Keelback versus Asp Scout for mining?

[leeG]

Limoncello Lizard got me thinking about mining. I decide to kit out my Cobra Mk.III as a miner and give it a try. Going to put in a 2D mining laser, 1A prospector limpet controller, a 2A refinery and a 3D collector limpet controller. Keeping my shields leave me with 20 tons of cargo capacity. This should be more than good enough to get a feel for this profession.

Looking past the Cobra to my next potential ship purchase, I’m puzzled as to why the Keelback is considered an acceptable budget miner, while the AspS is never mentioned as the same. The two ships are very close in cost and capabilities. A mining AspS build at 10.5 million has a size larger power distributor but gives up 16 tons of cargo compared to a 9.5 million Keelback build with 64 tons cargo. On paper the AspS has much better maneuverability which I would think is a plus in mining. It looks like a coin toss to me between these two ships as economy class miners. What am I missing?

Yes, I am aware the Type-6 and AspX are better miners than these two. But I already have those ships in my now growing fleet and prefer to add a new type if I decide I need a dedicated miner.

Plus another question, why isn’t there a dedicated Mining subform like their is for Exploration? I’m sure there’s plenty to talk about.

Fly safe!
o7

 

[daman]

you can take an SLF and npc pilot along with you with a keelback.
some additional protection for while you are out mining.

PS. I wish there was a good use for the scout. its a nimble little ship. but it doesn't have a standout purpose.

 

[Trollymctrollerson]

Both ships make me cringe. If you mind in a safe location, I'd just get another T 6. And make sure collector controller is A or B rated. D rated will give you suicidal limpets.

 

[Frenotx]

The type-6 has the big disadvantage of only having small hardpoints. A single medium mining laser is both faster and more efficient than even two small mining lasers working together.

Between the keelback and the asp scout, I'd go for the keelback. 2 class 5 cargo hold (64t total capacity), class 4 shield, class 3 collector limpet control, class 1 prospector limpets control, class 2A refinery, 1 medium mining laser.

 

[Cmdr Tel]

I'm not sure any of those ships you mentioned will give you "the feel for the profession" and I've used them all. They all made it seem more aggro than it was worth.
Asp X was really the first ship that seemed decent for the job but it wasn't until I started using a Dropship that I started to enjoy mining.

I still use my Dropship now, even though I have a Python, and find it relaxing and profitable or by mining in a Haz res a lot of fun.
So I would recommend re outfitting your Asp X and trying it or if you have the funds move straight to a Dropship which will pay for itself in very short order.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

I think you are right that the Asp Scout makes a better mining ship than the Keelback. The larger power distributor makes a big difference when mining. More mining lasers and more active collector limpets improves mining a lot, but the limitations are power distributor and number of module slots.

Here is a suggested Asp Scout build.

I thing that the increased collection speed from a larger number of active collectors is more useful than more cargo space. But that is a style thing, so if you are happy with just two collectors, the larger cargo is handy.

One thing with collector controllers. For mining, only use either D-rated or A-rated. These are the longer lived collectors, which is more important than range.

Another suggestion. Set up a firegroup for mining. Put all your mining lasers and collector controllers on the primary button and your prospector on the secondary. This way you never have to worry about deploying collectors, as it happens automatically when you fire your lasers.

 

[Tarman]

I felt crunched for space and utility even in an AspX for mining, though that was pre-3. The smarter hopper setup with the ignore lists I'd imagine make smaller-ship mining much more smooth. I have a Clipper rigged for mining though so for me I guess it's moot.

 

[Spacecat]

I tried mining in a keelback and it sucks. Not enough modules. Asp Explorer is much better. Can fit a decent sized refinery and has enough storage to be worthwhile.

 

[Frenotx]

I tried mining in a keelback and it sucks. Not enough modules. Asp Explorer is much better. Can fit a decent sized refinery and has enough storage to be worthwhile.

With the ignore list we have now, a 2A refinery (6 bins) is usually more than enough. Having space to have a decent drone lineup AND some respectable cargo make a big difference though.

 

[Spacecat]

With the ignore list we have now, a 2A refinery (6 bins) is usually more than enough. Having space to have a decent drone lineup AND some respectable cargo make a big difference though.

Still gets clogged up and have to dump a lot of stuff with 6 bins. I'm lazy.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Still gets clogged up

Makes no difference whether your refinery has 10 slots or 6, you'll still get the "Refinery Full" message. It doesn't matter whether the bins are full or empty. Same with the hopper locking up.

These are bugs that have been there for at least 2 1/2 years.

 

[leeG]

Does anyone use the Dolphin as a miner? Looking at the specs, aside from being almost double the price, the Dolphin looks to be almost as effective a two small hard point miner as the Type 6. Plus small pad ship with way more style!

