We all know that commodity trading is the most profitable way to make money in E.D, that is, until the economy is properly implemented, and when that time comes you'll want to know before-hand how to make money in the other professions, so that you can point and laugh at the people who have exploited this problem for weeks now, ( Yes I'm a bit salty over people already owning anacondas 
).
So mining, unlike other professions where regardless of your ship, or how you have it outfitted, you can make a decent amount of money to get you off the ground when you first start, and keep you going until you decide to specialize and optimize to one style. With that in mind, mining is very much a mid game activity, it is a way to get you from your first few million, to the tens, twenties and thirties.
I'm going to assume that the majority of players understand the basics of mining and have perhaps, already attempted it, but have hit that same wall which is profit v time spent.
So first off I'll quickly go through the ship and equipment you'll need as it is fairly self explanatory except for a few tweaks here and there which will hopefully save you money by not buying unnecessary tools and in general speeding up the process.
Some people say a cobra is the best ship to start mining with as it can run with a decent cargo capacity and still have enough internal slots remaining to fit your mining equipment, and that is true but. remember that mining as i said, just does not work well on a small scale, you will go from making nothing, to more nothing, until you hit a certain point and than it's exponential growth from then on, and that point you need to hit, is a Type-6 transporter, a T6. Now for arguments sake, lets say you decide to mine with a cobra until you reach the amount of credits required for a well-fitted T6, you can do this but, remember the profit v time spent wall, you just won't make money fast enough at that scale, in comparison to what you could make in the other professions.
Congratulations! You are now the owner of a Lakon Spaceways, Type-6 Transporter! Do you have enough money to begin outfitting it? No? Then I do hope you haven't already sold your previous ship. The minimum I was happy with whilst outfitting the T6 in 'E.D Shipyard' ( Link to shipyard below ) came to a price of just a little bit over three million ( 3,087,585 ). ( I chose not to list out everything you need from outfitting as it would make the post very cluttered, Use the link below to see the outfitted T6. )
The main reason for using a T6 is as you might expect: Cargo space, but not for the reason you're thinking of. The key to mining is not how much you can carry, but how fast you can do it, So once you have your T6 and have bought the necessary equipment you're going to select munitions and fill the entire ship up with limpets.
Next up: Where to mine. There are two criteria you have to keep in mind, one more obvious than the other, and those two are: The type of asteroid ring your mining ( Link to some known mining rings below ), and how close the ring is to systems that have a high tech and refinery orientated economy. That second point is where a lot of tutorials and guides differ, and when you compare the two, this is where my method is better, let me explain. The type of asteroid ring you mine affects what you are more likely to get out of each rock, it is a simple scale.
Pristine>Major Reserves>Common Reserves>Low Reserves>Depleted.
Metallic>Metal Rich>Rocky>Icy.
For this guide my example will be the system that I mine from: Alkupai.
Before I explain the final part of 'Where to mine' I'll tell you 'what to mine' and 'how to mine efficiently' as it's crucial to how fast you'll get your payday and how much you'll make. There is a very large selection of metals and minerals you can find but only five are worthwhile mining in mass:
Painite>Palladium>Osmium>Platinum>Gold.
All are relatively common except for painite which is about three times as rare as the rest.
So lets go mining, jump to your mining ring ( In this case Alkupai 12 ) and equip your prospector limpets, very easy to use, aim at an asteroid, fire it and when it hits, it will tell you the contents of the rock so you know whether or not to mine it. Lets say the contents come up as 16% Palladium, 25% Bertrandite and 5% Platinum, you might think 'good', a good amount of palladium with some platinum which is what you're looking for. What you'll come to realize though is that the amount of usable material you're getting out of each of these types of rock is just not worth the amount of time it takes to mine them. What I do is I ignore anything under 23% except painite which is much rarer, so any amount of it you find should be mined, you might think, "aah it's close enough", but remember speed is the key here.
So, your mining and fragments are beginning to come out of the rock this is where collector limpets come in, release one, and it will find the nearest fragment and bring it back to your ship, ( There is a bug where if you have a fragment targeted the limpet will go out, collect the fragment and bring it back, but then blow up, this is definitely not what you want so the solution is, before you release a limpet make sure you have nothing targeted by looking upwards and pressing the target button ) you can have two active collector limpets at the same time if you bought the correct type, it is much more beneficial to have two active instead of saving one as again, speed is key.
