The new mining mechanics in the beta, while highly profitable, especially with the new minerals that are only found inside asteroids, require a bunch of different skills. Piloting, aim, speed, time management, rough calculation... there's a bunch of it.
However, there are two things that are pretty important; being able to line your aim up with the quite small deposits, and maneuvering around the asteroid quickly, when it comes to both efficiency and placing explosive charges. Then, as you blow up an asteroid, you should be able to maneuver through the remains quickly and without crashing too much.
This is where things get a lot more tricky as your ship size is larger. While huge ships like the Cutter or Type 9 have massive amounts of cargo and module space, they struggle with being able to quickly and easily manuever near asteroids, slowing them down and potentially causing risk when it comes to placing explosive charges. However, this problem could be greatly remedied, and opening potential for multicrew play, by using a small, fast ship to break open the deposits for you.
Large ships have lots of internal space, so this could be an adequate compromise to make for faster mining.
I propose that a new fighter should be added, armed with only an abrasion blaster. This ship would be able to very quickly and easily break apart any deposits, working in tandem with collector limpets to speed up the entire process, while the larger ship stays back from the asteroid remains.
This would work great with multicrew, opening up a new avenue for cooperation in mining, adding genuine involvement to the process, past using turreted guns. The new, quite lucrative materials would also give the shared crew quite a decent profit, being a nice, low-stress introduction to flying for new players as well.
However, there are two things that are pretty important; being able to line your aim up with the quite small deposits, and maneuvering around the asteroid quickly, when it comes to both efficiency and placing explosive charges. Then, as you blow up an asteroid, you should be able to maneuver through the remains quickly and without crashing too much.
This is where things get a lot more tricky as your ship size is larger. While huge ships like the Cutter or Type 9 have massive amounts of cargo and module space, they struggle with being able to quickly and easily manuever near asteroids, slowing them down and potentially causing risk when it comes to placing explosive charges. However, this problem could be greatly remedied, and opening potential for multicrew play, by using a small, fast ship to break open the deposits for you.
Large ships have lots of internal space, so this could be an adequate compromise to make for faster mining.
I propose that a new fighter should be added, armed with only an abrasion blaster. This ship would be able to very quickly and easily break apart any deposits, working in tandem with collector limpets to speed up the entire process, while the larger ship stays back from the asteroid remains.
This would work great with multicrew, opening up a new avenue for cooperation in mining, adding genuine involvement to the process, past using turreted guns. The new, quite lucrative materials would also give the shared crew quite a decent profit, being a nice, low-stress introduction to flying for new players as well.