Is Mining still not giving ARX?

[Scoob]

Hey all,

So, I've not played in over a month - the issues with the September patch put me right off - but I thought I'd give the game a go this evening.

Starting off with a relaxing activity, for me at least, I jumped into my Type 9 Mining ship and got me some Painite. I then transferred to my Cutter to sell it. I then popped into my Corvette, bought a new shield for it and Engineered it. Finally, I shot a few ships in a HazRes. Basically, I've been testing several of my normal activities to make sure everything is working ok now. I'm pleased to report I had no colourful snakes of any kind and things were working pretty well - I didn't even have any of the Mining instancing weirdness I'd been getting a LOT prior to the update. Even my Limpets were behaving themselves and not suiciding into non-existent objects Nice.

I've just exited the game and noted that I'd earnt 52 ARX - my very first ARX - but the break-down of how I earned them is... odd. Out of those 52 most of it was down to "Trading" yet I did just one trade, selling the Painite, unless buying some Limpets is included too. I got 9 for "Combat" - I killed about 12 - 15 Pirates, getting a little over 600k cr in bounties. Not much. Finally there were 5 ARX for "other" activities.

Firstly, I'd expect Mining to be its own activity, considering it's quite a big deal these days. Secondly, 5 ARX for 1hr 20 in the rings where I was actively engaged the entire time? Seems a bit low!

I recall reading that FDev initially disabled earning ARX while mining due to crashes when Limpets returned with Fragments. I thought that was just a quick fix to keep people playing and they would have fixed it properly by now.

I'm not really someone who cares overly much about ARX, either buying or earning them, but I would like to understand what's going on. I imagine this is quite a big issue for those whose main in-game activity is mining. In real terms, assuming they like buying cosmetics, their chosen activity is going to cost them real money if it doesn't earn so much. I.e. a Trader or Combat player might earn enough ARX to get optional cosmetic X. Whereas the Miner will put in at least as many hours, but have to stump up some cash, potentially, to obtain cosmetic X in the same time frame. Just trying to see this from other people's perspective here, I'm not one for cosmetics - at least I haven't been - though I might consider picking up some free bits at some point...maybe.

As I've not been about much of late, just the odd bit of forum lurking, I wonder if perhaps there's some information from the Devs I've missed regarding Mining and ARX, and do they plan to fix it properly. It would be nice if Trading, Fighting, mission-running and Mining were all treated equally.

Cheers,

Scoob.

 

[Stealthie]

I'm in a similar position so I don't really know how it all works, but still...

I had a couple of goes in my T10 and it seems like I get awarded around 65 Arx after delivering 256t of Painite to market.
As you say, it seemed like that was classed as trade and/or exploration rather than AS mining.

By comparison, I also spent a couple of hours blowing poop up in a CZ a couple of days ago and I got 280 Arx for that.

Not that fussed about it all, though, TBH.

The one thing that does bother me a bit is the idea that I can earn my weekly allocation of free Arx with a couple of hours of pew-pew.
Given that Arx is supposed to be an incentive/reward for playing the game, it's like they're saying "We want to encourage you to play for 3 hours a week but above that we really don't care how much you play".
It's not going to deter me from playing but it seems like it'd have been better if it took longer to earn the weekly maximum Arx, to reward people who DO play longer than 3 hours a week.

 

[Urbanski101]

It's a bit of a mystery.

Factabulous did write a post about ways to earn ARX from his experiments in trying different activities.

Trading, missions, mining & exploration seem to earn you very little ARX....odd as they are the main activities. Killing ships seems to earn around 1 ARX per kill (roughly), yet things like outfitting your ship, buying modules, engineering, using the material trader all seem to earn you lots of ARX?

If you read the ARX FAQ, FD said they would release details on how they ARX are earned in game before the Sept update dropped, a month later and that info has still not been released AFAIK, I'm thinking it's not quite working as intended but they dare not touch it because it's already taken three patches to half fix the mess they made with the update.

 

[d8veh]

I've only been mining and selling small amounts of exploration data that I pick up along the way, and I've had the max 400 Arx every week. I mine 1600T a night, so maybe you need more painite.

 

[Urbanski101]

I've only been mining and selling small amounts of exploration data that I pick up along the way, and I've had the max 400 Arx every week. I mine 1600T a night, so maybe you need more painite.

