The reason I ask is because I'm mining in the black while exploring in my FC. It gives me a break from exploration and gives me a reason to scan rings. Plus it will hopefully pay for some of the tritium too!
I mine in the black. It does depend on how much time and how far you are exploring, every ton of mined material stored in your carrier will reduce your total range but this can be offset by mining Tritium.
I carry with me 4 mining ships and one of my explorers an Aspx has also got basic mining ability, A Krait MkII set for Cores - speed + agility, A Python for SSD Tritium - The fastest way to mine it, and a couple off T9's, one for Icy, one for the rest.
I suggest always using the largest refinery you can carry in your miner or miner's, that way you do not have to flush your bins as often or at all. What's the cost of a mining ship or for that matter extra modules after all, and they don't cost any extra fuel or cargo to carry in your carrier.
Selling mined commodities, There are a variety of ways of selling and this is dependent on the type of material, where you are selling, the time you wish to expend and the profit you wish to make, this will also affect what is worthwhile to mine.
Straight selling to stations of the better priced materials can often incur the volume tax, it can sometimes be quicker to sell too another carrier or sell from your carrier, you may end up earning better this way. Its also a handy way to offload mainly core type material in the Colonia area. Mission boards, good money can be earned both popping back to your carrier to complete a bunch of mining missions and by selling in volume to other carriers this type of material, I am talking Bromellite, MMC's and occasionally Osmium, but keep an eye on INARA.
Core mining, probably the better earner especially on the outward part of an exploration trip, less weight for the carrier to haul, almost all are worth mining, but I do seem to find straight core mining boring. Don't fixate on one type off core, with enough refinery space take any that you find within a hotspot, when later selling a few hundred of each may be faster and easier than several thousand of one type.
SSD Tritium mining, Rat Catcher is the expert at this, Python is the ship, with practice and enough ammo it is the fastest way to mine Tritium, A lot of the glowies within a Tritium hotspot will have 3 or 4 SSD's, up to about 200t per hour is achievable with practice within a good single hotspot.
Laser mining, I do most of my mining in Metallic or Icy rings. It's where my T9's excel, sturdy, high capacity plodders.
Metallic because they give the fastest or the largest volume of materials plus the three P's, Plat, Plad and Painite with laser, you also get in very low volumes Tungsten, the only place I have found it apart from surface mining and is needed for SSDM refills in the field. I do not worry about the type of material mined, Silver, Samarium and above are all worth selling and the middling priced materials can be sold easily without attracting the volume tax.
Icy rings, I mainly laser mine for 3 materials, LTD's, Bromellite and Tritium, but I also take MMC's and Lithium Hydroxide as a bycatch, Bromellite is the best earner in Icy, a lot faster to mine than LTD's and 2 - 3 Brom equals 1 LTD selling wise, sells easier too, its always in good demand for straight selling, mission boards and other carriers, MMC's and Lithium Hydroxide are not worth as much but are easy sellers to other carriers for them to do mission board "sales", Jaques station mission board loves MMC's
Both of my T9's are equipped for handling Cores and the slower spinning SSD's, though I do not hunt them out, I just scan occasionally, keep my eye's open and take whatever I find.
Volumes wise Metallic rings have more good laser rocks than any other ring, I don't normally bother with metal or rocky for Laser mining less good rocks but both are a source of Gold, Silver, Osmium and one or two other metals, maximum percentage rock content is the same as metallic, Icy is the poor one, only up to 36% per rock instead of 66% for the others.
I mine for fun and relaxation rather than profit, but the advantage of using a carrier are great, you can mine where you want and what you want and the same goes for selling, if the price ain't right you can store it for another day.
Sorry if this is a bit long winded and does not directly answer your questions, but the way things can change around here an answer can be right one day and wrong the next, apart from that I like to make people think
Happy rock hunting, o7
