Do Rings Deplete? (mining related)

[Schmack]

Can we settle this once and for all?

I keep reading comments stating that this or that commander traveled a great distance to get to pristine icy rings, unmolested as it were, to mine void opals or other high priced stuff.

In my experience, rings do not get better or worse based on how "pristine" they are. I have been mining the same ring in the bubble for months and my payouts have not dropped. I have good days and bad days, but on average I still find the same amount of core rocks as ever, and I don't recall thinking I have hit the end of the road with this ring.

Is this concept of "distant, pristine rings" simply wishful thinking? Is there really a difference between an icy ring in Colonia region and one in the bubble? I've mined both, for cores and Painite, and the results are almost identical but I am only one person so my anecdotal example might not reflect what others have experienced, or what some here actually know to be true. So please settle it, other than feeling like they are finding untouched resources, are some players wasting time jumping hundreds of LY to find pristine reserves?

 

[Caramel Clown]

We assume rings deplete. Reserves can drop. However we could not possibly test this theory since amount of material in an average ring is...HUGE. Absolutely gargantuan. No way we could ever deplete even one ring system.

 

[Schmack]

We assume rings deplete. Reserves can drop. However we could not possibly test this theory since amount of material in an average ring is...HUGE. Absolutely gargantuan. No way we could ever deplete even one ring system.

You can test your success rate in one ring vs another and if you have more than one test subject mining for the same amount of time, for a specified number of attempts, you can certainly separate signal from RNG noise.

 

[Caramel Clown]

I think you can only see difference when ring has different reserves stated on the system map. Every pristine ring will have same reserves. Once it gets knocked down to lower state that's when you can see the difference.

 

[leeG]

I’ve pulled 3Bcr worth of VOs from the same ring over the last two months. Yields have been constant. It’s not a pristine ring and is well inside the bubble.

 

[Lightspeed]

I suspect the issue arose originally because FD, when they showed us the new mining, referred to depletion. I think they meant depletion of individual core rocks once they've been mined, rather than the entire ring, because they were exhibiting mined rocks that had been exploded and were persistent.

Then we had the concept of hotspots and of the idea of 'gold rush' talked about by Sandro. That was a long time ago, and that idea might have come and gone, with only the high selling prices being part of the 'gold rush' idea.

It would be nice to have some kind of confirmation/ explanation about this from FD.

 

[metatheurgist]

Has anyone ever recorded an instance of a ring losing reserve? Wasn't there a push to test it recently? Either way the tonnage would require lifetimes to deplete.

 

[Schmack]

So then to answer the last question in the OP, for cr/min purposes, it is a waste of time to fly 500 LY or further for "pristine rings" when you could find the same results locally.

 

[Florenus]

Can we settle this once and for all?

I keep reading comments stating that this or that commander traveled a great distance to get to pristine icy rings, unmolested as it were, to mine void opals or other high priced stuff.

Core mining is, to my understanding, not connected to ring reserves.
It doesn't matter if you're looking for void opals in Pristine, or Depleted ring.

When looking for cores, hotspot is likely to generate more cores of it's kind.
The cores, however, are persistent - meaning they are in the same place for everybody and once mined(blown up), they leave empty space that is empty for everyone. They respawn, or regenerate after 6 days, so looking for void opals in place where eveybody else is mining can be less fruitfull than looking for a ring that has "depleted" in description, but nobody is visiting it.

 

[Schmack]

Core mining is, to my understanding, not connected to ring reserves.
It doesn't matter if you're looking for void opals in Pristine, or Depleted ring.

When looking for cores, hotspot is likely to generate more cores of it's kind.
The cores, however, are persistent - meaning they are in the same place for everybody and once mined(blown up), they leave empty space that is empty for everyone. They respawn, or regenerate after 6 days, so looking for void opals in place where eveybody else is mining can be less fruitfull than looking for a ring that has "depleted" in description, but nobody is visiting it.

Is this a fact or an opinion that these things deplete until the Thursday tick? I've seen the vapor from activity in a ring, but I've found void opal cores right in the middle of it before, so perhaps YMMV?

Either way, the odds that two people dropped into the same random spot in a ring or hotspot since the last tick seems astronomically low (no pun intended). Especially since there's no drop out sequence like at stations.

 

[Florenus]

Is this a fact or an opinion that these things deplete until the Thursday tick? I've seen the vapor from activity in a ring, but I've found void opal cores right in the middle of it before, so perhaps YMMV?

It's my opinion that it's a fact

But seriously, people map asteroids and mine based on this.

