I've been exploring and decided to try a little mining which sort of dovetails with my exploring interest. I like the hunt for the big prize. On one of my mining trips I found a ringed planet with pristine reserves and metallic rings. I did not find much of anything of great value. I'm wondering if am missing some technique. I have been using collection and prospecting limpets although I'm not sure prospecting limpets are that helpful since I can just do a few quick mining laser blasts and see what the fragments look like and save a limpet. I would like to mine. I'm not looking for a get rich quick scheme but I need to make more money than I'm now bringing in.
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Newcomer / Intro Making money mining
- Thread starter hhatch
- Start date
Prospector Limpets will give you more yield per rock.
So in theory, you can find what you are looking for quicker then when you find a good rock, you get more of the good stuff than if you had not used the prospector.
IIRC the rings closer to the planet give more high value ore (painite etc).
It can take some time to find the good rocks as the FD RNG is at play here as it is everywhere else.
Hope this helps.
https://youtu.be/aNMv0JRraOg
Clicker
So in theory, you can find what you are looking for quicker then when you find a good rock, you get more of the good stuff than if you had not used the prospector.
IIRC the rings closer to the planet give more high value ore (painite etc).
It can take some time to find the good rocks as the FD RNG is at play here as it is everywhere else.
Hope this helps.
https://youtu.be/aNMv0JRraOg
Clicker
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I've only mined for relaxation and when something(engineer) required... I can't say I've made much cred. out of it, but i still enjoy it. It's easier to extract LT diamonds from NPCs than space rocks 
Definitely something I'd like to do more; For those of you that regularly mine - what's considered a good/average credits per hour ratio?
Definitely something I'd like to do more; For those of you that regularly mine - what's considered a good/average credits per hour ratio?
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My, thus far, only attempt at mining, while kind of relaxing, did not yield much in the way of profitsses. Probably 40k for an hours work plus a couple of iron and carbon drops. In that time I could have been jumping and deep scanning several systems and made far more off selling the nav data.
IMHO mining would serve more of a purpose if it was linked to running your own factory or gathering resources to craft something.
IMHO mining would serve more of a purpose if it was linked to running your own factory or gathering resources to craft something.
I make roughly 4 or 5 million for an hour's mining in a pristine metallic ring. More if I've got a few missions.
I made 100 million mining for the CG last week, though 30 of that was the CG reward.
I made 100 million mining for the CG last week, though 30 of that was the CG reward.
Yep, I concur that it's around 5M/hour but I've heard you can make more with RES mapping.
I know you're asking the others, but to add the to convo on mining, but I use my python as a mining ship - I just didn't have another use for it when i bought it and have kept it that way
[video=youtube;JwDgEN_mTfs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwDgEN_mTfs
There are two schools of thought as to making maximum credits while mining. Both techniques require you to be in a Pristine Metallic ring.
1. Planet-eating. The goal here is to get in, stuff your hold and get out ASAP. Put a mining laser in every weapon slot on your ship, and fit as many collector limpet controllers as possible without limiting cargo space too much. You should only bring a few collector limpets, maybe enough for one full replacement launch. Prospectors aren't really necessary. Fly up to the first rock you see while launching your drone swarm, and just start blasting. Use all those mining lasers to suck the rock dry ASAP, and watch your swarm of limpets collect everything; don't be fussy, don't throw out anything. The goal is, as the name implies, stuffing your hold as quickly as possible. Rock depleted? Move on to the next-nearest rock and repeat. Leave as soon as the hold is full.
2. Rock-sniping. The goal here is staying in the ring until your hold is full of extra valuable cargo. For this you need a good prospector controller, and just one collector controller. You will need a very, very large number of limpets - filling about three-quarters of your cargo hold should be adequate. Check each rock one by one with prospectors, and ignore it unless it's full of goodies. When you find a rock, drain it, and then start firing off prospectors at other rocks while you're waiting for your small fleet of collectors to gather up the good stuff. If you scoop up unwanted junk, dump it and collect more valuable stuff instead. Everything below gold should be thrown away; many snipers throw away gold because it's not valuable enough and only focus on the PPP and other mining-only rares like osmium and samarium.
Which you use depends in part on the distance between the ring and the place you're selling the minerals; a planet-eater needs a short travel distance, a rock-sniper doesn't care. There's also available game time to consider; a rock-sniper could spend hours in a ring, and if you don't know you have hours to play, you definitely don't want to log off while you're in the ring. Otherwise, if you log back in again, a pirate will spawn and scan you. So planet-eating is better for the casual gamer, or for miners who are happy to sacrifice some min-max mining capacity for anti-pirate defence.
