For the Miners...

[[VR] Deggial]

AFAIK that's intentional. The don't spawn missions now for stuff you have in your cargo hold. The idea is you take the missions first, then go get what is required.

As others already stated, this is a myth and I can confirm this by my yesterday's experience. Finally, I've had time (and the mood) to gather the Bromellite gift for Mr. Turner and I could instantly fulfill three missions with "by-products" I had in my hold.

As a side note regarding ice mining: It might not pay well, but it is sooooo beautiful - especially in VR!
The 'roids look so much more interesting than the metallic ones! I dropped at the "side" of the gas giant and worked my way up "towards the light" (the ice ring was quite dusty), the planet's enormous, bright sickle always to my right (barely visible due to the dust). The subsurface scattering works great with the small and defined asteroid bodies (way better than with ice planet surfaces).
My favorite, calm music rounded the experience and I had such a great time (actually 1 1/2 times) in this icy ring! I'll definitely repeat this, when in the right mood again.
Anyway, what did I want to say? Oh yes: there is more than making money in this game.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Nope, the devs have explicitly said that the mission system does not look in your cargo hold in any way while generating missions. I believe the words used were "I thought this myth was put to rest."

Yet people seem to experience this... maybe there is some code affecting it that the devs are not aware of. In a big complex project it is possible for such things to happen.

 

[Fishy]

As a side not regarding ice mining: It might not pay well, but it is sooooo beautiful

This. I tend go ice mining just because it's gorgeous. Since my mining outings aren't an exercise in making money in the first place, they might as well be as pretty as possible...

 

[metatheurgist]

Yet people seem to experience this... maybe there is some code affecting it that the devs are not aware of. In a big complex project it is possible for such things to happen.

There are some things you just know can't happen as a coder. The "bug" would have to interrogate your data to see what's in your hold before specifically excluding missions that have those commodities. There is no code to check your hold. There is no code to exclude missions. The only way it could eventuate would be that the code has gained sentience and is taking over the machine.

 

[Lily from anim.o.v.e]

Ice mining.. it's not for everyone.

Only a few resources actually have reasonable market values. Crystal Meth* is always easy to find Missions to mine, and Bomellite is required by one Engineer to enlist.

Beyond this, however, you have to be very selective about what you mine, what you keep and what you throw, or you will end up swimming in commodities worth less than the cargo containers that hold them.

*That would be Methonol Monohydrate Crystals, but the way this missions up, Crystal Meth seems more appropriate.

bromellite missions also appear, but the crystals are sometiems superrare. at least compared to the missions demands

 

[Yaffle]

Yet people seem to experience this... maybe there is some code affecting it that the devs are not aware of. In a big complex project it is possible for such things to happen.

It's probably the same effect you get when stuck in traffic - you seem to be in the slowest lane because humans are more sensitive to loss than to gain.

 

[Flavourless]

...The don't spawn missions now for stuff you have in your cargo hold. The idea is you take the missions first, then go get what is required.

Devs have stated more than once that the mission generation algorithm does not know the contents of your cargo hold.

Ooops, ninja'ed by a couple of hours. Doh!

 

[Pville_Piper]

[*]materials are a nerf to mining efficiency, but even they've been nerfed
[*]removing the ability to deploy more than one collector per click
[*]refinery jamming error

Mats are a pain... I try to keep up and void them but invariably I get busy and then wonder why my limpets are patiently waiting to fill my hold... it would be nice if they allowed us to put in some kind of limit on how much you could take in. Or even better, a filter that automatically dumps unwanted stuff... But then that would make it too easy to mine..

I just hold down the button until it stops telling me that limpets have deployed. [big grin]

I've had this happen once, I had to re-log to get it working again. Fortunately, it didn't spawn any pirates when I did. Not that me and Pete (the Purple Python) are all that worried about them...

As a side note regarding ice mining: It might not pay well, but it is sooooo beautiful - especially in VR!

Ice mining drops my frame rates down to between 25-30 fps... It's awful.

 

[777Driver]

Ice mining drops my frame rates down to between 25-30 fps... It's awful.

