Mining: The profession template other professions in ED should follow

[TheSisko]

You can mine in any ship.

You don't need all mining modules / hardware to do mining. Some of it (prospector controllers) is recommended, but needed? No.

You don't have to 'grind' anything before doing mining.

Engineering isn't required to do mining.

No special equipment needs to be 'unlocked' to do mining.

Mining has multiple layers to it. Strip. Surface. Sub-Surface. Core. Choose one, mixed, or all, depending on your available hardware and mood.

Potential rewards increase with each mining layer.

Its fun! This is fun:
https://xboxdvr.com/gamer/hotdog47/video/65456072
I put the effort in, applied some knowledge, put skill in to place the charges and took a risk and battering from the blast. Fun! I got rewarded and I had fun! In Elite Dangerous!

And, most importantly:

Rewards are actually balanced and actually reflect the time, skill, knowledge and risk you've put in.


***********************

They've nailed it. Frontier has really nailed Mining.

So much so that I wish other professions in the game (excluding exploration which finally has received some TLC) would get similar treatment, especially in the time/rewards department.

Piracy and smuggling especially could do with similar treatment, and what's the word on rewards on killing Thargoids? Is it still 2M CR per kill? That doesn't reflect the risk involved.

Well done, Frontier. More please. [up]

 

[Medusil]

They have nailed the balance of some aspects of mining, but others not so much.
Objectively there are two options that are vastly superior to anything else.
1) Core only mining (can be done in small and large ships)
2) Laser only mining in wings on mapped painite asteroids.

The displacement missile we have currently is never worth the time using.
The surface deposits are not worth looking for. They only contain old mining resources, and you'll mine more old resources by not using PWS.
Mining missions are not competitive in pay to the two methods above. They do grant you faction rewards.

 

[Wyaston Hypatia]

Sadly for me, mining was the only real miss in 3.3.
Too many extras required, cutting out ships from the experience (T6,T7), fancy explosions but no substance, and a PWS that does the wrong job - should ID content of asteroids in some way similar to the tuning in the FSS.

 

[TheSisko]

They have nailed the balance of some aspects of mining, but others not so much.
Objectively there are two options that are vastly superior to anything else.
1) Core only mining (can be done in small and large ships)
2) Laser only mining in wings on mapped painite asteroids.

The displacement missile we have currently is never worth the time using.
The surface deposits are not worth looking for. They only contain old mining resources, and you'll mine more old resources by not using PWS.
Mining missions are not competitive in pay to the two methods above. They do grant you faction rewards.

The bolded parts aren't true. In hotspots, displacement missiles can give you 1 ton's worth of material from a single fragment. Again, its skill based - releasing the drill within narrow-blue quality lines give you that extra yield.

You can also get improved yields from surface deposits, and within cracked asteroids, surface deposits will contain new materials, I got plenty of Opel from surface deposits last night.

You're right about using different ships, for different types of mining- mining can be done in any ship as I've said.

 

[Simon Templar]

Sadly for me, mining was the only real miss in 3.3.
Too many extras required, cutting out ships from the experience (T6,T7), fancy explosions but no substance, and a PWS that does the wrong job - should ID content of asteroids in some way similar to the tuning in the FSS.

Sorry not being combative but in what way have they cut out some ships? I was planning to repurpose my T7 explorer into a T7 miner since the 3.3 update (as mining has gone in the direction I had hoped and exploration the other way). Is there a fundamental flaw in my plan? I thought Python if I can't use the T7, but would love to know what is behind this statement?

(I know, I haven't read in to 3.3 as I should have done.)

o7

 

[TheSisko]

Sadly for me, mining was the only real miss in 3.3.
Too many extras required, cutting out ships from the experience (T6,T7), fancy explosions but no substance, and a PWS that does the wrong job - should ID content of asteroids in some way similar to the tuning in the FSS.

T6 and T7 can still mine the old way, plus they can get surface deposits. And those fancy explosions give you new materials which can only be found within the cores of asteroids.

The PWS is/was mis-understood because Frontier didn't explain at first what it actually does.

 

[avow555]

Mining totally sucks as per fdev normal.

Need alternatives, silly rock shooting is mind numbingly blah!