Rock-sniping is also what you want to be doing if you're going to be maximizing profits by accepting mining missions. Everyone agrees that mining missions seem to spawn much more frequently if you don't actually have any minerals in your hold, so many snipers stack up on a bunch of missions beforehand, then use those missions as a "shopping list" for their target minerals. Missions are likely to spawn NPC assailants, so you will need combat kit to take this option.
Planet-eating, on the other hand, is what you want to be doing if you've concluded that mining is worse than dental surgery and you just want to refine Selene Jean the Mining Queen's quota of refined minerals. Because it's quicker.
As for which ship, rock-sniping is more suited to smaller ships. I currently use an Asp for rock-sniping, though may buy a bigger ship and try planet-eating now that I've got plenty of cash to buy and kit out a large mining ship.
1. Planet-eating. The goal here is to get in, stuff your hold and get out ASAP. Put a mining laser in every weapon slot on your ship, and fit as many collector limpet controllers as possible without limiting cargo space too much. You should only bring a few collector limpets, maybe enough for one full replacement launch. Prospectors aren't really necessary. Fly up to the first rock you see while launching your drone swarm, and just start blasting. Use all those mining lasers to suck the rock dry ASAP, and watch your swarm of limpets collect everything; don't be fussy, don't throw out anything. The goal is, as the name implies, stuffing your hold as quickly as possible. Rock depleted? Move on to the next-nearest rock and repeat. Leave as soon as the hold is full.
2. Rock-sniping. The goal here is staying in the ring until your hold is full of extra valuable cargo. For this you need a good prospector controller, and just one collector controller. You will need a very, very large number of limpets - filling about three-quarters of your cargo hold should be adequate. Check each rock one by one with prospectors, and ignore it unless it's full of goodies. When you find a rock, drain it, and then start firing off prospectors at other rocks while you're waiting for your small fleet of collectors to gather up the good stuff. If you scoop up unwanted junk, dump it and collect more valuable stuff instead. Everything below gold should be thrown away; many snipers throw away gold because it's not valuable enough and only focus on the PPP and other mining-only rares like osmium and samarium.
Which you use depends in part on the distance between the ring and the place you're selling the minerals; a planet-eater needs a short travel distance, a rock-sniper doesn't care. There's also available game time to consider; a rock-sniper could spend hours in a ring, and if you don't know you have hours to play, you definitely don't want to log off while you're in the ring. Otherwise, if you log back in again, a pirate will spawn and scan you. So planet-eating is better for the casual gamer, or for miners who are happy to sacrifice some min-max mining capacity for anti-pirate defence.
Rock-sniping is also what you want to be doing if you're going to be maximizing profits by accepting mining missions. Everyone agrees that mining missions seem to spawn much more frequently if you don't actually have any minerals in your hold, so many snipers stack up on a bunch of missions beforehand, then use those missions as a "shopping list" for their target minerals. Missions are likely to spawn NPC assailants, so you will need combat kit to take this option.
Planet-eating, on the other hand, is what you want to be doing if you've concluded that mining is worse than dental surgery and you just want to refine Selene Jean the Mining Queen's quota of refined minerals. Because it's quicker.
As for which ship, rock-sniping is more suited to smaller ships. I currently use an Asp for rock-sniping, though may buy a bigger ship and try planet-eating now that I've got plenty of cash to buy and kit out a large mining ship.
You left out the 3rd method, which is RES mapping.
Rocks in an asteroid field are persistent. That means if you can find the same rock you'll get the same payout. This is hard to do except in a RES where you have a point of reference which is why it's called RES mapping. If you can map out all the high-paying rocks you can keep visiting them exclusively and fill your hold with only the best without wasting time hunting. The rocks refresh every 2 hours (I think, I'm not certain about that).
Rocks in an asteroid field are persistent. That means if you can find the same rock you'll get the same payout. This is hard to do except in a RES where you have a point of reference which is why it's called RES mapping. If you can map out all the high-paying rocks you can keep visiting them exclusively and fill your hold with only the best without wasting time hunting. The rocks refresh every 2 hours (I think, I'm not certain about that).
If I am not mistaken prospectors give you a 50% yield increase from any asteroid.
100% not 50%
the minimum mining ship for me is the dropship. 4 medium mining laser and a big enough PD to power them long enough to deplete an asteroid in one go.
ontop of that, it has a size4 internal for the refinery and enough slots for cargo, collector and prospector.
I mine with an Orca fitted with 3 medium fixed mining lasers, the turreted are really for multiplayer, a small prospector limpet controller (just 1 at a time) 100 tonnes of cargo capacity (80-90 limpets at start) a 10 slot refinery and 3 collector limpet controllers the ship is set up to run away from anything.