I've been core mining for 4+ years on pc
Given core mining was added less than 3 years ago in Beyond 3.3, I find that hard to believe
I hope you don't hate me. I mean this to be pragmatic advice, which might help you if you're going to do more such guides. OK, now I'm going to give my honest opinion, having seen many such guides, so I'm comparing it with others. It's in no way an advanced guide. A better title would be, "Bloke goes core mining in his Python and has a nice time", or "Core mining like an average guy that hasn't fully figured it out yet".
Don't get deflated by what I write. Think about this criticism and how you can make really excellent guides in the future, or just consider it as one person's opinion. there's always a pedant.
I only watched it superficially, but what I was looking for in an advanced guide is whether you understood and made clear the finer points about core mining, like ship choice and loadout, weapons placement, strategies to deal with pirates, limpet control, how to spot rocks and choose which ones to prospect, how and where to sell and things like that, which you didn't cover at all or in insufficient detail.
IMHO, captions just don't work because you need to see what's going on, which you can't do while reading captions. You could have voiced over afterwards with any of the free video editors, like Hitfilm Express.
I look forward to your next one. if you want some hard criticism, you know who to ask.
So the guide itself is not advanced - I know that, I agree. I just cba to voiceover. My kids were asleep and I didn't want to make noise, nor do I have time to spend another hour talking to the wall. I did what I could at the time to pass my perspective on things. It was 5.30AM when I finished and had a pretty rough next day at work because of it, I've already given it enough care for what I can afford with my limited time.
If somebody expected pro editing, sexy voiceover and sparkling visual effects, I'm sorry to disappoint.
From the perspective of the guide's content, I targeted the areas that are badly misrepresented by other content creators, assuming the watcher already knows the basics.
With that in mind:
- ship choice and loadout - this was never meant to be part of the guide, except that I added my python build to the description and I mention explicitly that you need a balance of speed, maneuverability and limpet count on top of what every other guide already covers in enough detail.
- weapons placement - irrelevant. I put them wherever, adapt mentally to "my seismic charges fly on the right, my blaster on the left" and I'm good. You don't need weapon convergence, cause you never shoot more than one weapon at a time in core mining.
- strategies to deal with pirates - this is covered, I literally lose no mining time to pirates despite having two groups on me and explain how I do it. I don't mention "don't bring cargo into the ring" cause, again, it's in every core mining 101. I don't mention "empty your refinery" cause, again, it's in every core mining 101 (and it's wrong).
- limpet control - what in the world did I not cover about limpet control? I mention they come out faster if you keep cargo hatch closed, how you can put them on abrasion blasters for easier deployment, how to position yourself to make limpets collect faster. I don't mention "have your belly towards the limpets" cause, it's pretty basic. I don't mention "don't hug asteroids with your cargo hatch" cause I expect watcher to be in non-vegetative state.
- how to spot rocks and choose which ones to prospect - spotting is a whole separate video material cause I watched 3 guides before I started mining and frankly they were all useless. I had to figure it all out myself and I believe everyone has to figure it out by themselves. Besides, this is supposed to be an advanced mining guide, I expect the person watching to know the basics, including being able to actually spot a core that's in front of them. I don't use external camera cause this drift racing approach works better for me and I explain why in the video.
- how and where to sell - every other guide has this, I didn't even intend to put it in. Inara, spansh, bulk tax - all basics.
Instead of these basic things, I focus on:
- using PWA (anticipate PWA malfunctions, ping at least twice, expect asteroids off midscreen to be misrepresented, e.g. cores looking like junk, turn often to check asteroids that you're about to pass by)
- being dynamic in general (when moving through the ring, planting charges, blasting deposits and helping limpets collect)
These are things that other content creators misrepresent, regularly and badly. They limp along through the ring as if they expected core asteroids to be intimidated into appearing if they occupy the same area long enough. They ping asteroids once with PWA as if it could be relied upon to highlight a core on every ping. They dismiss junk-looking asteroids at the edge of their vision from external camera, as if they had reason to trust PWA in highlighting them properly.
All of it makes them potentially fly right past several cores before they find one... which they too would've found faster if they actually used their engines a bit. And when they do reach an asteroid, it's a pain to watch how slowly they move around the asteroid to plant charges and then use abrasion blasters. Sure, they all have HOTAS and some of them add VR sets to that and it maybe makes the task slightly more difficult I guess, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm literally done collecting and about to find my next core before they are halfway through abrasion blasting the first. I am yet to see a guide where this is done properly.
It's no surprise people think core mining is crap money compared to other activities. If you're led to believe that core mining is all about knowing how to spot a core asteroid and somehow you fail to notice how much time you waste on literally everything else, then
of course it's crap money, just like robigo would be crap money if you did all of your supercruising on 50% throttle and just like laser mining platinum would be crap money if you didn't know you can put 4 pips in WEP.
So while the guide is not done professionally, I can't see where I didn't include something actually advanced, beyond what everybody and their dog covered already.
Do tell.
However, what I do mind about your comment is that you call me "an average guy that hasn't fully figured it out yet".
Ok, do explain what exactly I didn't figure out yet? If you want this to pass for constructive criticism, then back it up with some examples.
Seriously, I want to learn.
Shoot.
