Laser mining in a Large ship?

Stealthie

Stealthie
Quick bit of background...

I flew my 30Ly T10 to Beagle Point and had some sentimental attachment so, afterwards, I decided to repurpose it as a laser-mining ship.
It always had an issue with Prospectors failing after hitting part of the hull upon launch but, y'know, sentimental attachment.
2 years away, no more sentimental attachment and FDev haven't gotten around to fixing the issue with launching limpets so the T10 has got to go.

I used to laser-mine in a T9 and, honestly, it was almost the perfect ship (for me).
256t capacity, 14 Collectors and all the modules fit with almost no wasted capacity.
The only real problem was that it had no defensive weapons although, in the ED universe (where pirates show up as soon as you drop out of SC and then vanish forever), that wasn't a big deal.

Had a bit of a think about an alternative large laser-ming ship.
Beluga is a non-starter since it's largest slot is a C6, which means half it's slots are taken with cargo racks to get 256t.
Anaconda is better but it still doesn't seem to turn out especially well and, with the bridge at the back, it isn't great for getting nose-to-nose with 'roids.
Corvette isn't bad. It's agile, can be configured almost as well as a T9 but it's got the same issue as the Annie', with the bridge at the back.
Cutter has C8 slots and the bridge is at the front but it can't support as many collectors as the T9 and it isn't exactly agile.

Anyway, if anybody's got any suggestions for an efficient large laser-mining ship, I'd be happy to see them... before I start rebuilding my old T9.


Also, while I'm at it, I did a search on Youtube for "Elite dangerous laser mining" and a whole bunch of the results seem to feature T7s.
I get that the T7 is pretty agile (for a flying brick) but it doesn't really have the internal slots or the hardpoints for a decent laser-mining ship.
Anybody know why people seem to choose the T7 to go laser-mining?
 

Darrack

Darrack
The T10 is the best Laser miner there is.
Great view, huge Power plant and distributor, plenty of cargo space and actually pretty quick.

O7
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
Darrack said:
The T10 is the best Laser miner there is.
Great view, huge Power plant and distributor, plenty of cargo space and actually pretty quick.

O7
Click to expand...

It just can't launch Prospectors reliably while it's moving.

Main reason I'm thinking of going back to a T9 is because of the view, and the way modules all fit but, I dunno.
Corvette seems like it'll have almost as good a loadout as the T9 but the bridge is way too far from the nose for a mining ship.
Kind of expensive way to do things but I might just buy a Cutter and a T9, build them both (un-engineered) and see how they compare.
 

K Olley

K
There are still problems with the T9 destroying prospectors, its just a case of remembering to slow down before you fire them, but with the speed of the collectors nowadays I get enough time after stripping a rock to lob a prospector or two while the collectors are catching up.

Ice Maiden My out black Tritium miner, 15 collectors, 512t, 4 pips to weapons and it will strip a rock in 15 sec without overheating.
 

aRJay

aRJay
I laser mined in an Anaconda, the enormous hull between the cockpit and the action isn’t a big issue unless you want to do the other sorts of mining, it has a big enough capacitor to support plenty of mining lasers.

But like pretty much every ship I have mined in it will eat the first prospector limpet if you are travelling too fast, as was mentioned deploy the scoop and throttle back before launching the prospector.

The Corvette would probably be a better choice given how much easier it is to point at stuff, other than that you are looking at ships with a size 7 PD.
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
aRJay said:
But like pretty much every ship I have mined in it will eat the first prospector limpet if you are travelling too fast, as was mentioned deploy the scoop and throttle back before launching the prospector.
Click to expand...

Have you ever tried mining in a T10?

Don't mean that in a snarky way but, unless you have, you probably don't realise just how bad the issue is with Prospectors.
It's way worse than every other ship I've tried (T9 and Cutter up to now).

In the T10 you have to be flying perfectly straight and level and keep your speed under 40 m/sec when you launch a Prospector.
It's not a total show-stopper once you start mining because you can usually launch new Prospectors while you're stopped, waiting for your Collectors to finish, but you really have to want to fly a T10 to put up with it... and I don't any more. 😛
 

Riverside

Riverside
The only mining I do is Trit for carrier fuel and Plat for profit (where I gather large amounts & am usually in no rush).

