Newcomer / Intro Pulse Wave Scanner and Mining query.

[Zak Gordon]

Hello Cmdrs,

So i'm now about a week and a half into playing the game i bought back in the kickstarter of 2012 (is it really that long ago?!). I'm liking it in general, the space-flight part especially.

So i've done some trading and now moved onto mining to give that game system a go. I've got a number of the good guides to follow and sort of worked through them (and sometimes outdated info) to kit my Asp Explorer out to be a decent small scale mining craft.

I'm slightly confused about how terrible (as in downright awful) the pulse wave scanner is at actually identifying 'valuable' asteroids to mine. An example.

I will 'pulse' a section of asteroids and go for the orange highlighted ones. Mostly this is what happens. I find the scan has picked out something like Hydrogen Peroxide (good if you dye your hair maybe?) as the 'valuable' asteroid to mine. Then maybe about 50% of the time IF i look around at the asteroids right next to the one the pulse scanner has highlighted i will find Bromellite or Tritium. Now why does the pulse scanner not highlight those instead? I'm very confused and sort of wondering if i might as well dump the pulse wave scanner and just mine blind do to speak. In general i find much more valuable asteroids by randomly testing them with the mining laser and seeing what flies off. Is it meant to work like this or am i doing something wrong (even following guides etc)?

Confused mining cmdr.

 

[YORKSH1RE NEO]

With the pulse scanner you need to find the ones that glow bright yellow when you’re literally on top of them. These should give you the valuable core that correlates to whichever hotspot you are in at the time

 

[alexzk]

First:
there are types of mining:
1. lasers - do not need pulse
2. core by rockets - need pulse
3. core by crackling by bomb - need pulse.
4. abrasives on surface - shown by pulse, but need to use abrasive blaster for that. When you do (3) you will have half of items as abrasives after explosion.

For 1 you can ignore pulse at all.
For 2 is where you play mini-game throwing drilling rockets. Shown by pulse too as yellow.
For 3 is where you put bombs. Shown by pulse too as yellow as very bright star-like, also if you come close you can see cracklings by eye.
For 4 - shown by pulse too as yellow.

 

[Zak Gordon]

Ok. I do have an abrasion blaster (as well as my mining laser), and have seem sometimes the highlighted asteroids after the pulse wave scan have those nodules you can shoot of with the abrasion blaster to get more materials vs using the normal mining laser yields.

But why does the pulse scan, designed to show most valuable, pick out 'less' valuable more often than not. Is it all about what is inside the core (and requires explosives (rockets or bombs))? In which case it should be more clearly labeled in game as being only for use with those explosives perhaps?
I think i'll get rid of it (pulse wave scanner) next port call and free up some cargo space, or lose more space and take some explosives munitions maybe. Still it is a pretty rubbish mining scanner in the way i've been trying to use it it seems.

 

[alexzk]

But why does the pulse scan, designed to show most valuable,

No, it's just "light source".

Imagine you have a mirror. Then you broke it to small pieces. Now you take rock, glue it and roll in those small pieces.
Now you use flash-light on this rock, what do you see?
That what do pulse and "mirror pieces" is material inside. So better / more material brighter light, BUT it also depends on angle how you see it right now.

 

[Codger]

But why does the pulse scan, designed to show most valuable,

Because that is not what it is designed to do. It is designed to highlight asteroids that might have Cores, and can be cracked open with a seismic charge, or that have surface deposits you can blast off with a subsurface missile. It does not care what kind of mineral is in there, only that the asteroid has those features. It is useless for laser mining. It's part of the "new" types of mining.

 

[aRJay]

I find the Pulse Wave Scanner works best if you get it to run continuously like the sonar in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, the repetition makes the rocks with cores show up better as you get closer revealing a more complex structure not just brightness.
However I believe your systems graphics settings can influence how this appears, on mine it is complicated because I tend to have the night vision on so get touches of green when the grid shows.

 

[Zak Gordon]

OK thanks guys, i better understand it's usage now. This is the in-game description:

"mining tool used to detect deposits of valuable resources within asteroid fields or planetary rings. - Functions in analysis mode."

It could do with a further note that it is "for Core mining only" imho, just to avoid newbie misunderstandings and even in the decent guides for mining this is not explained that clearly. I can't tell you how much time i wasted in working out it was not for the use of laser/ablative mining!

Actually how come we don't have a 'general' mineral scanner for use in mining to actually help identify the more valuable ores (or maybe even have a range of 'frequencies' or 'mineral properties' we can tune it too?) already?

 

[alexzk]

Actually how come we don't have a 'general' mineral scanner for use in mining to actually help identify the more valuable ores (or maybe even have a range of 'frequencies' or 'mineral properties' we can tune it too?) already?

Well, this function is there. Just need to use combined tools.

1. Read map, you want "pristine" or "major" rings. Lower values will mean lower concentrations of everything.
2. Use "planetary surface scanner" (installed separated) and scan ring. That will pop yellow marks with rised chance to collect something. You must keep scanner installed to see spots later.

Inside such yellow spot you have rised chance to find this core (if it is core) or better concentrations if it is laser. Overlapping spots of the same rise things even more at overlapp place.
For example, pristine metal platinum spot means you mine it by laser and ignore anything below 50% concentration for speed.

 

[Frankymole]

In general i find much more valuable asteroids by randomly testing them with the mining laser and seeing what flies off. Is it meant to work like this or am i doing something wrong (even following guides etc)?

