Newcomer / Intro Mining, What am I doing wrong?

[RedBullion]

Okay, Is the game broken? Was there a recent update that threw the screw to mining? I can't find void opals to save my life! I used to scan for asteroids that had fissures, allowing me to blow them up. I cant find one single asteroid with fissures. I'm searching pristine rocky and icy rings. If mining requires this much time and effort, then it's not worth it. I feel like I'm working to death and not making any money. Deep core mining was my thing, but I'm really struggling finding asteroids with fissures to blow up. What am I doing wrong?

 

[aRJay]

Okay, Is the game broken? Was there a recent update that threw the screw to mining? I can't find void opals to save my life! I used to scan for asteroids that had fissures, allowing me to blow them up. I cant find one single asteroid with fissures. I'm searching pristine rocky and icy rings. If mining requires this much time and effort, then it's not worth it. I feel like I'm working to death and not making any money. Deep core mining was my thing, but I'm really struggling finding asteroids with fissures to blow up. What am I doing wrong?

How long since you previously went mining?

There have been a lot of changes the most recent since the ongoing balance pass started was them fixing the bug that had been affecting the Pulse Wave Analyser for several months.
Market prices for mined goods are now more volatile and while the previous highest prices are no longer attainable the number of materials that can pay out well has increased.

There has been some discussion about this (and a lot of salt) in this thread and the other two balance pass threads over in the news forum.

 

[ChipStar65]

I used to scan for asteroids that had fissures, allowing me to blow them up. I cant find one single asteroid with fissures. ....
What am I doing wrong?

Tell in more detail exactly your process. There are a number of steps involved and "scanning for fissures" really is not one of them except perhaps as a generic and somewhat inaccurate description.

I recently did a fairly short VO hunt, pristine rings on the far edge of the bubble, about 350Mm out from the hotspot's center, found enough cores in under an hour for 54T of VO, a smattering of Alexandrite, and a fair load of Tritium to boot (damn rocket tea is everywhere these days!). Despite the problems and nerfs core mining has suffered, it's still possible to make it worthwhile.

So tell us your process if you want useful advice on remedies.

 

[RedBullion]

Details? Well, I search for pristine rings and scan them with the detailed surface scanner. I then fly my ship directly into the Hotspot. I use a pulse wave analyzer to highlight roids. Every thread I've read said to look for the brightest yellow roids, to find ones with cores. Last night, I spent three hours searching a Musgravite Hotspot, only investigating the brightest of yellow glowing roids. I found only two cores, about 30ton of musgravite. I use prospector limpets as well. Three hours work for 30ton isn't worth it. What am I doing wrong. It was a pristine Rocky ring. Chalk it up to bad luck?

 

[Para Handy]

Details? Well, I search for pristine rings and scan them with the detailed surface scanner. I then fly my ship directly into the Hotspot. I use a pulse wave analyzer to highlight roids. Every thread I've read said to look for the brightest yellow roids, to find ones with cores. Last night, I spent three hours searching a Musgravite Hotspot, only investigating the brightest of yellow glowing roids. I found only two cores, about 30ton of musgravite. I use prospector limpets as well. Three hours work for 30ton isn't worth it. What am I doing wrong. It was a pristine Rocky ring. Chalk it up to bad luck?

I find that the main determinant of a candidate possibly having cores is the shape of the asteroid (yes they glow bright too). As you have discovered there are many many other really bright yellow rocks and I have no idea why they are like that because it doesn't seem to me that it denotes any sort of "great" content.

So learn the shape of the cores you are after, they are different in the different ring types. I got good at noticing the "popcorn" shape in icy rings but when in metallic or rocky I have not done enough to memorise core-bearing asteroid shapes.

There might be a resource on the net showing these shapes, I have not looked. Actually this might help (all praise to the googliethingie):

edtutorials.com - edtutorials Resources and Information.

edtutorials.com is your first and best source for all of the information you’re looking for. From general topics to more of what you would expect to find here, edtutorials.com has it all. We hope you find what you are searching for!

www.edtutorials.com

 

[ChipStar65]

Chalk it up to bad luck?

