First Thoughts On Mining...

[Northpin]

Thanks, but I'm still not clear on what the act of "double painite(ing)" constitutes. What does the term actually mean, please?

Mining in a double hotspot. Or more precisely, mining in the overlapping zone of 2 paninte hotspots
Miner's tool is quite useful for this since it lists double painite hotspots and even a tripple LTD hotspot (ltd's can be mined with regular laser mining and they're also present in deep core mining)

Edit: forgot to add the link to miners tool

 

[Stealthie]

So after reading that deep core mining is the new road to riches, thought I would take a crack at it, ho hum...

It turned out to be a little less than that, at least in the Cobra. You can only carry a limited amount of limpets and no space for a SRV to land and gather mats to resupply. I did have a go (not in pristine rings admittedly) and the sum total of two hours real time gameplay was 5 x 2/3 full bins in the refinery, mostly low grade stuff.

By the time I'd found rocks with any worthwhile minerals, my limpets were down to 50% from the prospecting. I then spent a frustrating time trying to line up seismic charges with the spinning rock, finally got the readout in the blue and - bang - failed to blow up the 'roid. Can't do sub surface stuff as didn't pack a mining laser, the few surface deposits I found blew off with the abrasion blaster and used my remaining limpets to collect the low grade rubble.

I'm going to make more money selling the nav data I acquired looking for systems with rings..!

Not giving up on it, but think I will be ditching the Cobra for something with a bit more space. Mining really needs to be like exploration where your ship is self sufficient and equipped to stay out for a while without coming back in to re-supply.

See, the first "warning sign" I'm getting is when you say "5 x 2/3 full bins in the refinery, mostly low grade stuff"

That would seem to suggest you're just mining stuff for the sake of it, rather than focusing on whatever you're looking for.

Simple fact is that DC mining, for things like VOs or LTDs etc, involves flying along, pinging with your PWA, for long periods, until you locate a suitably glowy 'roid.
You then launch a prospector at it and see if it's a suitable DC roid.
If it is, you mine it and if it isn't you move on.

Here's an example of how I'd build a Cobra Miner (with no engineering): https://coriolis.io/outfit/cobra_mk...eloBhBGA2H4FMCGBzANokMK5FAoA==&bn=cobra miner

In use:-

• Fill your cargo bay with limpets.
• Fly around in SC, using the DSS to scan rings until you find one with a hotspot that contains spendy ore.
• Drop into the hotspot around 1000km from the hotspot marker POI.
• Fly toward the POI, constantly pinging with the PWA, looking around as you fly.
• When you see a bright, glowy roid, launch a prospector at it.
• If it isn't what you're looking for, move on.
• If it is, mine it.
• If you don't have space for ore in your cargo hold, dump enough limpets to make space for ore.
• Rinse & repeat.

Let's face it, you're only going to get the ore from 1 or 2 DC roids into a Cobra but, OTOH, that means you should only be mining for around half an hour at a time.
You shouldn't expect to find a DC roid more than once every 15 minutes or so.

One or two mining runs in a Cobra should be enough to earn you the credits to buy an AspX, which is a MUCH better mining ship.
From there, it's only a couple more mining runs (albeit, longer ones) until you'll be able to afford a Python, which is about as good a DC mining ship as you can get.

AspX Miner: https://coriolis.io/outfit/asp?code...ICmBDA5gG2SEBGCQkKEoA=&bn=[CMV] Rock A Little

Python Miner: https://coriolis.io/outfit/python?c...EZgA4QFMCGBzANikI4SEhQlA==&bn=[CMV] Kolskeggr

Sorry that shortened links from Coriolis don't seem to be working right now.

 

[Soron Silin]

Small ships are severely handicapped by the bad implementation of the limpet mechanic.

I (and many other veteran cmdrs) have been proposing a much more flexible and fun limpet system right from the start, but for reasons unknown FDev ignored our early warnings.
A considerable while ago FDev finally admitted that the current confused and stiffling system of countless limpet controllers would have to be addressed, but sadly years later they still have not done anything.

My proposal:

I think the current system is weird and unwieldy. It limits game play too much. It blocks emergent gameplay.
I believe a much more flexible and fun limpet drone system is needed.

