Nuclear mining.

[SergMx]

Mining is pretty good. When I go mining I hoover up everything possible while looking out for subsurface and cores. I don't go looking for one particular kind of deposit; that way lies boredom.

I remember some time ago someone saying that FD had achieved a rare thing in a game: making mining cool. I agree. There are outfitting decisions to make and skills to learn. For example, it's the only game activity where you may have to aim a slow projectile at a moving target without the use of a leading sight.

What you described does not apply to laser mining, but strangely enough it is the one that generates more revenue. I don't see the logic in that.

 

[aRJay]

That's not the correct definition.
You can participate in AXCZ not for money but to help humanity.

Yes.

You can collect flowers not for money but to find a rare variety and put it in your codex,

Yes.

you can fight in a settlement not for money but for fun, etc.

I suppose so.

But trade and mining are just those areas where the main thing is profit.

Trade can be done just for the joy of flying the ship with a little spice of not making a loss.
Mining is an activity where making a loss is difficult unless you let your ship get destroyed, and the various activities involved can be a calm trip through a pretty ring or a combination of mini game challenges depending on the type of mining.
It is of course possible to ruin this for mining by trying to acquire large amounts of a specific item.

And in mining there has always been excitement and interest in finding.
Moreover, as the Captain wrote, even NPCs now can not also mine.

 

[Rebel Yell]

Not only that but they managed to nerf NPC piracy at the same time...

...and PvP too, because we all still miss the Era of Borann.

 

[Shadowsnog]

solo mining is a great hobby.
if you want to make something out of it do laser mining in a wing.

 

[Brrokk]

What you described does not apply to laser mining, but strangely enough it is the one that generates more revenue. I don't see the logic in that.

For laser mining I'd say the skill is more in the outfitting, limpet management, etc.

 

[SergMx]

For laser mining I'd say the skill is more in the outfitting, limpet management, etc.

In theory, such skill should be less rewarding.
But nobody reminded me, what other module in the game behaves like a wave scanner ? It works randomly.

 

[Greasetrap42]

But trade and mining are just those areas where the main thing is profit.

Tritium mining in deep space is for fuel, not profit.

Unfortunately the quantity of tritium needed for travel is quite large, and the cost to purchase tritium in the bubble is quite low. So unless a cmdr uses up their 20k units of tritium while traveling there is little desire to mine tritium. It is much too large of a repetitive task to fuel the fleet carrier.

 

[Monk]

That's not the correct definition.
You can participate in AXCZ not for money but to help humanity. You can collect flowers not for money but to find a rare variety and put it in your codex, you can fight in a settlement not for money but for fun, etc.
But trade and mining are just those areas where the main thing is profit.
And in mining there has always been excitement and interest in finding.
Moreover, as the Captain wrote, even NPCs now can not also mine.

Maybe we should all stop telling people what they are supposed to be motivated by or have fun with in the game.

I like trading b/c I like flying a big ole Type 9...just like I like driving a big rig in Truck Simulator. It's relaxing, fun and has an in-game reward. (SCO on a T9 is...whoa intense)
Same with mining, I find it fun just for the act. This is why I always outfit with all the tools so I'm never limited in what I can go after.

Now...I do find the PWS frustrating. I've never been able to figure out the patterns b/c I just don't do anything in Elite for that long. Its just not that intuitive to a generalist like me. (in the last week I ...did a bunch of engineering, bounty hunting, surface CZs, out to colonia, and now exploration and exobiology)

 

[Leadfoot]

The term profitable is meaningless in this game anyway.

"Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich. So in order to obviate this problem, and effectively revalue the leaf, we are about to embark on a massive defoliation campaign, and...er, burn down all the forests. I think you'll all agree that's a sensible move under the circumstances."

 

[Elpapo]

I liked core mining only at its very earliest stages. I must admit that since abrasion laser nerf, followed by prices nerfs, I hardly ever touched core mining at all since, despite having 3 fully functional mining ships in my fleet(Small, med and large), wich two of them are G5 legacy bulids. Surely those are ones that might have the most layers of dust, since many years already passed since I used any of those.. I do recall also doing laser mining in triple hotspots when it was a thing as well, but only done it a bit, maybe not more than 1,5B before I was bored of it, but that was some EZ money, and suprisly "chilling" or even "relaxing" but in end, it got repeative too much.

The term profitable is meaningless in this game anyway.

Only but an new, fresh cmdrs, credits means something for some of them at thier begining, but basically anyone after few years and some hundreds or thousands hours, they all will have that, since any and all activity is enough to earn billions, if doing long enough, even if only by stealing memory chips, and selling these to bartender.

Still does mining comes even close to tritrium CG's or that wine holiday event in unreachable system that is very high above galaxy plane, in terms how many hundreds of millions per hour one can make... I think it did only at early core mining, but since nerfs ages ago already, mining is just more like relaxing than outright "profitsss" activity.

 

[Shurimal]

First thing that came to my mind reading the title of this thread: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare?wprov=sfla1

I really wouldn't mind having these kind of tools in our mining arsenal