I have three mining ships stored on my carrier as I wander around the galaxy; A Python, a Conda & a Cutter.

All are shieldless & have no defensive weapons, but all have reactive armour to help with the occasional rubbing against asteroids and poor docking. None have autodock or supercruise assist. all have wep focused distros, all have C3 prospector controllers (2 limpets).

The Python has a 196t cargo/limpet capacity & is nimble enough (compared to the other two) to focus on surface & subsurface, and can do cores too although I usually don't. Great for getting small amounts pretty quickly. It can laser mine too but with only two C2 mining lasers it's a bit dull & the 10 limpets are usually waiting for the lasers but it's quick & easy to fill.

The Conda has 5xC2 mining lasers & is quick to deplete any asteroid but gets close to overheating if I stay on the trigger any longer so it's a bit more technical to use. It has 13 collector limpets & is good for laser mining & fills it's 320t hold pretty quickly.

But I use the Cutter the most. With 4xC2 mining lasers it doesn't deplete rocks quite as fast as the conda but it has more limpets (15) & 512t of cargo capacity so when I have a lot to get & don't mind how long it takes (which is most of the mining I do) it's my go-to miner. Sometimes I get bored before the hold is full but that still usually gets me more than the conda can carry. I can do the other types of mining (all three can) but generally I don't focus on it in the cutter because if I do I use a lot of mats rearming the sub-surface displacement missiles.

You can mine in any ship & different people prioritise different aspects of mining performance but IMO the three I use are all objectively good & Cutter is the best all things considered (imo, ymmv).
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
Well, I've just got finished with my un-engineered mine-off between a T9, Cutter and Corvette and I think the winner is going to be... the Corvette.

Kind of surprised myself because I'd already tried a Cutter and liked it.
Honestly, the only reason I didn't already switch to a Cutter full-time was because I felt like it was a bit "undignified" for the pride of the Imperial fleet to be splitting rocks.

The position of the bridge on the Corvette isn't as terrible as I thought it'd be.
I kind of have it in my head that it's "at the back" of the ship but I forget that there's quite a bit of hull behind the bridge, housing those 2x C4 hardpoints.

Also, with the cargo scoop deployed the Cutter's speed advantage is minimised and the Corvette's agility is useful for launching Prospectors at new rocks quickly.

My Cutter build has 5x C2 mining lasers and a C3 Beam/MC combo' for defence.
The 'vette has 3x C2 & 2x C1 mining lasers and C4 Beam/MC combo' for defence.
Kind of overkill for making Eagles and Adders go away but putting C2 mining lasers in those C4 slots would just be all kinds of wrong.
For mining, the Cutter's 5x C2 mining lasers are a little bit faster but the 'vette's Collectors are always finished by the time I've fired off a few Prospectors and decided where I'm going next.

Now I just need to sell the Cutter and T9 back to Jameson Memorial and see just how many credits this little experiment has cost me. :cautious:
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
Pville_Piper said:
Something I've tried is give the ship a bit of vertical thrust as you launch the prospectors, it does help...
Click to expand...

Yep, I'd been doing that while I flew the T10 but, like I said, you need to want to fly a T10 to faff around like that.
It's kind of nice to take a break because when you come back stuff that seemed important, back then, doesn't seem important any more.

T10 is now stripped and up for sale on space-autotrader.
 

Dragsham

Dragsham
Type 8 ?
Haven't tried mining with it i use my coolerminerconda.
But I only deep core or surface/sub surface. I do laser mine em 1st before blowing em up though.
Type 8 has huge cargo (320t) 5 size 1 and 1 size 2 hardpoint.
Yes it's medium but it's nimble and in my view a future candidate for mining.
Haven't built one but if l did it'd be perhaps like this..

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
s.orbis.zone s.orbis.zone
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
Dragsham said:
Type 8 ?
Haven't tried mining with it i use my coolerminerconda.
But I only deep core or surface/sub surface. I do laser mine em 1st before blowing em up though.
Type 8 has huge cargo (320t) 5 size 1 and 1 size 2 hardpoint.
Yes it's medium but it's nimble and in my view a future candidate for mining.
Haven't built one but if l did it'd be perhaps like this..

