,which I find compelling.
I've found 1 nice tritrium spot so far, no overlaps, and I was probably running at about 150 Trit per hour laser mining. If anyone finds a double or triple then there's no doubt that will go up significantly.
How on earth do you get numbers that high? Even with the triple Borann hotspot I would max out at about 130 every 47 minutes (taking out travel time). I just tested a single Tritium Hotspot using pure laser mining (going to try sub-surface next) and after 1 hour I got 105 Tritium (which I thought wasn't all that bad). I didn't take enough Limpets (90 only), and so based on my usage, I would fill up the entire cargo hold with limpets.
I do have some rules that I think may be the cause, for example I only mine those asteroids with 20% or higher yields, though with single hot-spots I might try lowering that down to 15% to see if I do any better.
Still I'm starting to think that some miners have some special technique with laser mining that I don't know about that will vastly improve mining efficiency.
I really enjoy mining, but I don't agree with this being the only available option. Is there any real reason why Tritium can't be scooped?
Make the scoop rate slow, maybe even as slow as a full tank (1000 Units) every 48-72 hours. That way you have the option to mine while scooping or explore more patiently.
I doubt this would affect the trade very much considering how much you can currently make trading Tritium in an hour.
Make the scoop rate slow, maybe even as slow as a full tank (1000 Units) every 48-72 hours. That way you have the option to mine while scooping or explore more patiently.
I doubt this would affect the trade very much considering how much you can currently make trading Tritium in an hour.
I'm halfway to Colonia now in my FC and have resorted to jumping 20kly round trip to buy tritium in my Anaconda to refuel my carrier, schedule a jump, then repeat. The mining is starting to drive me mad and now I wish I just paid for enough tritium to make the trip from the start.
Just finished trying out sub-surface mining at a single Tritium Hot spot. MUCH better yields, but also much more difficult to do at my level (stupid rotating asteroids!).
50 minutes for 134 Tritium (128 in cargo, 6 in hopper). I found one sub-surface launcher didn't contain enough ammo for me, so I needed to synthesize ammo twice (which means I will need to look at getting some of the required materials like Tungsten planetside).
At times my rate was higher, but it depends on the rotation speed of the asteroid and the sub-surface mini-game layout. Overall still I feel the extraction rate is still too low; and SenseiMatty's suggestion of 250 tonnes/hour sounds like a fair target rate. Perhaps I can get close to these rates with a lot of practice of sub-surface mining, but if another player dislikes mining after giving it a good go, well it probably would be good to have another option.
I do like the suggestion of passively fuel-scooping Tritium around gas-giants that came up in beta as well. I think 48 hours is a bit high, although fixing it at my current mining rate which is about 6-8 hours per 1000t of Tritium may make it too easy; then again mining in combination with the passive refueling would be like having a second commander helping you to refuel the tank.
50 minutes for 134 Tritium (128 in cargo, 6 in hopper). I found one sub-surface launcher didn't contain enough ammo for me, so I needed to synthesize ammo twice (which means I will need to look at getting some of the required materials like Tungsten planetside).
At times my rate was higher, but it depends on the rotation speed of the asteroid and the sub-surface mini-game layout. Overall still I feel the extraction rate is still too low; and SenseiMatty's suggestion of 250 tonnes/hour sounds like a fair target rate. Perhaps I can get close to these rates with a lot of practice of sub-surface mining, but if another player dislikes mining after giving it a good go, well it probably would be good to have another option.
I do like the suggestion of passively fuel-scooping Tritium around gas-giants that came up in beta as well. I think 48 hours is a bit high, although fixing it at my current mining rate which is about 6-8 hours per 1000t of Tritium may make it too easy; then again mining in combination with the passive refueling would be like having a second commander helping you to refuel the tank.
I think 72 hours would be just about right. This would give you one free jump per day for a fully loaded carrier plus some extra. Maybe 250 Units every 24 hours is best.
I travel for work often. It would be nice to return home knowing I could move to another location at the start of my session on a whim.
I think this is a fair proposal that addresses the concerns for both parties. You won't have to spend 3 hours Mining per jump if you won't want to, and it will not significantly decrease overall travel time.
I travel for work often. It would be nice to return home knowing I could move to another location at the start of my session on a whim.
I think this is a fair proposal that addresses the concerns for both parties. You won't have to spend 3 hours Mining per jump if you won't want to, and it will not significantly decrease overall travel time.
I'm not sure...it's better than nothing but I still think that is too long to wait for a refuel. You like mining and I don't mind it, but by the third hour I've usually had enough. I'm jumping once every 12 hours or more so technically what your suggesting would work well for me (well maybe double what you are proposing), but I don't think the passive extraction needs to be this low to ensure it doesn't trivialize obtaining Tritium.
Then again we may end up with more planet mining operations with the upcoming Odyssey expansion.
Currently I can live with the Tritium extraction rates as they are (the sub-surface rates look good to me after that first run), though I think the hotspots themselves should be a little more common, as the search for a good Tritium hotspot also counts as additional time required for mining IMO.
I generally agree with you as I am also tapped out after more than an hour of mining at this point, but I'm trying to compromise with the other camp.
I think that we can agree that a passive scoop on the order of days for a full tank is the way to go.
I think that we can agree that a passive scoop on the order of days for a full tank is the way to go.
Considering that in my entire 5 year career in Elite I have mined 19K of various resources, it will take a hell of a long time. Forever if you hate mining. I warned about this in the beta, but got "shouted down" by certain people who knew better than me. So go and enjoy!Supposing... I've flown to to Beagle Pt...
How long does it take to mine 26.5k for the return leg?
I would of liked FD to use the old non-linear FSD equation that is used for smaller ships for carriers as well, where you could make a whole lot of smaller jumps at a much better fuel efficiency (though you would end up with a higher weekly maintenance as a consequence). This would of also allowed you to make bigger or smaller jumps based on how full your carrier was; perhaps even get close to 1000LY if you assume a minimum jump range of 500 LY for a full cargo hold.
I think as long as we differentiate scooping fuel and the Tritium resource it won’t effect the Tritium economy,it goes directly into the fuel tank and can’t be traded at that point. At this point I think it’s fair to be able to expand the cargo space into extra fuel tanks and be able to scoop the full 25000 over a longer period of time,an explorer can keep themselves busy exploring and don’t have to grind out mining constantly.
Right, I forgot. Automatic infinite fuel, infinite jump distance and infinite cargo space. And remove those 15 minutes of waiting time. Then I find having to fly to planets for mapping really boring, I would propose also planetary mapping through DSS... but without searching, just press the button and get it done, otherwise it's repetitive. There you go.