You may find an asteroid is spinning and continuously crashing into your limpets and destroying them, this is pretty frustrating when you have 40% of painite tucked away in there. If, when you look at the asteroid you see it spinning on only one axis, or in other words only in one direction, then move to the side that the asteroid is spinning around and you'll be safe, If you see an asteroid spinning on all axes, where no side is safe, the best thing to do is to close your cargo hatch so the limpets won't continuously fly to their doom, match the speed and rotation of the asteroid, chip away at the rock until four or five fragments have come off, then re-open your hatch and hope the fragments are sufficiently far away so that the limpets don't collide with the asteroid.
Your mining now and material is being brought to the hopper of you refinery which can be found on your cargo tab, very easy to use, vent what you don't want, select what you do. ( Quick Tip: You can continue to fire your laser at the asteroid whilst in your refinery tab making the process more efficient. )
The important thing to remember is, you guessed it: Speed. You want to be prospecting asteroids and if their duds, then quickly move onto the next one.
( It can be disorientating being in the asteroid field and you might end up going around in circles and prospecting already depleted asteroids, I like to point towards an easy landmark which is the planet the rings surround, aim towards it and try to keep it in your sights as you fly through. )
You have now exhausted your limpet supply, an 84 tonne cargo vault filled with limpets should net you about 60-70 tonnes of various materials. If you have significantly less than this which is unlikely but if so, head to the nearest station and re-stock on ammo. it should take twenty minutes to half an hour to complete a mining run.
Now comes the most fundamental part of mining using my technique, ( not claiming to be the one who found it, this is based on never seeing a tutorial that does it this way ) that will separate the people who will make a million credits in one run from the people who will make 2-4 million credits in one run. The system most people use is they simply mine and bring it back to a stations and sell it all on the commodity market, you will make a nice amount of money doing this but not enough for it be used to get you passed the twenty million mark, what you need to be doing is taking advantage of a seemingly rare type of mission to some; Mining missions. Using the system Alkupai as my example I am going to tell you where to go and what to do, so if your mining a different system, the names will change and you'll have to find your own personal route, but the concept still applies.
Systems with an economy that is both high tech and refinery are the most likely to offer consistent mining missions for you to accept. You can find these easily by going to your galaxy map and using the search filter to only show high tech systems, ( high tech always seems to be paired with refinery ), it is preferable to also filter out systems with a low population as these are less reliable to offer consistent missions. You also need to keep in mind how close the systems are to where you mine, you don't want to be travelling too far away as that will just waste time, the same goes for how close each station is to the star, ( 2-3 thousand light seconds is about the limit for me ).
For my system Alkupai I chose four systems which make up my mining route: Lao Yano - GD 140 - Xi Ursae Majoris and LHS 2260. I chose these systems based on proximity, population and the probability that the system will have consistent missions on offer. You could have more systems, you could have less, but four will suffice. This part of mining is by far the most time consuming, your profits will increase dramatically the faster you can complete this route.
Lao Yano is your first stop, your going to dock at the nearest station and check the bulletin board for mining missions, if there are none on offer, then you leave and dock at the next nearest station, if you find a mining mission there, then accept it and since you already have the necessary materials already in your cargo then you can sell it off there and then and start making money. Keep in mind the amount of cargo you have, you may want to hold onto it and hope for a mission that offers more credits for less cargo. Continue this through all four systems and every station, accepting any mining missions you come across, regardless of whether you have the material necessary as the time limit on these missions is usually more than a day so you have plenty of time.
You are now at LHS 2260 which is your final stop and you have another choice, do you head straight back to Alkupai to continue mining or, do you make your way back to Alkupai by repeating the same route you took getting here, going to every station again, accepting missions, just in reverse. It depends on how many missions you collected on the way and how much cargo you have left, one option is a lot faster but less profitable in the long run, whilst the other is much slower but more profitable in the long run. (Gold and platinum don't usually have as many mining mission on offer for them, so it's best to sell them off in the commodity market if you're planning on making the shorter route ).
The number of mining missions on offer and the reward for each depends on how high your trade rank is and whether or not your relationship with the systems and stations is good or bad. Once you have a route planned out, stick to it as whilst the missions may be few and far between at first, it will snowball to the point where you have 20-30 mining missions ready to go in your transactions tab and you will be struggling to meet the demand which of course means much more profit.