 

[TheSisko]

Sorry not being combative but in what way have they cut out some ships? I was planning to repurpose my T7 explorer into a T7 miner since the 3.3 update (as mining has gone in the direction I had hoped and exploration the other way). Is there a fundamental flaw in my plan? I thought Python if I can't use the T7, but would love to know what is behind this statement?

(I know, I haven't read in to 3.3 as I should have done.)

o7

I think the only new mining tool without a small option is the Seismic Charge Launcher. I remember being in outfitting and being surprised that certain tools (sub-surface missiles?) were available in small. I'd check later but I'm away from a station at the moment.

If I'm right the only mining the T6 and T7 can't do is Deep Core.

 

[Muetdhiver]

The new mining mechanics are really good. They are fun to do in a wing and it's a great way to kickstart a new player in a fun and engaging way.
(somewhat complex due to the bazillion of firegroups though XD)

Deep core vs laser is somewhat balanced. Sub-surface and surface need an urgent balance pass (its 20x lower pay than the other options)
(simply put precious (50K/t) stuff there, and buff the yields.)

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

You can mine in any ship.

You don't need all mining modules / hardware to do mining. Some of it (prospector controllers) is recommended, but needed? No.

You don't have to 'grind' anything before doing mining.

Engineering isn't required to do mining.

No special equipment needs to be 'unlocked' to do mining.

Mining has multiple layers to it. Strip. Surface. Sub-Surface. Core. Choose one, mixed, or all, depending on your available hardware and mood.

Potential rewards increase with each mining layer.

Its fun! This is fun:
https://xboxdvr.com/gamer/hotdog47/video/65456072
I put the effort in, applied some knowledge, put skill in to place the charges and took a risk and battering from the blast. Fun! I got rewarded and I had fun! In Elite Dangerous!

And, most importantly:

Rewards are actually balanced and actually reflect the time, skill, knowledge and risk you've put in.


***********************

They've nailed it. Frontier has really nailed Mining.

So much so that I wish other professions in the game (excluding exploration which finally has received some TLC) would get similar treatment, especially in the time/rewards department.

Piracy and smuggling especially could do with similar treatment, and what's the word on rewards on killing Thargoids? Is it still 2M CR per kill? That doesn't reflect the risk involved.

Well done, Frontier. More please. [up]

i disagree, you do need certain ships to mine, especially core mining, i.e. to access the new content

its fun if you are in a large ship, & have engineered its thrusters to make it more maneuverable, otherwise its crap / disappointing / unrewarding / unbalanced / dull / boring

otherwise folk in t6's would have said "No we dont need a mining update we have everything we need in 3.0 crap fest of mining, just add the new stuff for bigger ships we're doing great with this backwards mining update and are happy with the pathetic peanuts were paid"

 

[Medusil]

The bolded parts aren't true. In hotspots, displacement missiles can give you 1 ton's worth of material from a single fragment. Again, its skill based - releasing the drill within narrow-blue quality lines give you that extra yield.

You can also get improved yields from surface deposits, and within cracked asteroids, surface deposits will contain new materials, I got plenty of Opel from surface deposits last night.

You're right about using different ships, for different types of mining- mining can be done in any ship as I've said.

Sorry man, but you're wrong.
I can get 20m per hour just by doing cores, but not once was it worth it to drill something.
If I stop to collect painite which is best case scenario, (and drill) I can hit 15m per hour max. Which is still a net loss. This is also assuming you're selling to a boom system.

Another great feature of core materials is that they hold their value pretty well

 

[Muetdhiver]

The bolded parts aren't true. In hotspots, displacement missiles can give you 1 ton's worth of material from a single fragment. Again, its skill based - releasing the drill within narrow-blue quality lines give you that extra yield.

You can also get improved yields from surface deposits, and within cracked asteroids, surface deposits will contain new materials, I got plenty of Opel from surface deposits last night.

You're right about using different ships, for different types of mining- mining can be done in any ship as I've said.

From my tests in Beta, surface and sub-surface mining yielded 0.5M/h.

Compared to 10-15M/h for core mining...

