Core mining and SSD mining are unique/interesting forms of gameplay that are unfortunately not worth the players time

Elite has two very fun forms of mining that set it apart from other games--Core mining and SSD mining. In the recent past, they were kind of broken in terms of payout.. I'm not arguing that payout should be returned to what they were, but the devs need to look at these areas of mining so that players have a reason to engage with them. Right now laser mining is far and away the better use of your time. Laser mining is very generic and its the same in every similar game. The devs gimped a totally unique aspect of their game when they nerfed SSD mining out of existence. Its baffling to me that they aren't playing to their strengths. They should lean into these aspects of the game that are just flat out better than other games.

Before players come in here to complain about other professions and payouts, this post is about mining. The observations are relative to mining. Please save your complaints/comparisons to other professions for another thread.

I core mine musgravite and it’s definitely worth my time.
 
What's wrong with core or subsurface mining?

I just did a 1.5 hours run with my mining Python in a double overlapping painite hotspot earlier today. It consists of core, subsurface and laser mining. Materials I gathered other than painite including osmium, platinum and serendibite. Everything is working fine (now that the PWA is fixed). Yes the payout is reduced by 3 to 4 folds compared to recent pre-credit rebalancing, but you don't do mining expecting to be your massive credit earning activity like before. You only mine if you enjoy mining, or like me only mine very occasionally now to get away from other activities.
 
What's wrong with core or subsurface mining?

I just did a 1.5 hours run with my mining Python in a double overlapping painite hotspot earlier today. It consists of core, subsurface and laser mining. Materials I gathered other than painite including osmium, platinum and serendibite. Everything is working fine (now that the PWA is fixed). Yes the payout is reduced by 3 to 4 folds compared to recent pre-credit rebalancing, but you don't do mining expecting to be your massive credit earning activity like before. You only mine if you enjoy mining, or like me only mine very occasionally now to get away from other activities.
Bingo. All the people saying it's "not worth their time" have just been spoiled by the insane credit earnings that pre-nerf mining made possible and they've grown used to that being the baseline when it was actually way out of whack compared to literally anything else.
 
Bingo. All the people saying it's "not worth their time" have just been spoiled by the insane credit earnings that pre-nerf mining made possible and they've grown used to that being the baseline when it was actually way out of whack compared to literally anything else.

you didnt read my post obviously.
 
The large majority of my mining returns -- my last sales run netted 2.2Bcr -- result from core and SSD methods. Laser is definitely a third choice and SD simply opportunistic. This is especially true since the PWA fix. I was not having serious probs with it but the fix did improve its productivity, always a good thing. After focusing mostly on Icy rings because of Tritium fuel needs, I've recently branched out into the Metallic and Metal Rich arenas and have so far found them comparable to Icies in terms of tools used. I'm still learning the ropes on the more successful mineral targets, and Monazite is my current prime target but since my 'Vette sports all mining tools I don't turn my nose up at anything that pays over circa 15k/T GalAverage. My FC has a lot of storage space so it's not uneconomical to include lesser price-tier minerals. In all types of rings I end up using SSD more than any other method, since it seems more minerals find their way into those veins than I originally thought. So far LTDs and Painite seem the only mineral that appears in all forms, and one of those per ring type is fine. But quite a handful can be found in SSDs. I laser mine sporadically, when shiny rocks in the PWA scan get slim, but since the fix that's not very often.

I don't see much need to drastically change current approaches to the different mining methods, and it's plenty lucrative as is from what I can tell. But I also take a perhaps unusally long-range approach to mining because it is an adjunct to Exploration, during which I spend months in the black. I mine for fuel as I go and that always yields small to medium amounts of money-minerals from all mining methods, but those modest yields add up over the time frame I play in, so I feel no pressure to get more faster. When fat on fuel I mine for the reward minerals. I just mine the way I find most enjoyable, and now and then come across a Nirvana rock -- 4-5 SSD deposits, intrinsic (laser) content, maybe a few SD scabs, and a lucrative core mineral. Zap, zip, pop, and boom, doesn't get any better. But I don't think every rock should be that rock.
 
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Quick question from someone who's not mined since the FC update...

Can you get Tritium from laser mining only or do you need to do SSM and core cracking?
 
Quick question from someone who's not mined since the FC update...

Can you get Tritium from laser mining only or do you need to do SSM and core cracking?
Yes, laser only is fine, but SSD chunks are much richer than lasered fragments and in my experience provide more of the total tonnage I mine. There are no Tritium cores -- laser, SSD and SD only.
 
If they're fun, then they're worth your time.

It's a game. Non-enjoyable activities for marginally more money are not a better use of your time IMO. It's not like there's a huge amount of entertaining gameplay locked behind that credit wall anymore anyway.

I know a lot of players struggle with breaking out of the "maximum efficiency" mindset, but I've always found Elite doesn't really reward you much for approaching it like that. Your immediate entertainment is a resource too (arguably the supreme one, when it comes to a game), and I think it's important to balance the competing demands of fun and income rate to achieve a happy medium of both.

It would be nice if Frontier could nail the balance between the different types of mining, but they've never quite been able to achieve that, and not for want of trying. It's not ideal, but the facts being what they are, and with similar issues across most of the game, IMO at this stage the best course of action for a player bothered by it is probably to accept they can't change the balance of the game, and to amend their own approach to get the most enjoyment from it as it stands.

It might sound pessimistic, but I think the truth is these things are never going to be perfected. If you want to core mine, then just go and core mine.
 
I've been spending around 45 mins each day this week mining Tritium in an icy ring - SSD can make over 30t on a rock with 4 deposits and if it just happens to be in the 20-30% content a nice bonus from laser mining. I'm probably collecting up to 200t an hour using both methods. Naturally, as it is to feed my FC, there is no 'profit' as such, but no outlay of 50k+ per ton to buy, as this is in Colonia the markets are a little scarce 🤪

If I want to make silly amounts of credits (as in the 6 days to raise 7 billion for a FC on this account) having a FC helps... Otherwise as long as I'm generating sufficient credits to pay for fuel, ammo, repairs and upkeep (so, essentially, very little needed) I'm happy enough to not make a fuss about how much profit each hour playing generates.
 
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