And that's it! Damn, I shocked myself at just how much I wrote here, If you made it through all this then seriously wow! Not even a Game of Thrones marathon could defeat you I'd say! I could use that determination! GT:IProgenyI
Links:
E.D Shipyard Type 6 layout:
http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=70W,H7yH7y01Q,2-5K726Q3w5U3w6k,08c08c0aQ0725T45uk03w
A list of some pristine metallic asteroid rings:
http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=70W,H7yH7y01Q,2-5K726Q3w5U3w6k,08c08c0aQ0725T45uk03w
).So mining, unlike other professions where regardless of your ship, or how you have it outfitted, you can make a decent amount of money to get you off the ground when you first start, and keep you going until you decide to specialize and optimize to one style. With that in mind, mining is very much a mid game activity, it is a way to get you from your first few million, to the tens, twenties and thirties.
I'm going to assume that the majority of players understand the basics of mining and have perhaps, already attempted it, but have hit that same wall which is profit v time spent.
So first off I'll quickly go through the ship and equipment you'll need as it is fairly self explanatory except for a few tweaks here and there which will hopefully save you money by not buying unnecessary tools and in general speeding up the process.
Some people say a cobra is the best ship to start mining with as it can run with a decent cargo capacity and still have enough internal slots remaining to fit your mining equipment, and that is true but. remember that mining as i said, just does not work well on a small scale, you will go from making nothing, to more nothing, until you hit a certain point and than it's exponential growth from then on, and that point you need to hit, is a Type-6 transporter, a T6. Now for arguments sake, lets say you decide to mine with a cobra until you reach the amount of credits required for a well-fitted T6, you can do this but, remember the profit v time spent wall, you just won't make money fast enough at that scale, in comparison to what you could make in the other professions.
Congratulations! You are now the owner of a Lakon Spaceways, Type-6 Transporter! Do you have enough money to begin outfitting it? No? Then I do hope you haven't already sold your previous ship. The minimum I was happy with whilst outfitting the T6 in 'E.D Shipyard' ( Link to shipyard below ) came to a price of just a little bit over three million ( 3,087,585 ). ( I chose not to list out everything you need from outfitting as it would make the post very cluttered, Use the link below to see the outfitted T6. )
The main reason for using a T6 is as you might expect: Cargo space, but not for the reason you're thinking of. The key to mining is not how much you can carry, but how fast you can do it, So once you have your T6 and have bought the necessary equipment you're going to select munitions and fill the entire ship up with limpets.
Next up: Where to mine. There are two criteria you have to keep in mind, one more obvious than the other, and those two are: The type of asteroid ring your mining ( Link to some known mining rings below ), and how close the ring is to systems that have a high tech and refinery orientated economy. That second point is where a lot of tutorials and guides differ, and when you compare the two, this is where my method is better, let me explain. The type of asteroid ring you mine affects what you are more likely to get out of each rock, it is a simple scale.
Pristine>Major Reserves>Common Reserves>Low Reserves>Depleted.
Metallic>Metal Rich>Rocky>Icy.
For this guide my example will be the system that I mine from: Alkupai.
Before I explain the final part of 'Where to mine' I'll tell you 'what to mine' and 'how to mine efficiently' as it's crucial to how fast you'll get your payday and how much you'll make. There is a very large selection of metals and minerals you can find but only five are worthwhile mining in mass:
Painite>Palladium>Osmium>Platinum>Gold.
All are relatively common except for painite which is about three times as rare as the rest.
So lets go mining, jump to your mining ring ( In this case Alkupai 12 ) and equip your prospector limpets, very easy to use, aim at an asteroid, fire it and when it hits, it will tell you the contents of the rock so you know whether or not to mine it. Lets say the contents come up as 16% Palladium, 25% Bertrandite and 5% Platinum, you might think 'good', a good amount of palladium with some platinum which is what you're looking for. What you'll come to realize though is that the amount of usable material you're getting out of each of these types of rock is just not worth the amount of time it takes to mine them. What I do is I ignore anything under 23% except painite which is much rarer, so any amount of it you find should be mined, you might think, "aah it's close enough", but remember speed is the key here.
So, your mining and fragments are beginning to come out of the rock this is where collector limpets come in, release one, and it will find the nearest fragment and bring it back to your ship, ( There is a bug where if you have a fragment targeted the limpet will go out, collect the fragment and bring it back, but then blow up, this is definitely not what you want so the solution is, before you release a limpet make sure you have nothing targeted by looking upwards and pressing the target button ) you can have two active collector limpets at the same time if you bought the correct type, it is much more beneficial to have two active instead of saving one as again, speed is key.
You may find an asteroid is spinning and continuously crashing into your limpets and destroying them, this is pretty frustrating when you have 40% of painite tucked away in there. If, when you look at the asteroid you see it spinning on only one axis, or in other words only in one direction, then move to the side that the asteroid is spinning around and you'll be safe, If you see an asteroid spinning on all axes, where no side is safe, the best thing to do is to close your cargo hatch so the limpets won't continuously fly to their doom, match the speed and rotation of the asteroid, chip away at the rock until four or five fragments have come off, then re-open your hatch and hope the fragments are sufficiently far away so that the limpets don't collide with the asteroid.