More the RNG factor than luck I'd say. Your details look fine, thanks for elaborating. Only comments in that regard is pay real close attention to the sometmies subtle differences between the brightest shinies and the core shinies -- in icy rings there are a lot of soggy potato "ringers" (pun intended) that are as bright as core rocks, but the coloration is not as dense and it lacks the reddish highlights that cores often display. But I end up spending Prospectors on them anyway. Rock shape can also be a factor.

I had the same ill luck with Rhodplumsite as you did with Musgravite, yet when I tried a Monazite HS it was rife with core rocks of a number of mineral types. So RNG (or luck if you prefer) does play a significant role, it seems.

Focusing solely on core mining is also not nearly as lucrative as it once was, so if you haven't already and can swing it, gear up also for SSD and laser mining. Not every ship can sport a full miner's toolbox but if you can, it can pay off a lot better than cores alone.

 

[ChipStar65]

As you have discovered there are many many really bright yellow rocks and I have no idea why they are like that because it doesn't seem to me that it denotes any sort of "great" content.

Shiny rocks are not intended to indicate "great" content, but rather the presence of certain types of content -- SSD veins, SD scabs, and cores will all produce shinies regardless of the minerals present. The trick is to learn by overall color, intensity, and as you say, shape, which shiny rocks are more likely to have the real paydirt.

Nothing's more disappointing than finding a perfect core 'roid and assaying shows it's a Bromellite core -- not really "great" content, agreed?

 

[Troopi]

That just means that the pulse wave analyzer is an horrible trinket. It SHOULD highlight rocks properly. The way it works now, it just seems like wandering around blind. They should remake the whole thing again, use different colors for different types of materials, not just the foolish yellow/red hues with more or less brightness. Or even different pulses, like a sensor that shoots different kinds of radiation to analyze the feedback. Crystals would highlight with some pulses, metals with others, etc... Like meteorologic satellites do with heat/water density/pressure cameras.
The way it is made, it looks like it was made specifically to force the player to spend hours grinding, looking for cores.
I would rather have a screen lenses like FSSS, that would change the screen color and reveal some hints of different colors. We could change lenses to study these spots and try to locate what we want. Approaching the rock would show more detailed shapes, and close enough, would reveal hidden cores.

 

[ChipStar65]

Three words too often heard or implied: "Dumb it down!"

 

[Para Handy]

Shiny rocks are not intended to indicate "great" content, but rather the presence of certain types of content -- SSD veins, SD scabs, and cores will all produce shinies regardless of the ......

Yes the presence of the "new" mining features but it is specifically supposed to indicate " lucrative deposits " ... " based on basic composition and density data " - so even though a bright rock might have sub-surface and surface deposits my interpretation from when they were introduced was that "lucrative deposits" was the key word (OK, were the key words ). In practice, looking at the composition of bright asteroids when prospected very rarely reveals "lucrative deposits". The actual words in the "Beyond:chapter 4" content reveal were:

Pulse Wave Analyser – Upon arrival within a ring, firing this module will send out a pulse of energy that will highlight any asteroids that have lucrative deposits on them.

Three words too often heard or implied: "Dumb it down!"

That is a rather facile response to what we are saying.

 

[Dragsham]

A treat for any tritium miners out near colonia.
KYLOALL LO-P D6 -2158 planet B9
Perfect double tritium hotspot

 

[ChipStar65]

...it is specifically supposed to indicate " lucrative deposits " ... " based on basic composition and density data "

"Lucrative" is too broad and relative a label to assume it means only high-end minerals. It can just as easily describe more mundane minerals in higher concentrations than laser mining provides, or cores -- which are sources of very high mineral concentration per chunk -- of such minerals as Bromellite. But the terms used to describe such aspects of mining in a manual or similar document may not be perfectly relevant to the actuality of the gameplay, which is that certain deposit types cause PWA'd shinies to appear, and it's up to the Cmdr to learn the subtleties involved in which shiny might be more "lucrative" for their purposes. Color coding such differentiation is just dumbing down the mining process so no effort need be made to find the best paydirt.

