Newcomer / Intro Mining Hotspots?

Mohenjo

Mohenjo
So... The last time I was out mining, you couldn't scan rings. Now, you drop a probe in there, and you get these orange "Hotspots" marked.

I hit a ring today, and spotted a "Platinum Hotspot," so I dropped in there, waited for the requisite pirates, then spent hours rolling around looking for ANYTHING with platinum in it. 200 prospector limpets later, I found NOT ONE asteroid with platinum in it.

So, my question is... what is the deal with the hotspots? I mean, if not one in 200 asteroids has ANY of the material supposedly "hot" in that spot, how is it a hotspot?
 

Ashnak

Ashnak
A short search later... apparently, Platinum is one of those minerals that can be found either through laser mining or through core mining. So, what kind of rocks were you looking for, and what type of ring were you in?
 

Ashnak

Ashnak
Regarding your question about hotspots - not very. Which is why most mining location websites only list double or triple overlaps, i.e. two or three hotspots of the same type intersecting.
 

Mohenjo

Mohenjo
It was a rich metal ring. The point is, the probe scan said it was a Platinum Hotspot... but there was no platinum AT ALL. Not one single asteroid had ANY platinum at all... not for laser mining, no external or internal deposits. No platinum at all, in 200 asteroids I scanned with prospector limpets.

The question again is, what's the deal with the hotspot? I would have thought a hotspot would have SOME of the material it says it should.
 

Bramshevik

Bramshevik
Mohenjo said:
It was a rich metal ring. The point is, the probe scan said it was a Platinum Hotspot... but there was no platinum AT ALL. Not one single asteroid had ANY platinum at all... not for laser mining, no external or internal deposits. No platinum at all, in 200 asteroids I scanned with prospector limpets.

The question again is, what's the deal with the hotspot? I would have thought a hotspot would have SOME of the material it says it should.
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Metal rich rings don't have laser-mineable platimum, only cores. Try a pristine metallic ring.

If you're looking for cores, you need a pulse-wave analyser. Prospecting at random in a metal-rich ring for platinum will yield, well, the results you have found lol
 

WreckRoot

WreckRoot
Bramshevik said:
Metal rich rings don't have laser-mineable platimum, only cores. Try a pristine metallic ring.

If you're looking for cores, you need a pulse-wave analyser. Prospecting at random in a metal-rich ring for platinum will yield, well, the results you have found lol
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This. I recently had the same kind of "what?" moment but found the answer on the miners reddit. Pretty damn well hidden knowledge to be honest, nothing google can't handle tho.

So yeah, if you're looking for platinum for laser mining, it has to be a metallic ring. Metal-rich rings with platinum hotspots have above average frequency of platinum cores and that's it.

By the way, I noticed a fun regularity... if the OP is about mining and doesn't specify what kind of mining they are talking about (laser/core/subsurface) then the author is likely to be pretty clueless about mining in general xD.
 

Mohenjo

Mohenjo
WreckRoot said:
This. I recently had the same kind of "what?" moment but found the answer on the miners reddit. Pretty damn well hidden knowledge to be honest, nothing google can't handle tho.

So yeah, if you're looking for platinum for laser mining, it has to be a metallic ring. Metal-rich rings with platinum hotspots have above average frequency of platinum cores and that's it.

By the way, I noticed a fun regularity... if the OP is about mining and doesn't specify what kind of mining they are talking about (laser/core/subsurface) then the author is likely to be pretty clueless about mining in general xD.
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Well... I made most of my fortune mining, but just laser mining, waaaay back. I've been out exploring for 3 years or so and only just got back to try out all the new doodads miners have access to now.
 

WreckRoot

WreckRoot
Mohenjo said:
Well... I made most of my fortune mining, but just laser mining, waaaay back. I've been out exploring for 3 years or so and only just got back to try out all the new doodads miners have access to now.
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Exactly - you're like a seasoned Quake 2 player jumping into a modern realistic tactical FPS. I had been that guy years ago, jumping off roofs and spraying an HMG from the hip in ... CounterStrike xD. Your experience in a raw, primeval form of the activity makes you pretty clueless now.

And it's not doodads, the three types of mining have as little in common as they possibly can. I suggest you try core mining, it's an order of magnitude more fun and interesting than laser mining, even though it's probably slightly less profitable when both methods are compared in their maximum potential (experienced core miner in a good ship on a good spot vs experienced laser miner in a good ship on a good spot). Look up a guide on YT by Hawkes Gaming.

PS. 3 years exploring? 3 YEARS? Howthehell did you not get bored to death after a couple of weeks???
 
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Tyres O'Flaherty

Tyres O'Flaherty
Core mining is good fun - when you find a core worth your while. Sub-surface is not to my taste but has an element of timing involved. If you want commodities quickly to bolster your funds fast (relatively), then IMHO laser mining for osmium, painite and platinum in a metallic (i.e. not metal rich) ring is the most productive.

And I've always found it best to find a ring outside the bubble (I may have said this before :D ) so as to avoid pesky pirates - and you can leave your ship in the hotspot and not worry about scarpering when you return at a later point.