A beast rig was required for ice mining in VR, apparently the devs have fixed it in the latest update. Tbh I used to ice mine with a 1070, FPS hit wasn't huge, upgrading to a 1080 completely resolved the issue.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

AFAIK that's intentional. The don't spawn missions now for stuff you have in your cargo hold. The idea is you take the missions first, then go get what is required.

This was discussed recently and a wild dev appeared and denied any sort of mission generation based on stuff in cargo hold. I rarely see missions for the stuff in my hold either, but there we are.

 

[SocraticMammal]

Thanks for all the feedback. After some experimenting I found a way to make this work for me.

First, I realized I was at the wrong planet in the pristine system. Moved over the pristine metallic and the loot got much better. I spent much less time idle/looking for a decent rock.

Second, rather than constantly feeling defenseless in my non-combat mining only ship, I decided to try something bold and take my Cutter. No more hiding from scans, plus with the SLF I have an escort.

Third, decided to go to a RES zone rather than just randomly drop on the ring. Drop rates are supposed to be better right?

So what I'm doing is picking up a couple missions ahead of time while running other errands, then once in a while swapping out for the mining modules and head over to the ring. Deploy SLF, fire off 4 prospectors and pick the best one. Usually while I'm mining someone takes an interest and my turrets and SLF keep them occupied. I run 4 pips in shield, pop chaff and keep right on going. Pretty fun actually. I get mining mats, materials (element and manufactured), bounties, combat rank, faction rep, rank for my crew, all at once. I'll spend about an hour hunting what I need and head back. Nice thing is it's never boring. In an hour's time I'll get about a half mil or so from the bounties, maybe a million or so from the extra mining I just sell, plus the half mil or so per mission I'd picked up. Good balance of reward and fun.

 

[Tarman]

Thanks for all the feedback. After some experimenting I found a way to make this work for me.

First, I realized I was at the wrong planet in the pristine system. Moved over the pristine metallic and the loot got much better. I spent much less time idle/looking for a decent rock.

Second, rather than constantly feeling defenseless in my non-combat mining only ship, I decided to try something bold and take my Cutter. No more hiding from scans, plus with the SLF I have an escort.

Third, decided to go to a RES zone rather than just randomly drop on the ring. Drop rates are supposed to be better right?

So what I'm doing is picking up a couple missions ahead of time while running other errands, then once in a while swapping out for the mining modules and head over to the ring. Deploy SLF, fire off 4 prospectors and pick the best one. Usually while I'm mining someone takes an interest and my turrets and SLF keep them occupied. I run 4 pips in shield, pop chaff and keep right on going. Pretty fun actually. I get mining mats, materials (element and manufactured), bounties, combat rank, faction rep, rank for my crew, all at once. I'll spend about an hour hunting what I need and head back. Nice thing is it's never boring. In an hour's time I'll get about a half mil or so from the bounties, maybe a million or so from the extra mining I just sell, plus the half mil or so per mission I'd picked up. Good balance of reward and fun.

I'd just like to thank you for having a gameplay concern that you've solved by playing more of the game, instead of our usual thread of OMG GAEM NOE CAN BE PLAY.

I'd recommend anyone who wants to do part-time mining to trick out one of their currently-owned bigger ships like you've done; the luxury of space for outfitting alone makes it worth it imo. My iClip is an enjoyable mining vessel, and still armed and armoured enough to eat anything up to medium threats with little effort.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

Once upon a time, I would dip into a ring and leave with a nice haul I could cash in with mining missions. This just doesn't seem viable anymore. The valuable commodities the mission uses seem to be more rare and require more, plus with ice mining the extra materials "diluted" the pool of the mission offerings.

Is anyone using this approach and able to make it work? Or do most miners pick up missions first then go hoping to find the right commodity?

Rocks then mission or mission then rocks?

Mission, then rocks.

Start at station A - take a bunch of haulage, data, mining missions. As you drop off your haulage and data, look for more same-type mining missions. When you are stacked up on mining missions, go hit the rings. Mine, turn in. The only ice commodity I have difficulty finding is Bromellite. Everything else is fine. Bromellite can be mined pretty well in RES sites.