Mining for materials

[ElectricZ]

Prior to 2.2, there was a bug while mining rings that a prospecting beacon would always return "low" for material content on a rock regardless of its type (rock, metal, ice) or the reserves (pristine, common, depleted, etc.)

I haven't been in a position to try mining in 2.2 yet. Has anyone who has noticed a change? Are there medium/high material asteroids out there? Do any of them contain the harder to find mats like arsenic and the like? Or was it always just a display issue where the content was correct and it was just the persistent "low" label that was wrong?

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

When the materials/salvage was increased to 3, some people complained that mining filled up their materials too fast. So in their typical over-reaction they nerfed the material content of roids so that everything read as Low. Some materials, such as arsenic, are now nearly impossible to get via mining.

What FD said they would do as a partial fix for this was to lower the thresholds for displaying a roid's material content. So what would have once shown as Low, now reads High. If you get a Low roid now, I doubt there will be any materials in it at all.

Supposedly, metal-rich and rocky rings will now have some of the relabelled High roids. Metallic and icy rings will only go up to Medium.

 

[ElectricZ]

What FD said they would do as a partial fix for this was to lower the thresholds for displaying a roid's material content. So what would have once shown as Low, now reads High. If you get a Low roid now, I doubt there will be any materials in it at all.

Supposedly, metal-rich and rocky rings will now have some of the relabelled High roids. Metallic and icy rings will only go up to Medium.

So they just changed the threshold for the labels and not the material content? Bummer...

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Yeah. It's a real pity. Mining in rocky and metal-rich rings was briefly a very good way to get some of the supposedly "standard" materials, cadmium, mercury, molybdenum, tin, and tungsten.
It was even possible to get arsenic in an Icy ring. Now even iron is pretty rare there.

 

[jacozilla]

Prior to 2.2, there was a bug while mining rings that a prospecting beacon would always return "low" for material content on a rock regardless of its type (rock, metal, ice) or the reserves (pristine, common, depleted, etc.)

I haven't been in a position to try mining in 2.2 yet. Has anyone who has noticed a change? Are there medium/high material asteroids out there? Do any of them contain the harder to find mats like arsenic and the like? Or was it always just a display issue where the content was correct and it was just the persistent "low" label that was wrong?

Labels may be incorrect but just go with me here - assuming we categorize mats as common -> uncommon -> rare -> very rare , then we get examples like carbon, nickel -> arsenic, chromium -> cadmium, tin -> polonium

Prior to the 3-for-1 mat pickup buff, I could reliably space mine and get decent 'bulk' acquisition of common and uncommon mats. Any higher and either never got or so rare even my hate-SRV scavenging preference would cave and I'd use SRV for it. (not stating space mining was better, just viable alternative for SRV scavenging detesters like me)

After the 3-for-1 mat buff and knee jerk FD response to reduce mats 'hassle' when space mining, I still find common mats like nickel, P, S, etc to be easily found - but too hit and miss for anything above it and resort to SRV for uncommon+

Might be personal RNG streak, but I find mining in pristine ice rings gets me far better acquisition rate and bulk of common mats than in regular pristine metallic rings. More credits for sure from actual valuable mining in the regular pristine rings, but less mats. So when all I want are -common- mats for synthesis and bulk mats for re-grinding engineer rep after using favors, I just go ice mining in pristine ice rings. YMMV.

 

[TomP]

Totally understand if the issue is 'no Horizons', of course, but otherwise, it's a hell of a lot quicker to use an SRV buggeh.

 

[jacozilla]

Totally understand if the issue is 'no Horizons', of course, but otherwise, it's a hell of a lot quicker to use an SRV buggeh.

Yep. Agree.

But just pointing out that if anyone is in my same boat (so massively burned out on SRV scavenging from when I used to spend 40+ hours and not find one single MM node back before several fixes and buffs pre-2.2) - that at least for the common tier mats, it is fairly viable to get them via space mining, particularly at least for my luck in pristine ice rings.

I suppose it depends if you are already a miner or not and have dedicated mining ship in stable like I do. And avoid as much SRV scavenging as possible.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Totally understand if the issue is 'no Horizons', of course, but otherwise, it's a hell of a lot quicker to use an SRV buggeh.

Which I suspect is the real reason that planetary ring material contents were nerfed so badly, to force players to use the bouncy clown car.

 

[TomP]

Yep. Agree.

But just pointing out that if anyone is in my same boat (so massively burned out on SRV scavenging from when I used to spend 40+ hours and not find one single MM node back before several fixes and buffs pre-2.2) - that at least for the common tier mats, it is fairly viable to get them via space mining, particularly at least for my luck in pristine ice rings.

I suppose it depends if you are already a miner or not and have dedicated mining ship in stable like I do. And avoid as much SRV scavenging as possible.

Fair enough.

I do a bit of both, keep a dedicated mining Clipper in Delkar. I take your point re burnout, my tolerance for SRV wave scanning is limited!

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Which I suspect is the real reason that planetary ring material contents were nerfed so badly, to force players to use the bouncy clown car.

Don't you go disrespecting my bouncy clown car! [wacky]

 

[WillFrog]

Sigh. More halfassed game design. Don't mess with the 'roid contents, give us the ability to set macros to manage the refinery like you should have done from day one! I should be able to go in there and say vent any iron you pick up, I don't want it. And throw the Bertrandite out while you're at it.

Problem solved.

 

[YinYin]

Yes, medium/high displays correctly now (high only in rocky/metal rich).
And you can find the rare stuff. Just keep in mind that rings/belts seem to have loot tables much like planets.