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Newcomer / Intro Mining
- Thread starter hawknerd
- Start date
Hello, Hawknerd, and welcome to the Galaxy.
I can describe two of three types of mining I am familiar with - I made my Elite Trader with one, and do the other for pleasure (and cash).
The types I am familiar with are Laser Mining and Deep Core Mining. Neither is better than the other either in enjoyment or payout; it comes down to what you prefer.
LASER MINING is surface mining. You will need both prospector and collector limpet controllers, two of the largest mining lasers you can fit into your ship and a refinery. You'll also need a Detailed surface Scanner to find the hotspots.
In laser mining, you search for a mining location that has a greater than average quantity of a given mineral - a Hotspot. Ideally, you want to find Hotspots that overlap; giving you a much higher yield compared to a single hotspot.
When laser mining, you probe (launch prospector limpets) at nearby rocks in a planet's ring, and watch as each limpet lands on a 'roid and analyzes its composition. If the rock has minerals you want in good enough quantity, you close to within 500m, laser the rock and launch your Collector limpets to gather the minerals that are broken off. It's pretty easy, and quite enjoyable.
DEEP CORE MINING is a very different animal. In deep-core you will need a Detailed Surface Scanner (same reason as above), the same limpet controllers, a Pulse Wave Analyzer, a Refinery (again) and in your Hardpoints you will require an Abrasion Blaster and a Seismic Charge Launcher. Where laser mining is closer to strip-mining, in deep core you are hunting for specific rocks that have both the right shape and a VERY strong return signal. Once dropping into a Hotspot, you use the PWA to look for rocks of a particular shape which give a bright yellow or red return, indicating a strong mineral core. When you find one that looks promising, you probe it with a Prospector, analyse the results and if the asteroid has a core you can mine, you prepare to crack it.
Cracking a 'roid is incredibly fun - you need to target fissures in the rock and mine them with seismic charges tailored in strength to the fissure - too large a charge in a weak fissure will do damage, which you DON'T want. You need to CAREFULLY plant your charges until your max-yield scanners all report blue - the ideal strength. The challenge comes in the fact that you have only TWO minutes from when the first charge is fired to land a good set.
When you succeed, it looks like this:
It's up to you - laser or deep core mining? There is also subsurface mining, but I have not done that much; so I will leave THAT to someone who knows it better.
Cheers! And happy blasting.
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![[VR] Orodruin](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/237/237188.jpg?1614840532){kind=avatar}
Before the fleet carrier patch, laser mining in the Borann triple hotspot for LTDs was the money making meta reaching credit rates 300M/hour and upwards. Core mining was lagging behind significantly.
With the fleet carrier patch, hotspot materials were rerolled and a new LTD3 was found about two days ago. Even though its % distibution is seemingly better than Borann was, the buff to subsurface mining with the patch means that subsurface mining is currently blowing the other two types completely out of the water, reaching mining rates of 400+ tons of LTDs per hour.
Yep; this gives me the chance to load up SDM's and try something new.
Core mining is where you find asteroids with fissures and plant seismic charges to blow them up - harvesting minerals from the exposed chunks.
Sub-surface mining is where you discover sub-surface deposits on an asteroid and use a displacement missile to drill into the deposit and release mineral fragments.
Abrasion-blaster is used to free surface deposits from asteroid surfaces.
All the three features above are revealed by the prospector limpet scanning complete message.
laser mining is the process of playing a mining laser on the surface of an asteroid to release fragments of minerals and some element materials.
Ok newbie question:-
Laser mining icy rings, after finding hot spots what actually minerals can I mine with lasers?
I see void opals and know they don't show for surface, but is there a list of laser surface minerals that is available only for lasers?
Thanks
CMDR J Stompmaster
Laser mining icy rings, after finding hot spots what actually minerals can I mine with lasers?
I see void opals and know they don't show for surface, but is there a list of laser surface minerals that is available only for lasers?
