Mining raw mats
- Thread starter Ciobolanu
- Start date
I'm afraid mining is a very inefficient and unreliable way for gathering mats. To make things worse, the only profitable mining method (motherlode mining), doesn't yield any mats at all, so you can either mine for mats or for profit, not both at the same time.
Farming crashed ship sites, surface geological sites and prospecting rocks on planets is the way to go.
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I don't like going in SRV , so all I want to know if there someone out here that can tell me which is the best ship to fast mine (mining laser) , and where should I look for raw mats (icy?metalic?rocky?), also which asteroid drop the most materials? I have seen there are 3 levels of asteroids LOW - MED - HIGH, is the HIGH level suppose to drop more materials? I don't acre about making profit , all I want to do is farm materials, I like mining a lot and not realy fancy the SRV thing. Thanks again
If you hit them with a prospector it will say "Material Content: Low/Medium/High". More likely to find the higher ones in metallic/metal-rich rings than the other sorts.
It's definitely not a fast way to get materials even then, though - it's more than if you're laser mining anyway you'll fill up your G1 and G2 minerals along the way.
Is that really correct?
I know it's commonly accepted that's what it means but I'm not entirely sure.
I've been doing quite a bit of laser-mining recently and I'm finding that the term could just as easily apply to the quantities of ore in a roid as well as actual "mat's".
A "high material content" roid will provide me with enough fragments for, say, 5t of Painite whereas a "low material content" roid might only provide fragments for 2t of Painite.
I suppose the term could also refer to the total "drops" from a roid, including ore and "mat's", in which case I guess a "high material content" roid would yield more mat's as well as more ore.
I don't actually see noticeably more "mat's" dropped from high-content roids though. Just more ore.
Course, I honestly don't pay a great deal of attention to the "mat's" dropped by roids.
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I deep core mine in a Python, and whenever I crack one open I always shoot a chunk with mining lasers. Usually I'll get 1-3 mats from it, so you can actually get them while deep core mining. As for the best ship for it? It'd have to be whichever one can hold the most lasers and is the fastest/most maneuverable, so maybe something like one of the Kraits/Clipper?
I'm not sure which asteroids yield the most mats but when aiming for them I usually use a prospector on any that glow and then hit those for them. I think the high content roids just last longer before depletion so tend to give more out maybe? Spreadsheeting this is something I should do but haven't gotten around to it. I've noticed that not using a prospector seems to make them exhaust faster than they do when I use one, but that could be me.
Good luck with it!
I'm not sure which asteroids yield the most mats but when aiming for them I usually use a prospector on any that glow and then hit those for them. I think the high content roids just last longer before depletion so tend to give more out maybe? Spreadsheeting this is something I should do but haven't gotten around to it. I've noticed that not using a prospector seems to make them exhaust faster than they do when I use one, but that could be me.
Good luck with it!
Material content only applies to the secondary materials like the ones you are looking for, AFAIK it has nothing to do with the amount of ore.
Mining without a refinery or with refinery switched off can be a very fast way to quickly build up carbon, phosphorus, sulphur, iron, nickel, etc. and for the lowest grade materials like that I have found it faster than prospecting on planets as you only collect the materials and move very quickly through a planet ring. High material content is more likely to give you the higher grade raw materials like selenium, germanium, vanadium etc., but those are still faster to find on planets.
Mining without a refinery or with refinery switched off can be a very fast way to quickly build up carbon, phosphorus, sulphur, iron, nickel, etc. and for the lowest grade materials like that I have found it faster than prospecting on planets as you only collect the materials and move very quickly through a planet ring. High material content is more likely to give you the higher grade raw materials like selenium, germanium, vanadium etc., but those are still faster to find on planets.
What I have found is that it does respond to the amount of materials dropped.
The only time I have noticed a difference in the amount of ore dropped is when its in a Res site compared to not in a Res site and if you use a prospector or not.
Sadly I have not noticed a marked increase in Materials dropped in Res sites. (from roids
)
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I'm not an expert on this but try metal rich rings. Word of warning though, I grinded my way to 500 ores mined for Selene (just dumping ores) and the amount of materials I got while doing this was still less than what a couple hours on a planet surface would have been.
If you're dead set on it, I would suggest not fitting a refinery or prospector and just mine every asteroid you come across. From my experience you get 0-3 materials per asteroid, so probably best to strip as many asteroids as you can and not using prospector limpets means asteroids get depleted really fast.
If you're dead set on it, I would suggest not fitting a refinery or prospector and just mine every asteroid you come across. From my experience you get 0-3 materials per asteroid, so probably best to strip as many asteroids as you can and not using prospector limpets means asteroids get depleted really fast.
Engineered Python is an excellent ship for doing this in. But I only built it because I thought the drop rates would be improved for mats with the new mining. Oh well.
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This is incorrect, though as you have probably been doing it wrong it's no surprise people think mining isn't any good for mats.
Finding roids is easy, certainly easier than scanning for random rocks. If you mine properly, it's as good as geological sites for raw mats.
OP. Take a ship with at least 2 medium mining lasers (the old type), a couple of collector controllers, an A rated prospector and a full hold of limpets. Bind all your mining lasers and your collectors to one fire key and your prospector to the other.
Metallic is the best ring to go to, though metal rich is good too. Prospect any roid that is spherical or isn't tumbling wildly. If the roid is medium or high, mine it. If it's low, don't bother unless it has metals you want.
As said by others, without a refinery your collectors will only pick up the mats.
Krait, Python, Conda, Cutter, really anything with the internals for what you want, and preferably with the PD to support at least 2 medium beams.
A 7 PD will handle 4 mediums long enough to deplete any rock, but you aren't saving time this way if you don't have the limpets to scoop it all as fast as it's dropping.
Last mining CG I was loading up with about 150 tons an hour running 4 beams and 9 collectors, and every couple hours I'd max out most of my grade 1 mats (metallic ring).
A few rounds like that and you'll be trading everything up to grade 3. Grade 4's I would suggest hitting surface PoI's.
I don't understand the no refinery route, if I'm out there anyway I figure might as well get some ore too.
Something like this will tear through asteroids at a nice rate, might want to drop the 3A collector (don't really need A collectors either) for a 3A prospector:
https://s.orbis.zone/207j
You would also want to add some defenses if in open and plan to run from npc pirate's as well.
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thx man