Newcomer / Intro Mining and Hoppers

Ok so after a good few months in this wonderful game universe, I have decided to try mining.

I am after afew tips. I have done the basic mining training scenario with the Palladium collection in a Sidey with twin mining lasers.

I note that the mining lasers only deploy in Analysis mode. Despite this, is it still possible to use mining lasers on ships? In the original game 'Elite' in the 80s, Mining lasers were the most powerful weapons...

I collected several Palladium fragments. The tutor was saying about filling up the 'hopper', but every time I looked the hopper was empty. I mined four chunks of Palladuim and the inventory showed one unit of Palladium in the hold; fair enough. But I didn't touch the hopper even once.

Sorry but the game is not all that clear about the hopper and the equipment like that; I remember in my early days with this game, mining all sorts of different materials in one asteroid area and it kept saying the hopper was full, or something like that. Couldn't collect more than one material at a time, it seemed.

Could someone please give me some hints on this stuff? And this is before I have even touched on analysis scanners and pulse generators and stuff....

Thanks
 
the hopper its talking about is in the refinery you install on the ship. refineries have different numbers of hoppers allowing you to mine and refine multiple materials at once. a 1A refinery has 4 bins(hoppers) and a 4A has 10. also refineries are automatic and there is no need to manage them unless your mining multiple materials at once and need to "clear a lane". in general when you mine you want to focus one just a few materials. painite is popular but gold, palladium, and a few others are also good early choices.

CMDR Exigeous has a great tutorial. his tutorials are much more informative then the ingame tutorials.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDBlbS1AXpE



o7
 
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Just to clarify what @CMDR DERPY SMOOG said - the hopper is that part of the refinery that splits the fragments into their components and passes that separated material to a bin. There is only one hopper, the number of bins is determined by the size of refinery you fit.
 
Your Sidewinder can carry 8 tons of cargo (refined stuff from mining) if you change the shield to a 1c biweave or 1A and fit two 2E cargo racks, but what a lot of people don't realise is that the 1A refinery has 4 bins, each capable of holding 1 ton of unrefined materials. You shouldn't stop mining when your cargo hold is full. Instead, you should wait until your refinery is full as well. Immediately after you sell the 8 tons in the cargo hold when you're at the station, the refinery will refine the 4 tons in the bins into another 4 tons into the cargo hold, which you can sell about 10 seconds after you sold the 8 tons, which means that you get the money for 12 tons in total.

In other words, as soon as you make your first million, fit out a Sidewinder for mining and go to a painite double hotspot, which will get you your next 9 million in about half an hour.
https://coriolis.edcd.io/outfit/sidewinder?code=A0p3t2F0l3d0s3f12l2l--0101B62j1g2i.AwRj4yyA.AwkRlSqA..EweloBjEoUwQwOYBtYhARgtmuJA=&bn=Sidewinder painite
 
So while on the subject of mining, I have also found that the prospector limpets can be used at range. There's no need to fly right up to every asteroid highlighted by the pulse wave scanner; instead, you can prospect the asteroids remotely and just fly up to those you actually want to mine. Great fun.
 
So while on the subject of mining, I have also found that the prospector limpets can be used at range. There's no need to fly right up to every asteroid highlighted by the pulse wave scanner; instead, you can prospect the asteroids remotely and just fly up to those you actually want to mine. Great fun.
This is true, but for those who don't know, Prospector limpets are a One and Done thing. Say you fire a PL at an asteroid...it goes off on it'e merry way and impacts the surface giving you a reading. You then turn to a different asteroid and fire a PL at it. The first PL will cease to function and the second one will now be the primary Limpet.

I found this out quickly as I had two very nicely colored asteroids sitting side by side. I fired at one, then rotated and fired at the second one. The first limpet died before it even hit the asteroid. Took a couple of shots before I realized what was going on...Live and learn.

Take Care and Check Six Commanders! o7
 
This is true, but for those who don't know, Prospector limpets are a One and Done thing. Say you fire a PL at an asteroid...it goes off on it'e merry way and impacts the surface giving you a reading. You then turn to a different asteroid and fire a PL at it. The first PL will cease to function and the second one will now be the primary Limpet.
..............

That is why you fit the bigger and more expensive controller. A class 5 prospector controller can have 4 "live" prospectors at a time - the oldest of the four terminates / fails when a fifth one is launched - so always four active (for the life-time and active range of that rating of controller). A class 7 can have 8 active and class 3 only 2 - being cheap with a class 1 gives just the one. ;)

BTW - Never fit less than a A rated controller, the lower ratings produce a smaller multiple of fragments.

 
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BTW - Never fit less than a A rated controller, the lower ratings produce a smaller multiple of fragments.

I've made 100 billion mining, and I didn't know that. You learn something new every day.

Luckily, I always used A-class, otherwise I'd be kicking myself.
 
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