Your mining now and material is being brought to the hopper of you refinery which can be found on your cargo tab, very easy to use, vent what you don't want, select what you do. ( Quick Tip: You can continue to fire your laser at the asteroid whilst in your refinery tab making the process more efficient. )
The important thing to remember is, you guessed it: Speed. You want to be prospecting asteroids and if their duds, then quickly move onto the next one.
( It can be disorientating being in the asteroid field and you might end up going around in circles and prospecting already depleted asteroids, I like to point towards an easy landmark which is the planet the rings surround, aim towards it and try to keep it in your sights as you fly through. )
You have now exhausted your limpet supply, an 84 tonne cargo vault filled with limpets should net you about 60-70 tonnes of various materials. If you have significantly less than this which is unlikely but if so, head to the nearest station and re-stock on ammo. it should take twenty minutes to half an hour to complete a mining run.
Now comes the most fundamental part of mining using my technique, ( not claiming to be the one who found it, this is based on never seeing a tutorial that does it this way ) that will separate the people who will make a million credits in one run from the people who will make 2-4 million credits in one run. The system most people use is they simply mine and bring it back to a stations and sell it all on the commodity market, you will make a nice amount of money doing this but not enough for it be used to get you passed the twenty million mark, what you need to be doing is taking advantage of a seemingly rare type of mission to some; Mining missions. Using the system Alkupai as my example I am going to tell you where to go and what to do, so if your mining a different system, the names will change and you'll have to find your own personal route, but the concept still applies.
Systems with an economy that is both high tech and refinery are the most likely to offer consistent mining missions for you to accept. You can find these easily by going to your galaxy map and using the search filter to only show high tech systems, ( high tech always seems to be paired with refinery ), it is preferable to also filter out systems with a low population as these are less reliable to offer consistent missions. You also need to keep in mind how close the systems are to where you mine, you don't want to be travelling too far away as that will just waste time, the same goes for how close each station is to the star, ( 2-3 thousand light seconds is about the limit for me ).
For my system Alkupai I chose four systems which make up my mining route: Lao Yano - GD 140 - Xi Ursae Majoris and LHS 2260. I chose these systems based on proximity, population and the probability that the system will have consistent missions on offer. You could have more systems, you could have less, but four will suffice. This part of mining is by far the most time consuming, your profits will increase dramatically the faster you can complete this route.
Lao Yano is your first stop, your going to dock at the nearest station and check the bulletin board for mining missions, if there are none on offer, then you leave and dock at the next nearest station, if you find a mining mission there, then accept it and since you already have the necessary materials already in your cargo then you can sell it off there and then and start making money. Keep in mind the amount of cargo you have, you may want to hold onto it and hope for a mission that offers more credits for less cargo. Continue this through all four systems and every station, accepting any mining missions you come across, regardless of whether you have the material necessary as the time limit on these missions is usually more than a day so you have plenty of time.
You are now at LHS 2260 which is your final stop and you have another choice, do you head straight back to Alkupai to continue mining or, do you make your way back to Alkupai by repeating the same route you took getting here, going to every station again, accepting missions, just in reverse. It depends on how many missions you collected on the way and how much cargo you have left, one option is a lot faster but less profitable in the long run, whilst the other is much slower but more profitable in the long run. (Gold and platinum don't usually have as many mining mission on offer for them, so it's best to sell them off in the commodity market if you're planning on making the shorter route ).
The number of mining missions on offer and the reward for each depends on how high your trade rank is and whether or not your relationship with the systems and stations is good or bad. Once you have a route planned out, stick to it as whilst the missions may be few and far between at first, it will snowball to the point where you have 20-30 mining missions ready to go in your transactions tab and you will be struggling to meet the demand which of course means much more profit.
And that's it! Damn, I shocked myself at just how much I wrote here, If you made it through all this then seriously wow! Not even a Game of Thrones marathon could defeat you I'd say! I could use that determination! GT:IProgenyI
Links:
E.D Shipyard Type 6 layout:
http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=70W,H7yH7y01Q,2-5K726Q3w5U3w6k,08c08c0aQ0725T45uk03w
A list of some pristine metallic asteroid rings:
http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=70W,H7yH7y01Q,2-5K726Q3w5U3w6k,08c08c0aQ0725T45uk03w
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