An analogy from RL may be in order: The geological formations known as "vugs" are often the site for large, well-formed and also extremely delicate crystal formations. They are like hotspots. You have to be able to read the surrounding geology to find them, though, so you need a built-in PWA (a Geology degree) to lead you to them. But exactly which minerals form what kind of crystals in the vugs is not knowable until they are exposed (in game, that's by Prospector limpets). Knowing the geology offers clues to the likely mineralization, but it's no guarantee you will discover emeralds or rubies or whatever. What you are asking for would be like a signpost in the field saying "Here's the emeralds and rubies, come get 'em!" It cheats the entire mining paradigm that depends on Cmdr knowledge increasing the chance of, but not guaranteeing, those "lucrative" returns.

 

[McGyverCP]

I decided to hop out and do a bit of DC mining last night. While it has been quite a while since I last was busting rocks, it does seem that the productivity was a bit higher in the past. Last night I went into a Musgravite Hotspot and started pinging...after 30 minutes of unproductive searching I finally found a musgravite core.

Now, I know that they run hot and cold in the finding department (why Fishing is called fishing and not Catching), but it did seem like there were more pops in the past. Anyway, after mopping up the bits, back to looking. After another 45 minutes of looking at rocks (it seems that there are a lot Fewer yellow rocks lighting up - of all various colors of yellow - than there were before) I come across a Serendibite core...Not musgravite, but still worth a nice chunk, so I crack it and clean up.

Another 30 to 45 minutes goes by and I finally find another Musgravite core. Pop it, clean up, and head to a base that has a nice payout. Three failed interdiction attempts across two systems, and I get 38 Million credits added to my account.

I understand that they did some Nerfing/updating to the mining process...it happens in all games. Hopefully, mining will still be a semi-lucrative way to make credits. While I don't "Think" I want a FC...it would be nice to be able to afford one if I so choose to do so.

EDIT: Went out again...different system, looking at Serendibite this time...Found a nice Hot Spot, get the usual "What are ya haulin'" speech, and start PWA going like a destroyer looking for a sub...

Now, I KNOW that I haven't been mining in a while, so I have to re-memorize the look of the asteroids that will generally throw out a bright yellow/Green-black flash indicating a possible core. There are still not as many asteroids flashing colors as there use to be...so I don't know what it is the did with the PWA, but I think they pulled one of the spark plug cables on it. To me it seems like they de-tuned the PWA, I could be wrong. After cruising around the ring for a while, I come across a very good candidate for being a core!

Woot! Fire the Prospector...get a lock...CORE!!...oh...it is some low level mineral that was not worth the time to bust it open and suck out the good parts...Ping.....Ping...(A WHOLE LOT MORE PINGS LATER)... I find another core...Yeah! Shoot it....Painite. Well it is better than a kick in the teeth I guess. Bust it open and pull the guts out...14 painite in the hold.

More pinging...flying around the ring...avoiding asteroids...Theme from Star Wars comes on Pandora, so I have to start flying at full speed through the asteroid field...Never tell me the odds. Anyway, more pinging....PingPING! Cool...another good candidate! Launch, Lock...Serendibite!! Nice! Bust it open, clean it out, 13 tons in the hold.

I look at the clock, and realize...I've been buzzing around this place for over 2 1/2 Hours...for 24 tons of ore in the hold. I pull up a star system 153 lys away from me with the highest payout for Serendibite and head there...5 jumps, 2 interdiction attempts...get to the station. Land, hit the commodities broker and the amount offered at the site was about 150K credits less than posted. Really...Wow...why does my backside hurt for some reason. I sell the stuff off and then say screw it...I head back to Ohm City in LHS 20.

I read about the changes they made to balance the game out...I understand their reasoning...Don't necessarily agree with them...They say that they lowered the prices so that new players don't become filthy rich too fast. I can see their point, but I can also see the point of playing smart. There are a lot of cemeteries in California and Alaska littered with the bodies of miners who "Got Too Rich, Too Quick" and suffered for it. It is called Elite Dangerous for a reason. But that is just my opinion I guess.

Anyway, I am rethinking the mining thing...I may go out one more time to one of the old stomping grounds and try my luck at an old fishing hole...maybe it hasn't dried up.

Take Care and Check Six Commanders! o7

Commander McGyver, signing out.