Help appreciated with planet surface mining.

philt

P
Hi all.
After a few years of playing I decided to have a go at surface mining, I have two problems I'd really appreciate help with.
Firstly picking the right planets and identifying likely areas to mine .
Secondly, accurately calibrating my T-Flight Hotas to operate the turret smoothly. So far I've tried simple joystick movements and the POV switch. I've even tried 4 keys on the keyboard - I always get jerky movements. Would the mouse be better?
Any help appreciated.
Thanks
Phil.
 

Factabulous

Factabulous

Vardaugas

Vardaugas
On which planet to pick: Go to https://eddb.io/body, put in the materials you want, select where you are as the reference system and add volcanic activity as an extra column. Then pick one of the planets with volcanic activity, go there, do a detailed surface scan. This reveals the geological sites on the planet. Land on one and look for crystals on your contacts list, drive over, shoot them and collect materials. Needle crystals and crystalline clusters have the higher grade materials.
 

Deleted member 38366

D
Hehe for I moment I was like Whaaat? .... darn clickbait! (just kidding)

First, there's no such thing as Surface Mining in ELITE. Not implemented (yet).
Surface Mining would be a commercial activity and extract Ores to satisfy Mining Missions or for-profit bulk-mining.

But for the looting and crafting process of gathering Elements on Planet Surfaces, IMHO
  • Biological Sites offer the most bang for the buck (in the SOL Sector/Inner Orion Spur, the nearest and most common Bio types would be : Bark Mounds and Brain Trees)
  • Geological Sites are almost as good
  • controlling the Turret IMHO works best using the Mouse, seems the most precise and intuitive way to me
  • concentrating on higher-grade Elements and then trading them down at a Raw Materials Trader is by far the most efficient way
The most powerful Filter Options and most importantly - Search Radius - are offered by Spansh Body Search : https://www.spansh.co.uk/bodies
That'll allow you to specifically search and filter for Volcanism, Biologicals and even multiple Elements if desired.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

[VR] scipio_77

[VR] scipio_77
philt said:
Hi all.
After a few years of playing I decided to have a go at surface mining, I have two problems I'd really appreciate help with.
Firstly picking the right planets and identifying likely areas to mine .
Secondly, accurately calibrating my T-Flight Hotas to operate the turret smoothly. So far I've tried simple joystick movements and the POV switch. I've even tried 4 keys on the keyboard - I always get jerky movements. Would the mouse be better?
Any help appreciated.
Thanks
Phil.
Click to expand...

I recommend doing it together with exploration. You'll find oodles of pristine planets, it makes the scanning / exploration aspect pretty cool and gives you an added reason to visit cool looking bodies. Materials don't take cargo space, so that is no concern. There is also something a bit magical about gathering resources from a planet you are the first to map and discover.

Other than that, others have offered good advice in the thread.
 
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