Currently we have to buy (multiple) controllers and fill our cargo hold with single use limpets.
We need a completely different approach to make limpets more usable and effective:


0. A fundamental change is that drones would be reusable and repairable!

1. We buy a Drone bay with build-in basic drone controller and build-in storage for limpets.
Drone bays should be available in different sizes and be able to manufacture new limpets from materials and would also be able to repair them if damaged.
The smallest size (perhaps a size 2) module would have storage for two drones, but a large ship might have room for a size 6 for example, with many more drones.
The largest size drone bay might correspond to the number of drones the game allows you to have active at the same time.

All drones would refuel from the drone bay and might also be repaired there if damaged.
When a drone gets destroyed you can manufacture a new one from materials and fill the empty drone slot in the bay.

2. A limpet controller should be a flexible unit that can program a limpet for any task.
We would buy software packages to add options: refueling, repair, combat, reconnaissance, exploration, mining etc. etc. These software packages should be expensive as they add very usefull functionality to every ship.


ADVANTAGES OF THIS SYSTEM
The beauty is that even the smallest ship can reprogram their drones to do all tasks, which makes it much more useful and fun to always have at least one or two drones on board if you are so inclined.

The biggest advantage of this system is enormous flexibility, which opens the game up.
It also makes the limpet drone system infinitely expandable.

For example if I have build myself a mining ship and I encounter an NPC without fuel in a USS I can now reprogram a drone to bring the ship some of my fuel.
When I arrive at my mining area I can then reprogram the drone for mining and when I get attacked I might use a drone or two for defense and when my canopy gets shot out by a pirate I can program a drone to do some repairs.
Mind you: all of this with just one controller, in one single drone bay! Even a small ship with one small drone bay could do this.


With these changes the drone bay would become a true workhorse that most cmdrs would like to have on board.

That would be a major re-balancing of the game; it would free multiple module slots and cargo space. It could be expensive to buy limpet personality blueprints, but that won't compensate enough. As you say, every commander will have one. When something becomes that popular it starts to smell like an exploit. It's a get-out-of-jail-free card for every situation we get ourselves in.

If we have a very limited number of limpets, they better be more robust than they are now.

It would be nice to be able to recall drones but it would be extra fiddle to have to recall a prospector drone just before a core cracked and then dispatch it again if the blast failed.

There would be more menu fiddling to program all your drones for their roles. Could you have some programmed for one task and some for another? How do you select which drone to launch? Say you have sixteen drones. You send out a prospector and then program the rest as collectors. You recall the prospector. Do you now have fifteen collectors and one prospector? If the blast failed, do you have to reprogram the prospector or can you send it out again? If the blast succeeded, can you send out all the drones except for the prospector?

If limpets weigh a tonne, as they do now, then you can't synthesis them with mats, because mats have negligible mass. You could make them lighter.

Edit:
Maybe a less intrusive alternative would be to have limpet controller to have slots, with the larger controllers having more slots. These slots could then contain either the sort of limpet controllers that we currently have or they might contain their own limpets. In that way if we have a size 6 limpet controller it could contain four size 4 controllers. They still take up space, but we can mix and match. But Frontier would have to upgrade their handling of slots so that it worked well. As it is, most of the outfitting stuff doesn't know about them. If you sell a full SRV hanger, you lose the SRVs and don't get any money for them.

 

[Stealthie]

Double painite mining doesn't mean you can't blow cores as you come across them. It means you're not dependent on them.

Depending on your ship, it's often not worth mining DC roids in a laser-mining ship.

If you're flying, say, a Python then, sure, go for it.
If you're flying a big ship (which you probably should be, to maximise your efficiency), you could probably laser-mine more than 16t of Painite in the time it'll take you to mine a DC roid.

 

[Angus]

Mining in a double hotspot. Or more precisely, mining in the overlapping zone of 2 paninte hotspots
Miner's tool is quite useful for this since it lists double painite hotspots and even a tripple LTD hotspot (ltd's can be mined with regular laser mining and they're also present in deep core mining)

Edit: forgot to add the link to miners tool

Ah, many thanks. Isn't a double Void Opal hotspot better still? I'm pretty sure, I'm come across at least one. - And it's been established that a double hotspot actually delivers more reward?

 

[Soron Silin]

Ah, many thanks. Isn't a double Void Opal hotspot better still? I'm pretty sure, I'm come across at least one. - And it's been established that a double hotspot actually delivers more reward?

It doesn't offer more core asteroids but more of them contain void opals. In a normal hotspot a large fraction of cores will be other minerals. They're still worth significant money, but not as much as opals. In a small ship you probably need to be selective. In an overlap zone every one will be what you are looking for.