Thanks
CMDR J Stompmaster
Copied and pasted from @Lance 'Spacecat' D.'s "The Popular Guide to Space Mining" see the powerpoint presentation and thread:
Asteroid rings come in four flavors: Metallic, Metal-rich, Rocky and Icy. If you focus on laser mining or mining missions, this list comes in handy for knowing what minerals are found in what kind of belts. (And their value at the time of writing)
Metallic: painite(rare)- 40500Cr, platinum - 19279Cr, palladium - 13298Cr, gold - 9401Cr, osmium - 7591Cr, praseodymium - 7156Cr, samarium - 6330Cr, silver - 4775Cr, bertrandite - 2374Cr, indite - 2088Cr, gallite - 1819Cr
Metal-Rich: gold - 9401Cr, osmium - 7591Cr, praseodymium - 7156Cr, samarium - 6330Cr, silver - 4775Cr, bertrandite - 2374Cr,
indite - 2088Cr, gallite - 1819Cr, coltan - 1319Cr, uraninite - 836Cr, lepidolite - 544Cr
Rocky: samarium - 6330Cr, indite - 2088Cr, gallite - 1819Cr, coltan - 1319Cr, uraninite - 836Cr, cobalt - 647Cr, lepidolite - 544Cr,
rutile - 299Cr, bauxite - 120Cr
Icy: bromellite - 7062Cr, lithium hydroxide - 5646Cr, methanol monohydrate crystals - 2282 Cr, methane clathrate - 629Cr,
liquid oxygen - 263Cr, water - 120Cr, hydrogen peroxide - 917Cr… And very rarely, low-temperature diamonds.
Also note you’ll get a number of engineering materials while mining. Carbon, Iron, Nickel, Sulphur and a few others.
Guide was updated in April so presumably that lot is still mostly accurate except that Icy rings now also have Tritium (new material) available for laser mining. The guide is well worth reading anyway, very well put together.
Low temperature diamonds can be quite plentiful in the right places. Just made another 203m from them and my time was cut short.
Why Para Handy, thanks for the compliment... And I just added Tritium. ^n.n^
Yeah; I found a perfect 'roid with low rotation and four SSD's I'm shamelessly 26Km-ing.
Fills up a T9 a treat.Honest question: Don’t you get bored mining the same asteroid over and over again? Or are the credits just a means to an end?Yeah; I found a perfect 'roid with low rotation and four SSD's I'm shamelessly 26Km-ing.
Very definitely a means to an end. I was exploring when Borann was a big thing, when the FC's came out my account crashed, requiring Fdev intervention and I was down for a week. I missed Col285 before the nerf for the same reason, and in RL had my work schedule changed. I need one more billion to get an FC; maybe one or two more for comfort lol. I really am not interested in the exploit other than I wound up behind the 8-ball and want to get my FC - I've got plans for that thing.
Once that's done, I'll revert to my normal play, mining deep cores in single HS's and going back to working on my Elite Combat. But for now, I'm just having fun making as much as I can in a single run.
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Credits in ED are only ever a means to an end,
Making them can get you Elite in trading, but you don’t lose that if you don’t keep the credits.
They can be used to buy ships, modules or a fleet carrier and its ancillaries, but other than meeting running costs/rebuys etc again you don’t need the credits after making the purchase.
You misunderstand. Some of us mine because we like mining.
Precisely. I found this exploit and I'm using it simply because I felt like I came late to the party - I want to have my part of the fun. Smile - it will get boring fast; I'm just having my fun with the exploit - and getting my Carrier lol. Normally, I mine when I 'm stressed - just cruising through a Ring pulsing and looking for the jackpot is wonderfully relaxing. That's what I love about Deep Core - and now, since I've learned it, SSD: it's not the win, it's the hunt. The joy of finding that ONE big score, that beautiful rock-cracking explosion; the perfect charge-set.