Spoiler

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteMiners/comments/aflfq7

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteMiners/comments/aflfq7/highspeed_core_asteroid_mapping/

 

[Schmack]

It's my opinion that it's a fact

But seriously, people map asteroids and mine cores based on this.
(Actually, not only cores)

So is it futile to travel 500 LY to mine cores even if you aren't meta mining using community efforts?

 

[Florenus]

So is it futile to travel 500 LY to mine cores even if you aren't meta mining using community efforts?

I would say it's not without merits to go somewhere noone else is visiting when looking for good spot for core mining, but is it really worth it, I cannot say - from my experience you'll find cores even in most visited hotspot, although it might take little longer.

 

[Stealthie]

Core mining is, to my understanding, not connected to ring reserves.
It doesn't matter if you're looking for void opals in Pristine, or Depleted ring.

See, I think variations in rings and, I'm afraid, in mining technique are a lot more important than, potentially, whether a ring is being depleted.

I do okay at DC mining and I've spent time mining in pretty-much every class of ring, simply cos I find it relaxing rather than because I'm grinding for credits.
I've had good hauls in Pristine rings and lousy hauls too.
Same goes for pretty-much every class of ring.

I get the impression that it's a bit like how HGEs spawn; you can find a place that should be absolutely perfect but sometimes it just doesn't happen.
Equally, you can find places that surprise you with how full of useful stuff they are.
The trouble, of course, is that if you're looking for HGEs you can just jump into a system, see if there are any around and move on if there aren't.
With mining, the only way to confirm that you're wasting your time is to, erm, waste your time.

Also, I guess it's worth pointing out that people shouldn't be misled by the RNG (or lack of) involved in DC mining.
The presence of individual DC 'roids may not be subject to RNG but the seeding of DC 'roids in a ring will have been subject to RNG when the ring was first populated.
Presumably, there'll be a certain amount of variation in that so you might get rings populated with lower quantities of DC 'roids or uneven distributions of DC 'roids.

Said it before but, based on my own results from DC mining (speed and frequency of locating DC roids) a hotspot 4000km in diameter should have around 60,000 DC 'roids in it.
All of which will respawn every week(?), even if people are farming the ring.
If every ED player went to the same ring, I guess it'd be possible that we could deplete one noticeably before it could refresh but, given the thousands of hotspots around the bubble, let alone the entire galaxy, I doubt we could deplete a ring significantly.

However...

As a final thought, it's worth considering that FDev might've created some kind of "mining fiddle factor" which simply looks at how many VO's LTD's, Painite or whatever that people mine/sell and then adjusts something (the purity of 'roids, the type of core or the time to respawn, perhaps) to artifically create a "supply & demand" mechanic.
That could be happening but it'd be out of our hands.

 

[DannDruff]

What I normally do is look at INARA to see the traffic in a system. In my opinion the quality of ring doesn’t really matter, the number of people mining there does. I might have the cat by the balls too, so don’t take this as gospel. This weekend I dropped into a few pristine rings at the VO hotspot, to find everything except VO’s. I’m yet to try this but if say 60k DC rocks spawn for a specific hot spot, would it not make sense to find a ring that’s almost translucent? With bigger distances between the rocks?

 

[Bigmaec]

I'd say individual core 'roids get depleted/detonated - regardless of mode - but I have yet to see any proof the rings itself lower their rating (from pristine downwards)...

 

[metatheurgist]

As a final thought, it's worth considering that FDev might've created some kind of "mining fiddle factor" which simply looks at how many VO's LTD's, Painite or whatever that people mine/sell and then adjusts something (the purity of 'roids, the type of core or the time to respawn, perhaps) to artifically create a "supply & demand" mechanic.
That could be happening but it'd be out of our hands.

If that were true, ring mapping wouldn't work. And you would hear reports from ring mappers that the %'s vary. But again, like the claim that reserves deplete, no-one has ever supplied any evidence to that.

 

[Lestat]

I have pulled 10 15 billion credits each on 3 different accounts on the same system.

 

[Stealthie]

If that were true, ring mapping wouldn't work. And you would hear reports from ring mappers that the %'s vary. But again, like the claim that reserves deplete, no-one has ever supplied any evidence to that.

I don't think it'd prevent mapping but people who were visiting a mapped ring would probably notice the difference.

TBH, I doubt FDev are doing this but I wouldn't be surprised if they have the ability to do it.
I really just mentioned it for the sake of completeness, in terms of all the possible things that might change.

 

[Muzz UK]

Don't think we'll ever know someone needs to ask Frontier.

Given most rings probably contain millions of roids even if percentages were used to calculate the ring reserves it would take a group of miners hell of a long time to drop a rings reserves.