I must be doing it wrong, in around two hours I won four CZs, over 1M in combat bonds, ran several missions + some outfitting = 27 ARX

Also....1600T a night? Easy there fella, leave some for the rest of us. We know carriers might get expensive but hell, you can only buy one (got my carrier reference in there - does that get me any ARX?)

 

[Red Anders]

I've only been mining and selling small amounts of exploration data that I pick up along the way, and I've had the max 400 Arx every week. I mine 1600T a night, so maybe you need more painite.

I was selling 202 tons at a time over the last few days. Arx from each session was 6. Your exploration date must be bumping it up mate.

As far as I can tell, activities which pay a decent amount of credits deliver little Arx. I picked up about 130 Arx from another session a couple of days ago - all I did in that one was bag about 160k credits of bounties to unlock Mel Thingy at Colonia and engineer a couple of modules with him. I've given up trying to apply logic to it to be honest.

Oh and for OP - the rest of the 'trading' was buying and selling module(s)) for your ship. Last week I logged in, bought a Python at Jaques, sold all the crap gear on it and bought better gear, then logged out. Got about 60 Arx for that session, all described as 'trade'

 

[Stealthie]

I was selling 202 tons at a time over the last few days. Arx from each session was 6....

That's interesting because it sounds kind of similar to what I was doing, and got ~60 Arx for.

One thing I did, as well, was remove a pair of C1 mining lasers from my T10 and replace them with Mining Lances.
The Lances were stored modules, though, so it's not like I even bought them.

Also, I was travelling around 250Ly to sell Painite, in a T10 with a 32Ly jump-range, so I guess I "explored" roughly 16 systems during the round-trip to flog my Painite.

I got something like 65 Arx for my first 256t Painite mining session and a bit less (around 55 Arx IIRC) for the 2nd one.

 

[Scoob]

I'm in a similar position so I don't really know how it all works, but still...

I had a couple of goes in my T10 and it seems like I get awarded around 65 Arx after delivering 256t of Painite to market.
As you say, it seemed like that was classed as trade and/or exploration rather than AS mining.

By comparison, I also spent a couple of hours blowing poop up in a CZ a couple of days ago and I got 280 Arx for that.

Not that fussed about it all, though, TBH.

The one thing that does bother me a bit is the idea that I can earn my weekly allocation of free Arx with a couple of hours of pew-pew.
Given that Arx is supposed to be an incentive/reward for playing the game, it's like they're saying "We want to encourage you to play for 3 hours a week but above that we really don't care how much you play".
It's not going to deter me from playing but it seems like it'd have been better if it took longer to earn the weekly maximum Arx, to reward people who DO play longer than 3 hours a week.

I sold a full 512t of Painite yet gained less than you overall - it remains a bit of a mystery!

I wonder why FDev would have "preferred" methods of earning ARX? I would have thought just having the game see that you're actively engaged in something would be enough. Why weight different activities I don't know.

For the record my exact movements this evening to gain those 52 ARX were:

Leave Jameson Memorial in my Cutter.
Fly four jumps to another system to collect my Type 9.
Fly the Type 9 one jump to my preferred Mining area.
Mine for 1 hour and 20 minutes, collecting 512t of Painite, plus a little more in the Refinery.
Head back to my Cutter one jump away and swap to it.
Travel five jumps to a good selling location and sell.
Fly back to Jameson Memorial and switch to my Corvette.
Store the BiWeave Shield and buy a normal A-Rated one.
Remote Engineer the Shield.
Jump to the G5 Shield Engineer and add Experimental Effect.
Head to HazRes in system and shoot some ships.
Dock at station in system and claim bounties - around 600k cr worth.
Exit to the menu and see I've gained 52 ARX.

Note: I think I passed through a couple of systems that were new to me, but I'm not entirely sure.

I guess I was online for just over two hours in total, most of that mining (1hr 20m - I timed it!) a chunk travelling and the rest fighting.

Scoob.

 

[Red Anders]

That's interesting because it sounds kind of similar to what I was doing, and got ~60 Arx for.

One thing I did, as well, was remove a pair of C1 mining lasers from my T10 and replace them with Mining Lances.
The Lances were stored modules, though, so it's not like I even bought them.

