Mining inconveniences

[Limoncello Lizard]

I suspect that adhock doesn't actually do a lot of mining, since he mentioned only using the one limpet collector.

 

[Red Anders]

And it's not that profitable on top, at least in normal systems.

My last mining trip I bagged 101 tons of painite and 64 tons of platinum, then made 2 jumps to a system that was buying painite for 74k a ton and platinum for 24k a ton. Profit seemed OK to me.

 

[Kizbot]

2. Yes actually but it's not very cost efficient. If you target something before you launch a collector drone then the drone will only bring you objects that fit the filter you set when you targeted something. IE: You target a fragment that has Platinum, the collector limit you fire will collect ONLY fragments that have platinum and ignore everything else until it expires. This is generally considered very limiting as if you switch to another type of asteroid, the limit won't pick anything up. You'd have to scrape it off by moving close to the asteroid and letting it kill your limpet before targeting something else. Generally it's usually a better idea to carry a half load of limpets because you'll wind up with more minerals then you do limpets if you don't care what you're grabbing.

This is why any miner worth their salt will tell you to avoid targeting anything when you fire off a limpet. I did that once by accident. Only collected half the fragments with the limpet that was active. When I moved to the next 'roid and started firing it didn't budge. I couldn't fire off a second collector because it was still active. Had to scrape it off and fire a clean one. They don't expire after bringing back one object.

This is either complete nonsense or you have discovered a secret mechanism to mining that literally no other miner 'worth their salt' has ever known. I haven't mined in about 2 months but last time I was, targeting a fragment and launching a limpet causes it to collect that single fragment and then expire. Every time.

 

[Adhock]

I suspect that adhock doesn't actually do a lot of mining, since he mentioned only using the one limpet collector.

Naw I tend to run a two max collector controller. I find as long as I get close enough, two collector limpets easily keeps up with two class 1 mining lasers. The other one was working fine. It was when I noticed that I was only watching one and the amount of fragments was growing faster then the collector that I realized something was wrong because I could only see one moving.

I thought the second one had expired (or got smashed by the asteroid, it happens sometimes even when I try to line up with the z axis) so I tried to fire a second one but it wasn't having it. I checked the contact list and found I had two limpets and a scan of the radar found the second one hanging out under my ship in idle mode.

It was then I remembered that I did an experiment on the previous asteroid where I was checking the fragment percentages when my limpets expired and I forgot to target the active prospector when I fired off the first one.

A quick check of the Refinery showed I was mining an entirely different mineral makeup which is why the second one wasn't moving.

I scraped it off, re-targeted and the next set of collector limpets had no issues.

-UPDATE-

I am man enough to admit when I am wrong.

In this case I was incorrect in that limpets will linger when they pick up targeted items.

Point and laugh if must but at least we all have concrete evidence to point to now. It's the least I can do.

 

[YinYin]

I checked the contact list and found I had two limpets and a scan of the radar found the second one hanging out under my ship in idle mode.

If you are wondering what happened there, the limpet was likely carrying a material and your inventory was full.

 

[Kizbot]

If you are wondering what happened there, the limpet was likely carrying a material and your inventory was full.

I also suspected this was what happened. This once had me wondering what my limpet was doing.

 

[D.G.Cerberus]

Nope. Not joking.

This is why any miner worth their salt will tell you to avoid targeting anything when you fire off a limpet. I did that once by accident. Only collected half the fragments with the limpet that was active. When I moved to the next 'roid and started firing it didn't budge. I couldn't fire off a second collector because it was still active. Had to scrape it off and fire a clean one. They don't expire after bringing back one object.

That wasn't my point.

I don't target anything with my limpets.

You stated that they would then only bring back (in your example) platinum. Wrong. They will bring back all fragments. I can only assume you hit a nice 'roid with only Platinum fragments to give you this impression.

 

[YinYin]

You stated that they would then only bring back (in your example) platinum. Wrong. They will bring back all fragments. I can only assume you hit a nice 'roid with only Platinum fragments to give you this impression.

You are late on the whole thing.

I am man enough to admit when I am wrong.

 

[Adhock]

If you are wondering what happened there, the limpet was likely carrying a material and your inventory was full.

Was before 2.1. Didn't have to worry about that unlike last night when I cut that video. You can watch me make that mistake in the uncut version.