For new commanders that want to start mining but don’t have a lot of credits here are two options.
Small starter mining ship with a 64t payload ( lazer mining only) for about 5.3 Mil:
Starter Mining Ship
Medium mining ship with a 224t payload (lazer and surface and sub surface mining) for about 21 Mil:
Medium Mining Ship
My personal limit is about 200t at a time, it gets boring after that.
I used both ships with the CG for mining Bromolite and managed to earn back my initial investment, buy the larger ship and rank up twice on trade rank within a few runs each. The Type-7 made about 10 Mil each run. I could fly to Ibor, mine the hotspot at 4A and fly back (9 jumps each way). Pirate interdictions were easy to avoid and manually docking was not a problem either. This a skill any new CMDR should get, even if some or all of your ship has a docking computer.
A few tips:
Fill your hold with limpets before departure, you could always dump a few if full while mining.
You must have a surface scanner fitted to your ship to see hotspots, although you can use another ship with a surface scanner to find the hotspots, and then come back with you mining ship.
After dropping near the hotspot, within 300Km, fly for a short while at low speed and let the pirates scan you, they will leave you alone after that. If it is a SAR ship just start prospecting. He will keep an eye out for you. If there is a fight just leave. Don’t drop back in if you have anything other than limpets.
Don’t go too fast when shooting prospecting limpets, especially the T-6.
Put all pips to WEP while mining.
Only start dumping limpets if your cargo hold AND refinery bins are all full. You could shoot a prospector limpet off to the nearest rock first. On the T-7 you can get an extra 6t back to the market if all bins are also full. That is a total of 230t in a 224t cargo hold.
Go for the slower spinning rocks, you lose less limpets.
Go for the rocks with at least 15% or more of the mineral you are looking for, less than that means it is a weak hotspot and will take too long to fill your hold. Find a better hotspot even if it is further, more jumps.
Get up close to the rock with a slight down tilt, this will direct the fragments below your ship for quick pickup. Set your ignore list and check it regularly to avoid unwanted minerals. You will also collect a lot of raw engineering materials. Don’t set ignore on these if the respective bin is full, it will automatically be left behind.
Avoid flying in a circle by selecting the hotspot as a target and using it as a compass on the small direction finder top left of the main scanner. Work towards the hotspot, but look up, down and left and right while prospecting.
With 3 limpets deployed the two mining lazers will deplete most rocks and all fragments will be collected at the same time, therefore minimum waiting around. Just make sure there are nothing left before moving to the next rock.
Closing the cargo scoop will alow the ship to fly faster to the next rock without needing to reset pips.
Once you have the funds, get a a Python or something similar and keep it near you hotspot, use this for the final delivery to the market, it can easily carry 224t and with engineering can stand up to a pirate if you somehow lost the interdiction mini-game.
Good luck and have fun.
O7 CMDRS.
Small starter mining ship with a 64t payload ( lazer mining only) for about 5.3 Mil:
Starter Mining Ship
Medium mining ship with a 224t payload (lazer and surface and sub surface mining) for about 21 Mil:
Medium Mining Ship
My personal limit is about 200t at a time, it gets boring after that.
I used both ships with the CG for mining Bromolite and managed to earn back my initial investment, buy the larger ship and rank up twice on trade rank within a few runs each. The Type-7 made about 10 Mil each run. I could fly to Ibor, mine the hotspot at 4A and fly back (9 jumps each way). Pirate interdictions were easy to avoid and manually docking was not a problem either. This a skill any new CMDR should get, even if some or all of your ship has a docking computer.
A few tips:
Fill your hold with limpets before departure, you could always dump a few if full while mining.
You must have a surface scanner fitted to your ship to see hotspots, although you can use another ship with a surface scanner to find the hotspots, and then come back with you mining ship.
After dropping near the hotspot, within 300Km, fly for a short while at low speed and let the pirates scan you, they will leave you alone after that. If it is a SAR ship just start prospecting. He will keep an eye out for you. If there is a fight just leave. Don’t drop back in if you have anything other than limpets.
Don’t go too fast when shooting prospecting limpets, especially the T-6.
Put all pips to WEP while mining.
Only start dumping limpets if your cargo hold AND refinery bins are all full. You could shoot a prospector limpet off to the nearest rock first. On the T-7 you can get an extra 6t back to the market if all bins are also full. That is a total of 230t in a 224t cargo hold.
Go for the slower spinning rocks, you lose less limpets.
Go for the rocks with at least 15% or more of the mineral you are looking for, less than that means it is a weak hotspot and will take too long to fill your hold. Find a better hotspot even if it is further, more jumps.
Get up close to the rock with a slight down tilt, this will direct the fragments below your ship for quick pickup. Set your ignore list and check it regularly to avoid unwanted minerals. You will also collect a lot of raw engineering materials. Don’t set ignore on these if the respective bin is full, it will automatically be left behind.
Avoid flying in a circle by selecting the hotspot as a target and using it as a compass on the small direction finder top left of the main scanner. Work towards the hotspot, but look up, down and left and right while prospecting.
With 3 limpets deployed the two mining lazers will deplete most rocks and all fragments will be collected at the same time, therefore minimum waiting around. Just make sure there are nothing left before moving to the next rock.
Closing the cargo scoop will alow the ship to fly faster to the next rock without needing to reset pips.
Once you have the funds, get a a Python or something similar and keep it near you hotspot, use this for the final delivery to the market, it can easily carry 224t and with engineering can stand up to a pirate if you somehow lost the interdiction mini-game.
Good luck and have fun.
O7 CMDRS.