 

[TheSisko]

i disagree, you do need certain ships to mine, especially core mining, i.e. to access the new content

its fun if you are in a large ship, & have engineered its thrusters to make it more maneuverable, otherwise its crap / disappointing / unrewarding / unbalanced / dull / boring

otherwise folk in t6's would have said "No we dont need a mining update we have everything we need in 3.0 crap fest of mining, just add the new stuff for bigger ships we're doing great with this backwards mining update and are happy with the pathetic peanuts were paid"

No access to core mining <> Can't mine.

Any ship can mine. I didn't say any ship can do all types of mining.

 

[TheSisko]

Sorry man, but you're wrong.
I can get 20m per hour just by doing cores, but not once was it worth it to drill something.
If I stop to collect painite which is best case scenario, (and drill) I can hit 15m per hour max. Which is still a net loss. This is also assuming you're selling to a boom system.

Another great feature of core materials is that they hold their value pretty well

I can get better yields, and better profits, from sub-surface mining compared to surface or strip mining. Fact. Of course core mining is going to pay more but then those rocks are a lot rarer to find and require more work to extract materials from.

 

[TheSisko]

From my tests in Beta, surface and sub-surface mining yielded 0.5M/h.

Compared to 10-15M/h for core mining...

Maybe a buff is required for those types of mining (compared to core) but that doesn't mean they're not worth doing, especially for mining missions. In my opinion of course.

And core is supposed to pay a lot more, its the motherlode of mining. Buff surface/sub-surface payments and then people will ask for core payments to be buffed (again) as well.

Anyway, we're getting a little off topic here. How can other professions be improved?

 

[wstephenson]

Here's a question: do larger versions of the abrasion blaster and displacement missile (and the seismic charge launcher, if it's available in > size 2) give different yields than the small ones? Otherwise it would be more energy-efficient to mount small modules on larger hardpoints.

 

[Chromezero]

I think the new mining features are fantastic. If you weren't a fan of strip mining before, you might enjoy the core mining now. In larger ships, T10 in my case, you can equip all of the mining tools and do a little of everything. For me, I still use prospectors to look for "good" asteroids to strip mine. While I'm doing that, I use the Pulse wave scanner to look for good core asteroids. Having all the tools onboard allows me to pick and choose which rocks I want to mine, and how to mine them. Using the T10 for core mining is definitely a challenge, due to limited mobility and speed, but it works. I feel like mining is finally an actual "thing" now and it takes some skill; I'm not just mindlessly zapping rocks for Painite.

 

[Stealthie]

Nah,

That's kind of like saying "Every car should be like the FIAT 500 because the FIAT 500 is perfect at it's job."

The FIAT 500 isn't going to be much use if you want to take 6 kids to school, drive across a muddy field, deliver a wardrobe or tour a continent.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

They have nailed the balance of some aspects of mining, but others not so much.
Objectively there are two options that are vastly superior to anything else.
1) Core only mining (can be done in small and large ships)
2) Laser only mining in wings on mapped painite asteroids.

The displacement missile we have currently is never worth the time using.
The surface deposits are not worth looking for. They only contain old mining resources, and you'll mine more old resources by not using PWS.
Mining missions are not competitive in pay to the two methods above. They do grant you faction rewards.

Mapped wing painite mining is an extremely optimised edge case which can beat pretty much anything, though. Frontier should be balancing professions around what a reasonably skilled player is going to get out of it, not around what you can fully optimise.

The better comparison is probably something like unmapped solo painite (or even painite+platinum) laser mining. Can still be very profitable with practice, but nowhere near as much.

I agree that surface (assisting core mining aside) and sub-surface mining are largely pointless, though: switching those to also give the gems types (at lower purity than cores, of course) would I think be helpful.

 

[Medusil]

I can get better yields, and better profits, from sub-surface mining compared to surface or strip mining. Fact. Of course core mining is going to pay more but then those rocks are a lot rarer to find and require more work to extract materials from.

So how much were you making with strip mining then? And in which ship?
Because it's easy to benchmark vs yourself, but unless you were strip mining optimally, it's not a very good benchmark.
Most I could get was 5 m an hour in a python strip mining. So you're telling me you could do more than that with subsurface mining?