Mining is the new lottery?

[die_volker]

So... here is me, heading for an Alexandrite hot spot. It is not the smallest I could find...
I dare to say, I've remained the dreamer I was when I got first time in the void.
Aside from the fact that for the first 100 km there was no boulder I could smash...here are my findings in order:

• Low Temperature Diamonds
• Bromellite
• Low Temperature Diamonds
• Bromellite
• Bromellite
• Void Opal
• Alexandrite
• Alexandrite
• Void Opal
• Bromellite
• Low Temperature Diamonds

My question is... Why did I find Alexandrite? It would have been so much more amusing not to find what I was looking for.
Screw predictability. That is for someone that wants value out of their time.
Ours means nothing. Nor the investment in the game does not....
Why ever getting what you look for in the area designated as "the place to get it"?
People doing this activity have no life, their expectations are dirt and they should feel no satisfaction.
In my opinion, dumb faces like myself here should have learned coding so we could have our laugh on others...now we are just laughed at.
Make the odds worse, since they already are at the phase where "hot spot " actually means "anything but"...
Here's something we would love: put some Musgravite in Icy rings too...just for s and giggles. Let us feel special and acknowledged.
Better still: Have the pirates just follow us everywhere and every time we pop a zit... Bring some more. Let's say...they needed to go potty and just came out further and it happened to find us.
Make us truly feel the indifference for our way of spending time.
My less than 20% average for what I found makes me feel like I don't work enough for my share of misery, so...probably I will buy some more ARX...

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

So... here is me, heading for an Alexandrite hot spot. It is not the smallest I could find...
I dare to say, I've remained the dreamer I was when I got first time in the void.
Aside from the fact that for the first 100 km there was no boulder I could smash...here are my findings in order:

• Low Temperature Diamonds
• Bromellite
• Low Temperature Diamonds
• Bromellite
• Bromellite
• Void Opal
• Alexandrite
• Alexandrite
• Void Opal
• Bromellite
• Low Temperature Diamonds

My question is... Why did I find Alexandrite? It would have been so much more amusing not to find what I was looking for.
Screw predictability. That is for someone that wants value out of their time.
Ours means nothing. Nor the investment in the game does not....
Why ever getting what you look for in the area designated as "the place to get it"?
People doing this activity have no life, their expectations are dirt and they should feel no satisfaction.
In my opinion, dumb faces like myself here should have learned coding so we could have our laugh on others...now we are just laughed at.
Make the odds worse, since they already are at the phase where "hot spot " actually means "anything but"...
Here's something we would love: put some Musgravite in Icy rings too...just for s and giggles. Let us feel special and acknowledged.
Better still: Have the pirates just follow us everywhere and every time we pop a zit... Bring some more. Let's say...they needed to go potty and just came out further and it happened to find us.
Make us truly feel the indifference for our way of spending time.
My less than 20% average for what I found makes me feel like I don't work enough for my share of misery, so...probably I will buy some more ARX...

Nice rant. We should bring back eggs for trying times.

Apart from RNG always being a big part of mining, much more so core mining - you probably got a really bad drop - here's my thoughts as a passionate core minier to reduce some of the possible future frustration.

First of all, in my experience icy rocks are kind of the worst to mine in. Second, Alexandrite isn't even one of the more profitable minerals out there. You'd have to be lucky to sell it for a decent price at a reasonable demand, and the other cores you find in an icy ring there are mostly duds, with the exception of void opals that sometimes go for up to 600k per unit.

Which leads me to the next issue: Going for a specific mineral to begin with. When I go core mining, I first do a quick market research what's hot at the moment in the area I am in, and then I make a mental note of the hot four that are currently selling well.

When arriving in the ring, I mine all of the four (or however many) preferrable cores instead of looking for "the one". I usually align my mining trips with the market for Musgravite, which you find in rocky rings. The advantage of rocky rings is that you find pretty much all of the hot sellers there - right now that's Musgravite, Monazite, Rhodplumsite and Benitoite in my area, with the occasional Alexandrite, which you will also find in rocky rings in addition to metal rich and icy rings.

Also, in case you aren't aware: Hotspots mean practically nothing for core mining, and neither do reserve levels. The amount or density of cores is fixed, the only thing a hotspot does for cores is slightly raise the probability to find a core of the designated hotsport material. Hotspots are mainly a laser mining thing.

Core mining can be both fun and profitable. My experience mining mostly in rocky rings: I drop at the edge of a hotspot somewhere around 1Mm to 500 km from the center and work my way towards the center. On my last mining session (I have that data handy because I just recently had another mining discussion) I spent 44 minutes from dropping to leaving, cracked seven rocks and collected 108 units. On average I spent a little over six minutes between cracking rocks, that includes placing the explosives and hoovering up. I mined every profitable asteroid I encountered, which in that session were Musgravite and Benitoide, which I sold each for over 900k per unit (system was boom, pirate attack and civil liberty combined).

TL;DR: You had a bit of bad luck and a not so good strategy. Looking for one specific mineral is just a bad idea. Mine what you come across (within reason).

 

[GroG79]

You got owned by RNG?

Seems you need to improve your searching skills. travelling 100Km before finding a rock tells me you are going too fast or you are looking for the wrong colors

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

You got owned by RNG?

Seems you need to improve your searching skills. travelling 100Km before finding a rock tells me you are going too fast or you are looking for the wrong colors

Good point. Going fast isn't an issue - I mine in a very quick Mandalay these days. Knowing what to prospect is the key.

Only go for those rocks that glow the brightest even from a distance. Sometimes they dim when you get closer, then you can forget about them. If they are really bright yellow, get closer and inspect the shape. Each ring type has one specific asteroid shape that contains a motherlode. Instead of wasting a limpet and some time on prospecting, inspect the surface - this is best done with NV on. You can actually see the fissures on the surface, they look a bit like the vintage Lucas Arts logo. Only then I fire a prospector to be able to place the explosives.

This takes a bit of training, but after a while you know from some distance which rocks to inspect and can see pretty quickly if they are worth prospecting.

Also: Bring an A-class PWA. Even if it does nothing for the yield of the rocks, they have the longest range.

About the shape: This reddit post contains this image which asteroids contain cores.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Another great resource: Some time ago I bookmarked this spreadsheet about which minerals to find where. I don't remember the source for it though.

 

[die_volker]

When I was a kid, many summers ago, my mom used to send me to the store to buy... say margarine. I was undoubtably coming back with nails and the latest book of the dictator's wife, because... well... that's what they had. And I could not get the nails only without the book, with the promise they will have margarine sometimes in the future... I only had to go there often enough for me to catch the time they did have it.
You will have to excuse me if at this time, that is not a thing that I enjoy having in my life.
At least they had the common sense not to name the store "Margarine central".
I enjoy a lot when professionals explain how they master things, how they do things, fantastic stories of success, and how I should do things, not even bothering to understand the basics of my premise to my mission.
It was simple, in case it escapes again.... I went for Alexandrite, not because it is profitable or anything else, but because I WANTED Alexandrite. An explanation of market values and how important is Musgravite in the life of a miner is irrelevant to say the least. Also irrelevant to me is the fact that miners are playing with a stopwatch in their hand and compete on efficiency.
I did like the pictures of the rocks though, because after 4k hours I am still looking for the borg cube...
On the color I am still in doubt, because the 11 pieces I found were actually green...
I definitely do things wrong. Most often, I let expectations get the better of me. That's wrong on many levels.
Oh.... and another mistake is that I do read replies. Probably from the same misguided expectation derailment.