Mining dynamics seem to have been tweaked recently, especially around Low Temp Diamonds. Previously, the big money was on visiting a triple overlap hotspot which greatly increased the frequency you'd find rocks with LTDs in the composition. Rock composition is used for laser mining. More rocks + higher percentage = more tonnes of refined LTD. Fill your holds as fast as possible and jump to a good selling station. Now they've toned down the overlap bonuses, and it looks like they've given sub-surface LTD deposits some love. Core LTDs are also a thing in LTD hotspots. Technically they could happen anywhere in an icy ring. Often I find Void Opal, Grandidarite, or Alexanderite cores in LTD hotspots.
IMO the big LTD payouts are in sub-surface mining now. I'm relatively new but reading past discussions on it, they seemed rather rare and might net only 2-4 "pops" for fragments. Now though you can get 6 or more pops from a single deposit, and each deposit is 6 large chunks. Each chunk can be anywhere from 0.25 to over 0.75t of LTD so it fills your hold very fast. I had taken a few runs with a dedicated surface/sub-surface build /w just missiles, abrasion blaster, and lasers. Of course on 2 trips the first core asteroid I found each time was an LTD. >:} Now I head out with charges, missiles and an abrasion blaster, and don't bother with lasers. With Subsurface and Core mining you use the pulse generator, and very few shiners seem to have LTD composition.
Getting a feel for prioritizing Shiners takes a bit of practice, but you soon get to know what shapes are typically a waste of time. Cores can only appear in 1 shape per ring material, with Icy cores looking something like a pumpkin. For Core and Subsurface mining, the intensity of the shine is your best clue where to prioritize. At range (and this depends on the quality of your scanner) you won't always get a clear indication of intensity so use shape in the decision making to get closer to Shiners of interest. The intensity of the glow reflects the number of deposits in a rock. This could be surface deposits, sub surface deposits, and/or cores. Cores amount to a lot of extra surface deposits on the inside of a rock after it's cracked open so combined with normal sub-surface and surface deposits this is why they are very vibrantly yellow from all sides. If you happen to find a valuable core, be sure to check the sub-surface deposits before blowing the core. You can find LTD subsurface + LTD or Void Opal Core rocks and once you blow the core you will lose the subsurface deposit. From my investigations some rocks can only have 1 or 2 deposits, often these are 1 or 2 surface deposits. These will often be dim from one side and brighter from the other. You can knock off any surface deposits without prospecting and pulse it again to see if there is anything left. If there is 1 surface deposit and a dull glow then there will be 1 more sub-surface. Maybe LTD, probably "junk". Still if you're looking for minerals for mining missions this is a good way to find them. It's also an excellent way to find Tritium. When you find a bright rock with no visible surface deposits, this could be your payday. These will have 3-4 subsurface deposits, where one or more deposits may be LTDs.
With the Subsurface missile game, for consistently good results I try to work the rock from roughly back to front, meaning going for deeper pops before taking shallower ones. I don't know if this affects the # of attempts each rock will give or not, but at a minimum it gives you a bit of a practice for where the density speeds up and slows down. On average I get 6 pops per deposit with 8 being the most. Note that rocks count misses as well so if a rock gives you six attempts and you miss that will use up an attempt and cost you 6 fragments. Thinner bands don't release more fragments, though I don't know if they release better (more mass) fragments or not. (They're just tougher to hit)
Each pop is 6 fragments so ~36 fragments which nets anywhere from 22-30t of LTD. A single triple-deposit rock will fill a 64-80T starting mining fit-out. The main advantage of this approach over laser mining is that you can do it in any system with a hotspot, you don't need or benefit from overlaps.
The minimum ship to start this mining (including core) would be an Adder, but waiting for a Cobra III gives you a Medium sub-surface launcher. The small launcher only carries 32 missiles which can run out, especially when learning and no grace for if you head back out without a restock. An Adder can fit the medium but then no charge launcher for cores. If you are going for cores then a shield is highly recommended. For strictly sub-surface/surface/laser mining you can save power draw and add cargo space dropping the shield. (Make sure you can reliably break interdictions from NPCs)
I opted for a Keelback for my early miner once I could afford it using my Cobra. A few runs in that made enough to fully equip a Python. (Which is epic at this mining) Essentially credits become a complete non-issue so you can pad your balance, but importantly have a bit of fun with the mining mechanics. It means you have to worry about funding other ventures such as exploration, engineering or gaining reputation to get access to a ship or location that catches your interest.