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
s.orbis.zone s.orbis.zone
Click to expand...

That link doesn't work for me but, looking at the spec's of the T8, it's going to struggle against the big boys.
The internals allow for a decent build, albeit with 128t of cargo instead of 256t.
The hardpoints, however, mean you can only have the equivalent of "three and a half" C2 mining lasers, with no defensive weapons.
Not awful, though,I guess.
The big problem is the PD.
A 4A PD, even with G5 weapon focused, is going to struggle to power all the mining lasers.

Will definitely be building a T8 DC miner, when it's available for credits, but I still think you need the big boys to go laser mining properly.
 
Last edited:

Pville_Piper

Pville_Piper
It's not a bad miner, I like it better than the T-10. The T-10 is more capable in some ways. The biggest issue with the T-8 for me is the long arms sticking out. But it suits my style well.
The T-8 should be available for credits now...
 

aRJay

aRJay
Dragsham said:
Type 8 ?
Haven't tried mining with it i use my coolerminerconda.
But I only deep core or surface/sub surface. I do laser mine em 1st before blowing em up though.
Type 8 has huge cargo (320t) 5 size 1 and 1 size 2 hardpoint.
Yes it's medium but it's nimble and in my view a future candidate for mining.
Haven't built one but if l did it'd be perhaps like this..

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
s.orbis.zone s.orbis.zone
Click to expand...
The small distributor is going to strangle the power hog mining lasers which can be very frustrating.
It always feels better if you can deplete the rock in just one long blast rather than have to take a break.
 

anShpan

A
I used to laser mining in T-8, love it. Shielded 192t, 8 collectors, 4x c1 Modified mining lasers are capable of firing indefinitely on 4A PD (4 pips on weapons).
 

Jumpin' Jack Flash

Jumpin' Jack Flash
Hi :)

Stealthie said:
Well, I've just got finished with my un-engineered mine-off between a T9, Cutter and Corvette and I think the winner is going to be... the Corvette.
Click to expand...

;)...Yup, I've messed around converting ships to try out various mining loadouts in the past, and the Corvette was the only one that ticked most of the boxes.
As for a dedicated mining ship I haven't found one that you'd be able to call a true mining vessel. Perhaps we'll see one in the future. The Panther whenever it's released might turn out to be the one ship that could be a good conversion, but that's just a wild guess. Other ships might end up filling this role, ships that are more on the larger side, and with a large cargo bay to boot.
We might see those older ships from past games (FE2, FFE etc.) I'm thinking of the Imperial Explorer, Boa, Puma Shuttle or even the Tiger Trader perhaps having a more mining focused build in their more modern incarnations.
I can't remember the exact name of the ship, and I don't think a player back then could own one...was it called a Lynx Bulk carrier?...or something like that. Now that might be a possibility for a more mining focused ship...great at what it implies, but pretty hopeless in anything else. Still, as far as a mining ship goes there's also a few more possibilities for some new types of modules uniquely focused around mining I would have thought... 🤔 ....maybe some form of gas collection too, a miner / tanker ship hybrid.

Jack :)
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
aRJay said:
The small distributor is going to strangle the power hog mining lasers which can be very frustrating.
It always feels better if you can deplete the rock in just one long blast rather than have to take a break.
Click to expand...

FWIW, my T9 used to run 3x C2 & 2x C1 mining lasers and, with a 6A G5 weapon-focused PD it'd just about strip a rock without cutting out but I'd also be getting heat warnings by the time I'd finished too.

I guess 4x C1 mining lasers are going to be okay with a 4A PD but when you can run 12 collectors you really need more lasers to keep them busy and that's when the PD is going to struggle.

I currently have a KM2 as a DC miner and another one as a "lightweight" laser miner and I'd like to replace both with T8s but I have a feeling a T8 might struggle to match the performance of the KM2 for laser mining... especially given that the KM2 can run 3x C2 mining lasers and still retain a couple of C3 hardpoints for making pirates go away.
 
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