Just to check the obvious - you do use a prospector limpet, I presume? That not only shows the contents of the target asteroid but also increases yield.

 

[Spaceman-FXL5]

Actually how come we don't have a 'general' mineral scanner for use in mining to actually help identify the more valuable ores (or maybe even have a range of 'frequencies' or 'mineral properties' we can tune it too?) already?

Once you are used to a little laser surface mining in Pristine rings (for highest content), you will need Prospector Limpets.
You fire these off from up to 5km from each rock and when it lands on a rock, it tells you which minerals are there and % of each.
Also, tells you if the Material Content is Low, Medium or High - High being the best - you can get up to 66% High, which will give you about 16T from one rock iirc.
You need about 2/3 capacity of cargo, to have enough to use and if no good move on to next rock.
So if you have 64T cargo space, fill up with 40 Prospectors BEFORE you leave the station. These should nearly (if not) all be used up by the time you have mined 64T so you shouldn't then have to dump any to make space.

 

[Para Handy]

OK thanks guys, i better understand it's usage now. This is the in-game description:

"mining tool used to detect deposits of valuable resources within asteroid fields or planetary rings. - Functions in analysis mode."

It could do with a further note that it is "for Core mining only" imho, just to avoid newbie misunderstandings and even in the decent guides for mining this is not explained that clearly. I can't tell you how much time i wasted in working out it was not for the use of laser/ablative mining!

Actually how come we don't have a 'general' mineral scanner for use in mining to actually help identify the more valuable ores (or maybe even have a range of 'frequencies' or 'mineral properties' we can tune it too?) already?

I have always felt that the in-game description is just plain wrong / misleading - maybe that is what they intended but it is not what they implemented. The actual mechanism of the PWS detects / indicates asteroids that have the features used by the "new" mining tools - it certainly doesn't highlight asteroids with high proportion of a "valuable resource" in its composition.

 

[Para Handy]

....
Also, tells you if the Material Content is Low, Medium or High - High being the best - you can get up to 66% High, which will give you about 16T from one rock iirc.
.....

This is a misunderstanding of the situation. The Material Content indication is purely what amount of the produced chunks will consist of "Raw Materials" (elements used in engineering or synthesis). Whereas the yield figures for MINERAL content (the stuff your hoppers process) are the percentage composition figures - nothing to do with the MATERIAL preponderance indication.

 

[Zak Gordon]

Again thanks for the extra info guys. I'll add some prospector limpets to the loadout (i was trying to keep it as simple as possible). I have sort of become used to 'tasting' randomly the asteroids around me and seeing what flies off, it's kind of like opening a xmas present!

 

[alexzk]

Again thanks for the extra info guys. I'll add some prospector limpets to the loadout (i was trying to keep it as simple as possible). I have sort of become used to 'tasting' randomly the asteroids around me and seeing what flies off, it's kind of like opening a xmas present!

Some wisdoms:
2 prospectors at once launched is enough (i.e. grade 3 of module) for most cases
if you mine with laser you need 2.5 launched limpet per 1 beam of grade 2 for fast ships, and 4 limpets for slow ships like T9.
So you divide summ of all modules you installed of limpets they launch by beams count.
For mostly core mining (when you prefer to explode rocks, but sometimes use laser) you can keep that ratio 1.5 - 2.

Otherwise you will have big delays awaiting for collection.

Refinery of grade 2A has 6 bins. While cargo of size 2 can hold 4t. This means, you can carry extra 2T if you use 2A refinery at the end (it will refine to cargo, once you unload/free room in cargo).

 

[Para Handy]

Again thanks for the extra info guys. I'll add some prospector limpets to the loadout (i was trying to keep it as simple as possible). I have sort of become used to 'tasting' randomly the asteroids around me and seeing what flies off, it's kind of like opening a xmas present!

In case you are not aware of it - using prospectors increases the yield of an asteroid (number of fragments produced by lasering). The actual number of "extra" chunks is greatest by using an "A" prospector controller decreasing to lowest "extra" chunks from an "E".

 

[Zak Gordon]

Thanks Cmdrs, i'm sure others will find this thread as useful as I!

Oh i have switched out the abrasion blaster for a Sub-surface Displacement Missile thing, so i kept the pulse wave scanner and will see if i get more out of it. I'll keep my mining laser as per usual (with the refinery and Collector limpet). I'll see if i feel i need the prospector for a later upgrade. Thanks again for all the info.

 

[alexzk]

I'll see if i feel i need the prospector for a later upgrade.

yes you must to have it. Without prospecting you cannot do deep mining - prospectors will reveal targets for rockets and bombs.
Without prospector - laser only.

 

[Frankymole]

In case you are not aware of it - using prospectors increases the yield of an asteroid (number of fragments produced by lasering).

There must be an echo in here...

 

[Zak Gordon]

yes you must to have it. Without prospecting you cannot do deep mining - prospectors will reveal targets for rockets and bombs.
Without prospector - laser only.

Ah, yes. I found out the hard way, wasting 20 shots from my Sub-surface Displacement Missile rack. It don't work without the prospector limpets.

Hmm, i need to rethink my build; i have a jack-of-all-trades Asp Explorer currently: 3 berth cabin, 90tons cargo capacity, 20ly jump range, most 'exploration' scanners, and weapons and laser mining and refining setup. But no current room for the Prospector Limpets. The 'core' mining thing i might leave alone for now.