Newcomer / Intro A question of mining....

I must be doing something wrong, or I'm not understanding what the point of "hotspots" are.
When you probe the rings you have got to make sure that you get all of the rings, the A ring (the one nearest the planet) is normally only a very thin ring, aim the DSS at the planet and slowly move it out away from the planet, when the aim changes to ring fire the probe, it should just illuminate a very thin ring nearest the planet, if it illuminates what looks like all the ring you have hit the B ring, so fire another probe.

A lot of Metallic A rings have got a Metal rich B ring surrounding them, Both can have Painite and Platinum hotspots in but only the Metallic will have laser minable rocks.
 
I haven't had any trouble finding the hotspots, it's finding anything IN the hotspots that's proving difficult.
 
I haven't had any trouble finding the hotspots, it's finding anything IN the hotspots that's proving difficult.

Literally the first prospector I fired in the Painite hotspot:

Umastae (20210517-191017).jpg
 
Yep, I know to go to the metallic ring. Even before the ability to scan the rings, I could tell the difference by their colour (usually).
 
Yep, I know to go to the metallic ring. ........
.... ... No matter, I went to the next closest system and went to the planet with pristine rings. I dropped a probe in, and there were multiple painite and platinum "hotspots," ...

I just checked to make sure I was not going to give duff info - sure enough Umastae A5 A-ring has only one Painite, one Platinum and one Monazite hotspot. All the rest are in the B-ring - which is metal-rich.
 
I thinks it's a right thread to ask about the mining lance. Soon I'll get my prismatics and I look forward for a second powerplay module. 2km distance looks very tempting and may help my Cutter not to bump every second roid I mine. But it's in theory. Does it worth 4 weeks?
It sounds like a good idea, but you soon realise it isn't when you try it/them. For efficient mining in a Cutter, you need your nose right up against the rock and 3 limpets per laser (4 lasers and 12 limpets). This gives a short path to the cargo hatch so the limpets collect quickly and efficiently. If you double the distance to the rock, you double the time it takes each limpet to collect a fragment, then the longer time gives the fragments a chance to spread out, which causes all sorts of problemsespecially if there's a rock close by.

My advice is to stick with ordinary mining lasers and keep close. It isn't difficult, though practice makes perfect.
 
Ok, soo....

I must be doing something wrong, or I'm not understanding what the point of "hotspots" are.

So, I looked on ED Utilities (http://elitedangerous.hozbase.co.uk/) for a pristine metallic ring. Strangely, it said the nearest pristine ring was in the system I was IN, apparently around a planet with NO RINGS. No matter, I went to the next closest system and went to the planet with pristine rings. I dropped a probe in, and there were multiple painite and platinum "hotspots," so I approached and entered the ring in a painite hotspot.

After the requisite pirates wasting my time, I moved to within 1km of the hotspot and prospected the nearest asteroid... and 200 more asteroids in the area. NOT ONE had any painite of any kind... nothing for lasering, nothing subsurface, no surface deposits, nothing whatsoever.

So... that's now 400 limpets used scanning asteroids in hotspots for the specific material supposedly IN the hotspot... with ZERO of that material discovered anywhere.

So, what is it? What do these so-called hotspots supposed to represent?
Why are you mining painite? That's oldschool. Platinum is where the money is now. if you need painite for the engineer, you'll find some with the platinum anyway along with valuable Osmium.
 
Single painite hotspots have never been good. The % for painite is already low as it's one of the "precious" materials, the single hotpot boost is negligible. For something like platinum where the % are reasonable a single might be useful.
 
We could do with someone preferably carrier based to set up a mining school, and no I am not volunteering:) ATM I am out in the Abyss a few jumps from Beagle point.
 
Here's a question... How are you selecting asteroids to prospect? For me, it's pretty well just random selection. I'll ping the area to see if there's any that come up with surface or subsurface material, but mostly it's just random.
 
Platinum and Painite, watch out for the smaller rocks that you seem to wizz by as you are flying through the ring, quite often these are the higher percentage rocks, but by using random does work at times, it depends on what you are mining for.
 
So, something strange happened tonight.
First, still no painite, though I noticed I'd dropped into the wrong ring. My own fault this time. Still, got some decent silver and gold, so a decent result.

However, while I was mining, I recieved the notification from Verity, "Mission target detected," or something like that. I wasn't on any missions, and I didn't see anything in my contacts list or on sensors... so I have no idea what that was about. Any ideas?
 
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