 

[Northpin]

Ah, many thanks. Isn't a double Void Opal hotspot better still? I'm pretty sure, I'm come across at least one. - And it's been established that a double hotspot actually delivers more reward?

Nope.
Laser mining and deep core mining are affected differently by hotspots.
In the former case it increases the incidence and the quantity of paininte in asteroids, in the later it increases the chance of finding the specific mineral in the cores.
So for VO deep core mining, a hotspot will not increase the number of crackable asteroids. This is fixed per specific area, but it will increase the chance of finding Void Opals in an asteroid core.
Although i still remember the VoidOpal hotspot in which i found 5 asteroids in a row containing bromelite. :/

 

[Seizewell Warrior]

It seems to be gelling together now... Not done VO's yet but found a rather nice group of Alexandrite roids which pay ~250k credits per refined unit. 20 of those in the hold after a successful operation and, well, it beats radiant courier missions as something to do.

Maybe it's time FDev added a 4th Elite discipline - mining elite (based on tonnage or units of product).

 

[Hank]

I'm out trying to mine anything of high value atm (taking a break). I use the pulse wave constantly whether I need to or not. I just spent about 1.5 hours, popped over 90 prospector limpets in a painite hotspot and did not see a single painite rock. I saw a lot of gold, silver, osmium, etc etc etc but no painite. A week ago I went out to a double serendibite hotspot and saw a couple of painites but not a single sendibite rock (and I was right in the overlap). Last time I went out VO mining I spent two hours and found about 5 VO rocks. The time it takes to find good rocks is amazing. I'm in a hotspot or dbl hotspot and I don't see crap. I can run mission/passenger runs in an hour and make dozens of millions but the best I've done with mining is when I hit the VOs and that was just a few million credits. I just have ty luck I guess. I go where the videos say go but I find nothing.
I'm still out and going to Pleiades Sector IR-W d1-48 (again) and see if the r n g Gods are good to me. ... so far its not working out for me and there's no dbl painite hotspots near me.

GL HF
(sorry this was a rant)

 

[d8veh]

Double painite mining doesn't mean you can't blow cores as you come across them. It means you're not dependent on them.

It's a bit of a waste of time though blowing cores for painite. You get a lot more painite with mining lasers than core mining. Instead of wasting time with the abrasion blasters, just fly to the next rock and laser them.

 

[d8veh]

I'm out trying to mine anything of high value atm (taking a break). I use the pulse wave constantly whether I need to or not. I just spent about 1.5 hours, popped over 90 prospector limpets in a painite hotspot and did not see a single painite rock. I saw a lot of gold, silver, osmium, etc etc etc but no painite. A week ago I went out to a double serendibite hotspot and saw a couple of painites but not a single sendibite rock (and I was right in the overlap). Last time I went out VO mining I spent two hours and found about 5 VO rocks. The time it takes to find good rocks is amazing. I'm in a hotspot or dbl hotspot and I don't see crap. I can run mission/passenger runs in an hour and make dozens of millions but the best I've done with mining is when I hit the VOs and that was just a few million credits. I just have poopooty luck I guess. I go where the videos say go but I find nothing.
I'm still out and going to Pleiades Sector IR-W d1-48 (again) and see if the r n g Gods are good to me. ... so far its not working out for me and there's no dbl painite hotspots near me.

GL HF
(sorry this was a rant)

Go to Hyades Sector DB-X d1-112 planet 2 double hotspot. Every other rock has Painite in it.

 

[Lightspeed]

Thanks for the advice and yes I've done the detailed surface scan of the rings to identify hotspots and the pulse wave to locate potential high yield rocks.

I think it's mainly the Cobra which is the limiting factor - probably good for quick hit void opal etc. fetching where you only need to fill a few bins to turn a good profit. Not so good for plodding around and learning the process. Oh well, back to the ship merchant and see what I can afford in p/x which has way more cargo capacity and the requisite hard points.

You don't need collector limpets with the cobra .... it is easy enough to move backwards and forwards with the ship to scoop the material. It is small and manoueverable. I even do that with my Krait if I've run out of collector limpets, so you should not have a problem with a bit of practice.

Prospector limpets, on the other hand, are pretty much essential. Maybe that's all you are carrying, anyway?

 

[WinterKing2112]

Go to Hyades Sector DB-X d1-112 planet 2 double hotspot. Every other rock has Painite in it.