It would be nice if Frontier made a dedicated mining ship. Good cockpit view, compact size, and reasonable number of slots. Would also be nice to see some mining stuff in the store, like mining nameplates and decals.

 

[Frenotx]

Does anyone use the Dolphin as a miner? Looking at the specs, aside from being almost double the price, the Dolphin looks to be almost as effective a two small hard point miner as the Type 6. Plus small pad ship with way more style!

It would be nice if Frontier made a dedicated mining ship. Good cockpit view, compact size, and reasonable number of slots. Would also be nice to see some mining stuff in the store, like mining nameplates and decals.

Dolphin looks decent at it. Again though, small mining lasers, even two working together, are significantly slower and less WEP efficient than a single medium mining laser.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Does a Dolphin have the distributor power to run 2 small mining lasers?

 

[Frenotx]

Does a Dolphin have the distributor power to run 2 small mining lasers?

With an A-rated distro (no engineering), it can run two small mining lasers for about 2 minutes. Not sure if heat would be a problem towards the end or not, though.

Two small mining lasers is 3 MW of drain. 3A PD has 2.8 MW of WEP recharge at 4 pips. The total drain is thus .2 MW. 3A PD has 24 MJ of storage. MW = MJ/s, so it would take 120 seconds to drain 24 MJ at a total drain of .2 MW.

 

[Stealthie]

A while back I decided to build a bunch of budget mission-miners to leave dotted around the bubble so I could take on mining missions, zip across to the nearest one and make use of it.

I really wanted to pick a specific ship for the job and maximise the cost/efficiency of it so I looked at a whole heap of ships, including the AspS, T6 and Keelback - as well as pretty-much every other small/medium ship in the game.

In the end, I'm afraid the AspX got the job due to being superior to all the other candidates in one way or another.

The one thing I would say is that might change when FDev finally get around to properly implementing auto-ignore for limpets and auto-sorting for refineries.
Haven't actually been mining since 3.0 went live but once we can set up a mining ship so the collectors ignore anything we don't want and the refineries dump anything we don't want, it might be possible to get away with using smaller refineries and collectors, which might make something like (off the top of my head), say, an Adder viable.

As it is, an AspX is so much more useful a miner than an AspS or a Keelback that you'd have to be a masochist to deliberately pick them, even if they cost a couple of million credits less to build.

 

[Frenotx]

A while back I decided to build a bunch of budget mission-miners to leave dotted around the bubble so I could take on mining missions, zip across to the nearest one and make use of it.

I really wanted to pick a specific ship for the job and maximise the cost/efficiency of it so I looked at a whole heap of ships, including the AspS, T6 and Keelback - as well as pretty-much every other small/medium ship in the game.

In the end, I'm afraid the AspX got the job due to being superior to all the other candidates in one way or another.

The one thing I would say is that might change when FDev finally get around to properly implementing auto-ignore for limpets and auto-sorting for refineries.
Haven't actually been mining since 3.0 went live but once we can set up a mining ship so the collectors ignore anything we don't want and the refineries dump anything we don't want, it might be possible to get away with using smaller refineries and collectors, which might make something like (off the top of my head), say, an Adder viable.

As it is, an AspX is so much more useful a miner than an AspS or a Keelback that you'd have to be a masochist to deliberately pick them, even if they cost a couple of million credits less to build.

The ignore list works fine. I'm running a 2A refinery on my T-10, and never feel short on bins with it.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

A while back I decided to build a bunch of budget mission-miners to leave dotted around the bubble so I could take on mining missions, zip across to the nearest one and make use of it.

I already have several mining ships spread around the bubble (Adder, Clipper, Dropship, Vulture), in addition to my preferred Cutter.

The one thing I would say is that might change when FDev finally get around to properly implementing auto-ignore for limpets and auto-sorting for refineries.
Haven't actually been mining since 3.0.

I suggest you give it a go now. The ignore function makes a huge difference, though the interface is clumsy.

 

[Stealthie]

I suggest you give it a go now. The ignore function makes a huge difference, though the interface is clumsy.

Do I still have to shoot limpets which have accidentally picked up something I don't want?

Can't even recall why I was disappointed with the way 3.0 refineries work but I'm sure there was something that made me think "Hmm, I guess I'll leave it until that's fixed".

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Do I still have to shoot limpets which have accidentally picked up something I don't want?

Can't even recall why I was disappointed with the way 3.0 refineries work but I'm sure there was something that made me think "Hmm, I guess I'll leave it until that's fixed".

For mineral fragments. If you ignore a mineral that one of your limpets is carrying, it will still return with the fragment, but your refinery will auto-discard it. The limpets will then ignore fragments with that mineral, unless some of the fragments has a mineral you do want. They will also ignore canisters of that mineral. You do have to empty any existing minerals in the refinery bins yourself.

The auto-ignore is working OK for materials that have reached the maximum. This wasn't working in 3.0, so maybe this is what was causing you problems.