Mining questions / Laser mining asteroid identification.

[VR Morgan Grimes]

Don't forget you can fit more than one collector limpet controller for faster pickup of fragments, I also bind the collector controllers to the same fire group and fire button as my mining lasers, that way you don't need to mess around with fire groups at all, mining lasers + collectors on one, prospectors on the other. Don't forget also to go see a raw material trader to swap up your lower end materials too, they can get full quite quickly and there is no point missing out on more mats

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

Don't forget you can fit more than one collector limpet controller for faster pickup of fragments

He already has two 5A collector limpet controllers in the build he linked.

I also bind the collector controllers to the same fire group and fire button as my mining lasers, that way you don't need to mess around with fire groups at all, mining lasers + collectors on one, prospectors on the other.

I do this too, but it needs to come with a fair bit of warning. If you are mining an asteroid with significant rotation, it is very easy that your limpets will start crashing into it and be destroyed. Having the collectors and lasers bound to the same button can then result in your limpets immediately going kamikaze against the asteroid, leading to your controllers spewing out more limpets that do the same. This can be a very fast way to empty your cargo hold of limpets so one needs to keep this in mind.

 

[VR Morgan Grimes]

He already has two 5A collector limpet controllers in the build he linked.

Ah cool, didn't look at the build to be fair

I do this too, but it needs to come with a fair bit of warning. If you are mining an asteroid with significant rotation, it is very easy that your limpets will start crashing into it and be destroyed. Having the collectors and lasers bound to the same button can then result in your limpets immediately going kamikaze against the asteroid, leading to your controllers spewing out more limpets that do the same. This can be a very fast way to empty your cargo hold of limpets so one needs to keep this in mind.

You can avoid that entirely by positioning yourself at the spin axis and ignoring the odd asteroid that has a spin that makes that impossible.

 

[Pristine_Bump]

I like loosing a few limpets as you loose that annoying "Cargo at full capacity"

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

You can avoid that entirely by positioning yourself at the spin axis and ignoring the odd asteroid that has a spin that makes that impossible.

Of course you can, but this is also a matter of experience and sometimes even a nice-looking asteroid surprises you.

I like loosing a few limpets as you loose that annoying "Cargo at full capacity"

There is a difference between losing "a few" and losing half your cargo hold. It is completely possible to accidentally lose 50 limpets on a bad asteroid if you do not pay attention as the collector controllers can fire pretty fast once past the first limpet.

 

[Terekhov]

Tried another run this AM.. It was a bit of a disaster as I wasn't finding many rocks with LTDs at all, or enough % of them (I'm sure that I was in the three way overlap). Was burning limpets faster than filling hold. Decided not to reposition as I already had 'tasty cargo'.. at this point my situation was sub-optimal but not irrecoverable... Then my Rift S glitched... lost vision. Head tracking/sound OK... Tried everything to get it back online (I'm extremely skilled with computers - 45 yrs high level experience) but could not get vision connected to ED. Head tracking / sound, fine, vision/controls.. nope..VR outside of ED fine (incl vision). In the end had no choice but to force terminate the Elite Dangerous executable. Not ideal as I could well be pirated when reentering the game....

Decided to jump back in and high tail it immediately back to a selling location, Lick wounds, examine system logs, to see if any clue what happened etc... Survived two scans on way back but only had 20T cargo... I'll try again later.. Housework beckons

Re other discussions in this thread....
I've kept my Collector limpet controllers on separate buttons so I have finer control of how many limpets are out there. One in my second fire group with my mining lasers, and one in my third fire group with the prospector limpets. I'm not finding that split to be much of an issue. I have crafted some good VA macros that do not get tripped up by the ship panel state not the current fire group. So switching FGs quickly is not an issue, and can be done whilst the collectors have plenty to be getting on with.

I've also 'run over' a few prospector limpets at their launch time.. Now I throttle back a bit whilst the PL is being prepped... I'm not caning it around, but it seemed like a little more moderation was required at the PL launch instant...
Take note of where dormant Collectors position themselves relative to your ship... Be careful not to 'scrape them off' by flying the belly of your ship into rocks that you fly close to (I don't THINK I've done that yet!!!)....

 

[VR Morgan Grimes]

There is a difference between losing "a few" and losing half your cargo hold. It is completely possible to accidentally lose 50 limpets on a bad asteroid if you do not pay attention as the collector controllers can fire pretty fast once past the first limpet.

50? you're doing something very wrong.

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

50? you're doing something very wrong.

I said it was possible. Not that I am doing it.

 

[VR Morgan Grimes]

I said it was possible. Not that I am doing it.

So a completely pointless argument then.

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

So a completely pointless argument then.

Definitely not. It is a real danger to a novice miner that they should be aware of. It is a rather simple inference.

 

[Rock Hunter]

Do you have any data on how long it takes you to fill up? Prospecting, not shooting rocks, is probably the activity you will spend more time on if you are not doing mapped mining so there is a lot of time to be saved there if you can speed up the process.

No real data beyond anecdotal experience. For 210T, which includes filling the 4a refinery, it takes me between 1.5-2 hours from arrival to departure (depending on the selling station distance I can often have sold in that time too.) I use class one mining lasers in all hardpoints and find that strips the rocks faster than six limpets can pick everything up which gives me time to point the nose elsewhere and fire off a limpet. Obviously that only stands for higher percentage yields. I use a 3a prospector on my T9 as the time saved on a ship with three times the cargo space is huge. I’m sure others would use an even larger prospector for a large ship

I’m far from a professional miner and have never attempted a mapped run. That’s pretty much the reason I chimed in, even without a maximum efficiency build and approach you can be in and out with a full hold pretty quickly.