IMO the big LTD payouts are in sub-surface mining now. I'm relatively new but reading past discussions on it, they seemed rather rare and might net only 2-4 "pops" for fragments. Now though you can get 6 or more pops from a single deposit, and each deposit is 6 large chunks. Each chunk can be anywhere from 0.25 to over 0.75t of LTD so it fills your hold very fast. I had taken a few runs with a dedicated surface/sub-surface build /w just missiles, abrasion blaster, and lasers. Of course on 2 trips the first core asteroid I found each time was an LTD. >:} Now I head out with charges, missiles and an abrasion blaster, and don't bother with lasers. With Subsurface and Core mining you use the pulse generator, and very few shiners seem to have LTD composition.
Getting a feel for prioritizing Shiners takes a bit of practice, but you soon get to know what shapes are typically a waste of time. Cores can only appear in 1 shape per ring material, with Icy cores looking something like a pumpkin. For Core and Subsurface mining, the intensity of the shine is your best clue where to prioritize. At range (and this depends on the quality of your scanner) you won't always get a clear indication of intensity so use shape in the decision making to get closer to Shiners of interest. The intensity of the glow reflects the number of deposits in a rock. This could be surface deposits, sub surface deposits, and/or cores. Cores amount to a lot of extra surface deposits on the inside of a rock after it's cracked open so combined with normal sub-surface and surface deposits this is why they are very vibrantly yellow from all sides. If you happen to find a valuable core, be sure to check the sub-surface deposits before blowing the core. You can find LTD subsurface + LTD or Void Opal Core rocks and once you blow the core you will lose the subsurface deposit. From my investigations some rocks can only have 1 or 2 deposits, often these are 1 or 2 surface deposits. These will often be dim from one side and brighter from the other. You can knock off any surface deposits without prospecting and pulse it again to see if there is anything left. If there is 1 surface deposit and a dull glow then there will be 1 more sub-surface. Maybe LTD, probably "junk". Still if you're looking for minerals for mining missions this is a good way to find them. It's also an excellent way to find Tritium. When you find a bright rock with no visible surface deposits, this could be your payday. These will have 3-4 subsurface deposits, where one or more deposits may be LTDs.
With the Subsurface missile game, for consistently good results I try to work the rock from roughly back to front, meaning going for deeper pops before taking shallower ones. I don't know if this affects the # of attempts each rock will give or not, but at a minimum it gives you a bit of a practice for where the density speeds up and slows down. On average I get 6 pops per deposit with 8 being the most. Note that rocks count misses as well so if a rock gives you six attempts and you miss that will use up an attempt and cost you 6 fragments. Thinner bands don't release more fragments, though I don't know if they release better (more mass) fragments or not. (They're just tougher to hit)
Each pop is 6 fragments so ~36 fragments which nets anywhere from 22-30t of LTD. A single triple-deposit rock will fill a 64-80T starting mining fit-out. The main advantage of this approach over laser mining is that you can do it in any system with a hotspot, you don't need or benefit from overlaps.
The minimum ship to start this mining (including core) would be an Adder, but waiting for a Cobra III gives you a Medium sub-surface launcher. The small launcher only carries 32 missiles which can run out, especially when learning and no grace for if you head back out without a restock. An Adder can fit the medium but then no charge launcher for cores. If you are going for cores then a shield is highly recommended. For strictly sub-surface/surface/laser mining you can save power draw and add cargo space dropping the shield. (Make sure you can reliably break interdictions from NPCs)
I opted for a Keelback for my early miner once I could afford it using my Cobra. A few runs in that made enough to fully equip a Python. (Which is epic at this mining) Essentially credits become a complete non-issue so you can pad your balance, but importantly have a bit of fun with the mining mechanics. It means you have to worry about funding other ventures such as exploration, engineering or gaining reputation to get access to a ship or location that catches your interest.