Of course, this latter is best performed if you have a carrier as you can stockpile without having to travel back and forth to the buying station all the time.
 

WreckRoot

WreckRoot
K Olley said:
It is the fastest way to mine Tritium, essential on long carrier trips:)
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Ugh... considering that you can mine no more than 200 tritium per hour if you're good at it (from what I heard) and tritium costs below 50k per ton, you end up mining 10 million worth of cargo per hour.

Honestly, if I were to take a far trip somewhere, I'd much rather spend a few hours mining anything at all for 100+ million per hour, then drop by a station that sells tritium for 50k and fill every spare bit of my carrier's cargo hold with tritium.

Mining tritium seems like such a waste of time...
 

Ashnak

Ashnak
WreckRoot said:
Ugh... considering that you can mine no more than 200 tritium per hour if you're good at it (from what I heard) and tritium costs below 50k per ton, you end up mining 10 million worth of cargo per hour.

Honestly, if I were to take a far trip somewhere, I'd much rather spend a few hours mining anything at all for 100+ million per hour, then drop by a station that sells tritium for 50k and fill every spare bit of my carrier's cargo hold with tritium.

Mining tritium seems like such a waste of time...
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Those stations exist only in the Bubble. Everywhere else, ³H either has to be shipped in by (another) carrier or mined. ³H price in Colonia is around 150 k/t (sold a freshly mined load yesterday to a carrier for 220 k/t), and out in the black the sky's the limit.
 

WreckRoot

WreckRoot
Ashnak said:
Those stations exist only in the Bubble. Everywhere else, ³H either has to be shipped in by (another) carrier or mined. ³H price in Colonia is around 150 k/t (sold a freshly mined load yesterday to a carrier for 220 k/t), and out in the black the sky's the limit.
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And? Given 200 tritium per hour, even at 250k/t it's 50 million per hour - pretty sad, by any standards.

Don't get me wrong, I understand you won't buy tritium in Beagle Point (right?) and if you REALLY want to travel the whole galaxy in the carrier, you will have to mine it eventually, but... honestly... the sheer thought of having to spend 20 minutes mining tritium for every damn jump of my carrier takes away every last bit of enthusiasm I might have had for exploring with it. What a bloody waste of time.
 

Tyres O'Flaherty

Tyres O'Flaherty
I really dislike mining for tritium. Given the yeild versus amount carriers require, it's more efficient to mind other metals and minerals and buy the tritium.

I honestly think they - FDev - should consider upping the percentages you can get of that fuel. I did mention it in an AMA but they had no intention of doing this. It would make carrier travel a lot less frustrating in terms of refuelling. Speaking of which, I do hope they're going to do a QoL on that aspect and make it so you can transfer fuel from your cargo hold depot instead of going to ship first. It's been mentioned oodles of times.
 

WreckRoot

WreckRoot
Tyres O'Flaherty said:
I really dislike mining for tritium. Given the yeild versus amount carriers require, it's more efficient to mind other metals and minerals and buy the tritium.

I honestly think they - FDev - should consider upping the percentages you can get of that fuel. I did mention it in an AMA but they had no intention of doing this. It would make carrier travel a lot less frustrating in terms of refuelling. Speaking of which, I do hope they're going to do a QoL on that aspect and make it so you can transfer fuel from your cargo hold depot instead of going to ship first. It's been mentioned oodles of times.
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It's not just those things, it's the fact you can do 125000 LY of jumping with 20k tritium in you cargo hold (assuming 60 tritium per 500ly). This basically means you can do bubble to beagle point and back on one cargo full of tritium if I'm counting that correctly. It has to be a conscious, masochistic decision to keep jumping on mined tritium.

Imagine if your standard exploration ship could jump to beagle point and back on one fuel tank, but if you just keep pushing and eventually run out of fuel, you have to mine for fuel... and you need to mine for 20 minutes every 500 LY.
Would that not dissuade you from prolonging your trips to that point?
 

Tyres O'Flaherty

Tyres O'Flaherty
Mine will do a max jump using ~85 tons. Mind you, it's not a fully loaded boat, missing outfitting, shipyard, secure trading and redemption office.
 

Chaparral

Chaparral
The easiest laser mining in the bubble right now is overlapping platinum hotspot mining. Hit the second link I posted earlier for mining and sell locations. Load your cargo bay with limpets. You want at least 5 collection limpets going while you are laser mining. Only mine rocks that have more than 20% platinum, and set all other materials to ignore (except engineering mats). You will have to discard limpets as you work to make room for all of that juicy platinum. You can get on average 280k/ton. I recommend a medium ship like a Krait II or Python in case the peak sales price location is a M pad station. You will get 30-35 million per run in a medium ship. The key is efficiency. As soon as you deplete a rock, be shooting those prospector limpets until you find your next rock. Rinse repeat.

This is no where near as profitable as Void Opal, triple Painite, or displacement missile mining used to be (pre-nerfs), but you can gear up pretty quick with this method. It's not as over the top as AFK Massacre missions are right now, but it requires less hunting to work. I image with the Odyssey drop the hotspots might get reshuffled...
 
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