 

[Terekhov]

On average, how many limpets do you dispatch before finding the next worthwhile target??
What are your minimum specs for a worthwhile asteroid? (Material content and yield)?

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

On average, how many limpets do you dispatch before finding the next worthwhile target??
What are your minimum specs for a worthwhile asteroid? (Material content any yield)?

I do not mine anything below 20% content. Different people put different limits. The distribution of LTD-containing asteroids in Borann looks something like this:

based on a script I ran on my logs some time ago. Based on this, mining above 20 % relative to mining at 15 % you do not lose that many asteroids, but you get a better average yield per asteroid you mine.

Material content is irrelevant for LTD mining. It relates to raw materials, not to the mineral content.

 

[Terekhov]

Thanks once again...

I'd not noticed the nuance between the term 'mineral' and 'material' in the asteroid scan data (although of course I knew it in the rest of the game).

I had another run this afternoon and did much better retuning with a full hold and backed up refinery, and probably a quicker run as well. I only accepted asteroids of 20% or more and in this run did not have too many long chains of weak asteroids. I'd not had the confidence to be so picky beforehand.

So lessons learned so far:

1. The entire marketing department of Mine'o'tron incorporated should be fired for missing the most persuasive specification metric from their brochure for high-end Prospector Limpit Controllers...
2. Hold out for higher yield asteroids. don't be panicked by a run of unworthy prospects into accepting worse specimens.
3. Refineies hold a few more LTDs worth of ore ready to complete the process when cargo hold space becomes available.
4. Higher yield rocks make it worth keeping a full complement of collectors out the most of the time.

 

[Susanna]

Snip
One tip if you dont know every couple of mining trips visit a Raw Mats Trader and upgrade most of the lower ones Carbon Sulpher etc which will be full ,over a dozen trips ive significantly filled up on raw mats without ever needing to go planet srv,ing

I prefer to use the crystalline shards for mats (except for selenium of course...).
I guess if you are keen enough, you could trade up Iron to Zinc to Tin to selenium from mining...
Otherwise, just farm it specifically.
crystalline shards

 

[Susanna]

I do not mine anything below 20% content. Different people put different limits. The distribution of LTD-containing asteroids in Borann looks something like this:
View attachment 172451
based on a script I ran on my logs some time ago. Based on this, mining above 20 % relative to mining at 15 % you do not lose that many asteroids, but you get a better average yield per asteroid you mine.

Material content is irrelevant for LTD mining. It relates to raw materials, not to the mineral content.

An interesting (non-gaussian) distribution... How many roids was your sample?

Not sure why there would be a peak at 25%?

 

[ElectricFactory]

I had the exact experience this morning ( coincidentally ? ), one of the lowest yields I've mined yet @ 119T before I was sout of limpets, rock after rock of 0% broken up by a few 3-5% rocks ..

Tried another run this AM.. It was a bit of a disaster as I wasn't finding many rocks with LTDs at all, or enough % of them (I'm sure that I was in the three way overlap). Was burning limpets faster than filling hold. Decided not to reposition as I already had 'tasty cargo'.. at this point my situation was sub-optimal but not irrecoverable...

 

[Krash]

Just a follow up...

Just got back from Borann, and this time things went a lot better. I got back with full cargo racks of 128T of LTD, and 8 full refinery hoppers of LTD that completed refining when I sold the 128T of LTD. Towards the end of the run, I was discarding limpets to make space.

Prior to heading to Borann, as advised above, I upgraded my Prospector Limpet Controller to a 3A.

I left the refinery 'as is' (a 3A) as I didn't need its slot, and anyway they are made of ground up Anaconda hull and have no mass. Good job I did leave the 8 hopper refinery in, as it gave me those few extra LTDs Additionally, it seems that ground Anaconda hull has even more magical properties make ant mineral contained within (8T LTD fragments) zero mass for the way home!!!. So 136T today vs 107T yesterday, and a much more comfortable run without worrying about minimising my limpet shortfall towards the end.

When orighinally kitting out the ship, I did read the descriptions of the various Collector limpet controllers carefully, and there was no hint that the prospecting effect of the different classes varied....Mass change - yes, range - yes, number of limpets controlled - yes, even module integrity - yes, but no mention of probably the most important attribute... Arrrrgh....

Thanks to all who responded above...

You learned something that I only figured out this week and that's to fill up the refinery. I only dump limpets when the refinery is completely full.

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

An interesting (non-gaussian) distribution... How many roids was your sample?

The y-axis is the number of asteroids in each bin. There is one bin per percent. So just by ocular inspection I would say between 1600 and 2000.

Note: These are only asteroids containing LTDs. Asteroids without LTDs are not included.

 

[Pristine_Bump]

I prefer to use the crystalline shards for mats (except for selenium of course...).
I guess if you are keen enough, you could trade up Iron to Zinc to Tin to selenium from mining...
Otherwise, just farm it specifically.
crystalline shards

I mentioned it because mining has provided the Raw mats for all my engineering without any extra effort or grind