Ooh, I've never laser mined painite. Might give it a go, thanks for that

 

[IndigoWyrd]

So after reading that deep core mining is the new road to riches, thought I would take a crack at it, ho hum...

It turned out to be a little less than that, at least in the Cobra. You can only carry a limited amount of limpets and no space for a SRV to land and gather mats to resupply. I did have a go (not in pristine rings admittedly) and the sum total of two hours real time gameplay was 5 x 2/3 full bins in the refinery, mostly low grade stuff.

By the time I'd found rocks with any worthwhile minerals, my limpets were down to 50% from the prospecting. I then spent a frustrating time trying to line up seismic charges with the spinning rock, finally got the readout in the blue and - bang - failed to blow up the 'roid. Can't do sub surface stuff as didn't pack a mining laser, the few surface deposits I found blew off with the abrasion blaster and used my remaining limpets to collect the low grade rubble.

I'm going to make more money selling the nav data I acquired looking for systems with rings..!

Not giving up on it, but think I will be ditching the Cobra for something with a bit more space. Mining really needs to be like exploration where your ship is self sufficient and equipped to stay out for a while without coming back in to re-supply.

It's called "Type-9 Heavy".
When I go mining, I go mining 6-8 hours at a time.

 

[Schmack]

Double painite mining doesn't mean you can't blow cores as you come across them. It means you're not dependent on them.

I did a couple of trips out void running, with almost every ship A spec and 2 bill I consider myself rich in ED, never mined a double painite as I liked the gameplay and graphics of exploiting roids.

Sitting and mining laser rocks for hours, I find a bit mind numbing

Some of the stuff you folks say cracks me up. Exploiting roids sounds like the movie Pumping Iron. Blowing cores sounds like another movie I won't mention.

 

[Seizewell Warrior]

One thing I do need to work on is my seismic charge placement. You need to get quick skipping round the asteroid to find enough fissures and hitting the crack is also a fine art. I also didn't realise you can regulate for a bigger bang by holding the trigger down for a second or two before releasing, which is probably why most of my charges were coming up as low yield.

Will go back in and do a bit more later.

 

[Nasc]

Thanks, but I'm still not clear on what the act of "double painite(ing)" constitutes. What does the term actually mean, please?

Hyades sector db-x d1-112
Second body. Scan the rings and look for the painite hotspots that overlap.
Go laser mining where they overlap.
Thank me later.

 

[Northpin]

One thing I do need to work on is my seismic charge placement. You need to get quick skipping round the asteroid to find enough fissures and hitting the crack is also a fine art. I also didn't realise you can regulate for a bigger bang by holding the trigger down for a second or two before releasing, which is probably why most of my charges were coming up as low yield.

Will go back in and do a bit more later.

You have 3 segments on your seismic charge laucher reticule. The more you held the trigger the segments fill up and the stronger the charge.
First segment means low strength, third is high strength.
Ice asteroids are pretty weak so to conserve ammo you can start by putting a high charge in a low fissure then watch the effect.
If blue is past half then you need to put a high charge in an average fissure. If it is below, put another high in a low fissure.
Most ice asteroids can be blown with only 2 charges. Rarely they need 3

 

[Bryan K]

I don’t always vopal mine, but when I do, I prefer my Cutter.

A modest 3000 mJ, resistance focused, similar armor, 3 PDTs, SLFs, all but 2 hardpoints fully armed, and heaps of cargo space. It’s like sport fishing in a mega-yacht.

 

[M00ka]

For those that suggested the double Painite in the Hyades sector - thank you, first time I tried a double. Fairly new to mining, done a few VO runs but never, until today, tried one of the "doubles'. So I filled my trusty Krait MK11, the Phoenix Digger with 100 limpets (128 cargo space, fitted out for all types of mining) and off I went. Did the normal scanning bit, pinged the ring, got the hot spots and off I went. I was basically finding Painite in nearly every asteroid, never bothered with pings, just shot a Prospector at any asteroid that looked umm suitable (yep very unscientific approach hey lol).

Less than one hour later, I departed the ring with 128T of Painite in my hold plus another 8 in the refinery bins (for a total of 136T). Flew to where my research said is a good place to sell (about 200ly away, 5 jumps, nothing really), and sold the lot for a tidy profit of just over 107M credits.

Even got me thinking maybe I should repurpose my T9 but then I realised that about an hour or so is all I can normally stand mining so the fabled Phoenix Digger is about perfect for me. Luckily I'm not greedy huh!