Also, I was travelling around 250Ly to sell Painite, in a T10 with a 32Ly jump-range, so I guess I "explored" roughly 16 systems during the round-trip to flog my Painite.

I got something like 65 Arx for my first 256t Painite mining session and a bit less (around 55 Arx IIRC) for the 2nd one.

That is very odd. I wasn't travelling far (I'm out at Colonia at the moment so I was only jumping about 30~LY each way to a mining location and then back to sell up. Mined 202 tons of painite each session, flew back and sold it and it was 6 or 7 Arx per session. No gear bought, sold or transferred and no systems scanned because I'd already scanned everywhere I flew through.

 

[Stealthie]

I wonder why FDev would have "preferred" methods of earning ARX? I would have thought just having the game see that you're actively engaged in something would be enough. Why weight different activities I don't know.

I can see why it isn't based purely on in-game time - or they're going to get people just starting the game up and leaving it running all night.

Seems like it wouldn't be that hard to just set it up so the game counts all the time you're actually waggling a joystick, though.

 

[Scoob]

I can see why it isn't based purely on in-game time - or they're going to get people just starting the game up and leaving it running all night.

Seems like it wouldn't be that hard to just set it up so the game counts all the time you're actually waggling a joystick, though.

Of course, I did say actively engaged in something not just sat there idle. I know this is free stuff, so I'm not complaining about that, I just wonder why some activities are "better" than others, and whether mining's lack of ARX generation is purely due to the lack of a proper fix for the measures that were in place to say "player is actively mining" via per-fragment checks when Limpets return to the ship.

Scoob.

 

[Old Duck]

CQC isn't giving any Arx either. And in the main game, I can spend hours doing all sorts of things and make between 0 and 1 Arx on average... So for me, earned Arx IS the new CQC. It just sits there, taunting me, telling me how not good I am for only earning a small fraction of my potential of 400 per week, like that Harmless CQC badge.

I'd pay some real Arx to just turn off the Arx counter. I guess I'll just quit straight to desktop for now on

 

[Lightspeed]

^This
I still haven't reached 400 Arx yet ...... since they began

 

[metatheurgist]

I wonder why FDev would have "preferred" methods of earning ARX? I would have thought just having the game see that you're actively engaged in something would be enough. Why weight different activities I don't know.

Why does mining pay so well, when combat pays a pittance? Why did exploration get a ridiculous explosion in payout when missions don't do much anymore? Why do CGs even pretend to offer a reward? There's a theory that maybe the balancing factor is now arx, but who knows? It may change tomorrow.

 

[Urbanski101]

Well, until FD actually tell us how we earn ARX in game and the logic behind it, we are just guessing based off our own experiences.

Here is the link to the ARX earning Guide by Factabulous https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/arx-earning-guide.522856/

I now don't think they will release the official info on ARX earning as it will be tested and any discrepancy will be reported. I'm not sure it's working as intended but who knows.

 

[thistle]

Does it matter what gives more ARX?

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

its not giving small seismic charges yet

 

[gooddoc]

I was Painite Mining a couple of weeks ago, in one session I actually got 0 arx for hours worth of play, going from a Station to a Ring, Mining 600+ Tonnes of Painite & returning to a Station to sell.
However, I was Mining for days & doing the same route each time. It gave me the impression that repeating the same actions to the same locations yielded f'all!

I then went on to gain some Permits, again with limited success, as far as earning arx went, but again it was repeating mission's from the same location.

Only this week have I managed to hit the cap. That was only because I went out Exploring, not that that was good for arx, it was only when selling said data that the cap was attained - basically in one hit.

 

[Shiro Akai]

Does it matter what gives more ARX?

OFC. People min-max everything and from myriad activities that provide X goods in Y time they will pick the one that results in the best ratio. Especially welcomed for those who participate in low ARX source activities and/or have limited time.

Since start of ARX system I'm sitting at 50-ish and expect to reach weekly cap somewhere near the year's end. I would like to know what gives more ARX so I could get bit more with my casual approach.

 

[gooddoc]

Knowing doing what to get most arx's won't change how I play.

FD could up the cap by 100x & give it out only in pewpew combat....it still wouldn't get me to do that activity

Sorry guys! doing what I WANT to do, if it gives me tokens or not!