Planetary ring gradations, do they mean something or just cosmetic?

[STARFIRE REVMEUP]

Not talking hot spots here, talking the rings themselves... from gray to white or yellowish if other mode on.. I try to go into rings in either the brightest or darkest as if it matters... might not, but still lol

When you look a real mineral gradations, its always means varying strengths and content

Thoughts anyone?

 

[Winterwalker]

I think you go through bands of asteroid concentrations, asteroids per cubic metre.

It's a little tricky to tell (and I've never done a real survey) because the bands might not look very big in supercruise .. at 30 Mm/s minimum speed .. but down at 300 m/s they're massive. Concentrations and transitions between them would take some spotting,

 

[K Olley]

Both the quantities of the asteroids and the quality of the asteroids seem to vary within the rings, I always try too stay within the brighter area's or the cloudiest, if the quality of the rocks drops I either boost or if out in the black low wake a short distance and try again.

Sometimes in a hotspot rich ring just before I enter a hotspot I will target another hotspot in line with a bright ring so that I will fly along the bright strip, sometimes I will do similar by entering a bright area furthest from the planet and target the planet.

Sometimes you can find some very rich concentrations outside of hotspots, Osmium and Samarium in Metallic rings comes to mind.

 

[Donaldi]

Thoughts anyone?

As an active core miner I found that the opaque rings contain a thicker layer of asteroids, about 5 levels (hard to describe, like levels in a building) while the transparent ones (like in this image on the right hand side) are made up of maybe two layers, which means the valuable cores are spread further apart.
As for the quality near the center of a hotspot compared to the outer fringes, I have found no difference.
It helps to decide upon a side to be "up" for the orientiation (like center of milky way is below, witch head is up). Just my 2 cents.