Nuclear mining.

[SergMx]

Why did they make mining nukes in the game so unprofitable ?
1. They removed the double dots.
2. Lowered the cost of diamonds.
3. Unlike flower scanning, where they completely removed the complexity of scanning, it's also quite complicated when laying down depth rockets.
4. Laser mining is much dumber but brings the same amount of money. And there the whole difficulty is to recruit more collectors, so that they have time.
5. Wave scanner is still poorly tuned, very often mistaken.

And so on and so forth.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Sorry are we talking about Elite or Fallout?

 

[Dillon Fallon]

Core mining you mean (guessing the translation software has gone off tangent)?

I'm not the biggest fan of mining, especially with lasers, but creating huge potentially ship damaging explosions in the process did have my attention for a little while though. Should be the more profitable method IMO.

 

[SergMx]

Core mining you mean (guessing the translation software has gone off tangent)?

I'm not the biggest fan of mining, especially with lasers, but creating huge potentially ship damaging in the process though did have my attention for a little while. Should be the more profitable method IMO.

There's so much material dropping out in HGE now that it doesn't fit when you collect it.
So why with a very complex search for asteroids with cores, the correct splitting of the core, the necessary shards there a little bit

 

[SergMx]

Sorry are we talking about Elite or Fallout?

Yes. Elite. Core Mining.

 

[Dragsham]

Core mining since the great borann nerf isn't profitable in terms of time spent in relation to laser mining.
But finding a rock with a core, surface mining it then laser mining it and then sub surface mining it followed lastly by blowing it up to extract the core is simply fun! Try doing it just 200m away when it blows up, with your shields down hehe. Doesn't end well.

 

[Northpin]

Why did they make mining nukes in the game so unprofitable ?

Mining was really profitable in 2019.
It was also profitable in the first half of 2020.

Then they tried to improve tritium mining from SSD (for carrier usage) and fumbled up and created the monstrosity called the EGG
Then, they "fixed" the EGG by almost completely killing mining profits (somewhere between mid July and mid August)

Then 3-4 months later, they vastly improved combat payouts and some of the supply delivery missions
Why they had to kill mining, only to add another gold mine to the gameplay? beats me.

and the rest is history

 

[Northpin]

Core mining since the great borann nerf isn't profitable in terms of time spent in relation to laser mining.

the only sort of profitable mining is platinum laser mining in a haz res / high res in a hotspot using a map - but even this cannot get not even marginaly close to the credits that can be produced by AX combat, or stacked massacre missions or exobiology

 

[Northpin]

Sorry are we talking about Elite or Fallout?

i suspect the nuclear part is a translator issue as SergeMX is using a translator to post on the English forums (much respect for persisting into this - i would assume it can get pretty frustrating at times)

 

[SergMx]

the only sort of profitable mining is platinum laser mining in a haz res / high res in a hotspot using a map - but even this cannot get not even marginaly close to the credits that can be produced by AX combat, or stacked massacre missions or exobiology

What I don't understand the most is the wave scanner.
The ship's cargo scanner indicates the exact commodity.
I thought the wave scanner was wrong, but it's not, I scan the asteroid 10 times in a row and its brightness never changes. So it's not a bug, it's just not working.
I wonder if there is any module in the game that doesn't work as well ?

 

[HRDiagram]

5. Wave scanner is still poorly tuned, very often mistaken.

This is not correct.

The pulse wave scanner does its job correctly (highlighting asteroids with surface, sub-surface and core deposits) with different colour intensities; it's the player who misinterprets them.
Never had any problem with it, it just takes experience to differentiate between the various deposits.

That being said, if the system was reviewed to make those differences a bit more stark, it wouldn't really hurt.

 

[SergMx]

This is not correct.

The pulse wave scanner does its job correctly (highlighting asteroids with surface, sub-surface and core deposits) with different colour intensities; it's the player who misinterprets them.
Never had any problem with it, it just takes experience to differentiate between the various deposits.

That being said, if the system was reviewed to make those differences a bit more stark, it wouldn't really hurt.

No I'm right and it's easy to prove. Pick the brightest one, scan it 10 times and if there's anything there, move on to the next one.
You'll see that it often shows something that isn't true.
And experience has nothing to do with it.

And the most interesting thing is that you can determine by experience the nuclei by the shape of the asteroid, rotation, etc. without using a wave scanner.

 

[HRDiagram]

No I'm right and it's easy to prove. Pick the brightest one, scan it 10 times and if there's anything there, move on to the next one.
You'll see that it often shows something that isn't true.
And experience has nothing to do with it.

And the most interesting thing is that you can determine by experience the nuclei by the shape of the asteroid, rotation, etc. without using a wave scanner.

No, you are wrong and it's easy to prove: go to any asteroid highlighted by a pulse wave scanner and you can mine it with one or more of the three methods.

"Experience has nothing to do with it": what does that even mean? I have been mining for years and never had any false readings, only incorrect interpretations.

And yes, you don't need a scanner to identify a core asteroid, once you know what to look for.

 

[CaptainPugwash]

Mining was really profitable in 2019.
It was also profitable in the first half of 2020.

Then they tried to improve tritium mining from SSD (for carrier usage) and fumbled up and created the monstrosity called the EGG
Then, they "fixed" the EGG by almost completely killing mining profits (somewhere between mid July and mid August)

Then 3-4 months later, they vastly improved combat payouts and some of the supply delivery missions
Why they had to kill mining, only to add another gold mine to the gameplay? beats me.

and the rest is history

Not only that but they managed to nerf NPC piracy at the same time, and you still can’t find NPC mining ships with core minerals.
Sometimes I think that fdev want to sabotage their own game: the core mining update was one their best ones.

 

[SergMx]

No, you are wrong and it's easy to prove: go to any asteroid highlighted by a pulse wave scanner and you can mine it with one or more of the three methods.

"Experience has nothing to do with it": what does that even mean? I have been mining for years and never had any false readings, only incorrect interpretations.

And yes, you don't need a scanner to identify a core asteroid, once you know what to look for.

I disagree.
I've done a lot of mining, too. And you can always say I got the color wrong, since you can't prove otherwise.
That alone is proof that the scanner is lying.
Eventually I will scan and look only at dark asteroids and there will be the same and find the same saturation even in dark asteroids.

 

[Pville_Piper]

Over the the asteroid with core deposits has changed shape and the identifying marks signifying attachment points have been purposely made harder to see and identify. They used to be very noticeable, I'm not really happy with the change. Also, it can be very hard to find one at all, significantly increasing the time it takes to mine them. Also, the detonations used to be much better, they are fairly lame now.

 

[Dragsham]

Core mining asteroids are the brightest of signals detected. I mean really intense light that's patently obvious.
All others even the bright ones are not as intense.
I wasn't posting earlier about profit within time frames I was babbling about how satisfying core mining is.
If we had EVA in elite that's defo on my bucket list.
Setting charges on the rock and as the timer starts get out of the ship and get to within 100 yards or so and just wait with a stupid expression on my face, for the impending blast!
Elites not all about profit per hour. Never really was.
Never got that outlook.
It's about fun!
It's a game, games are supposed to be fun.

All in VR of course.

o7

 

[metatheurgist]

The term profitable is meaningless in this game anyway.

 

[SergMx]

The term profitable is meaningless in this game anyway.

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.

 

[Brrokk]

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.