Questions about mining...

[CMDR Rusty Dog]

Just doing a bit of mining here with an Anaconda (9 collectors / 10 bins / 4 medium mining lasers).

Now in all my tine with Elite since Premuim Beta I only mined about 70t of stuff so it's not a lot. So fair to say I'm a relative newbie at this.
I'm now unlocking Selene Jean who needs 500t of mining. So far I'm at around 270 after a few hours.

But I have some questions I hope there are obvious answers to.

1) Why do collector limpets sometimes expire way before their time ? Can they hit asteroids or even your ship (especially if it moves) ?
Can they also get themselves hit by your mining laser when going to collect stuff ?

Most of the time the collector limpets last a while (12mins?) but on occasion I get 3 or 4 all failing atthe same time not long after deployment.

2) Why do I get the message 'Refinery Full' when there are still empty bins ? Is this a message to say that one of the bins reached 100% ?
Not quite getting this one.

Any other tips would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

1) Collector Limpets are "dumb" when it comes to avoiding collisions with Asteroids. Usually due to "tumblers", big asymmetric rotating Asteroids. Placing the Ship too close to the Asteroid with the bottom facing it can also assist such a premature demise.
They are immune to Mining Lasers, though.
I think A-Grade Collectors yield 720s max. time for a Collector. That'll be 12 Minutes lifetime.

2) Repeatedly getting "Refinery Full" messages (with Collectors actually stalling) is somewhat common when the Refinery Server lags out. The more Collectors are active, the higher the chance of temporarily "overloading" the Server verifying your Collector offloads.
Sometimes the Message just pops up simply because the Refinery just can't handle a fast burst of Collectors wanting to offload nearly all at once. In that case, simply ignore it and it doesn't really slow down anything.

-----------------------------------
Hints for efficient Mining :

- when using multiple Mining Lasers, the Fragments will actually emit from only one Mining Laser hit position.
-> the ejected Fragments will emit at an angle corresponding to the Mining Laser hit angle - means you can actually somewhat control the angle at which the fragment line is being built for easier scooping

- placing the bottom of the Ship ~20-30m above the fragment Cloud will drastically speed up Collectors.
-> instead of making large, rectangular detours to reach their offload point (taking upto 15 Seconds per Collector trip), you can speed up the Collector turnaround time to almost ~1 sec per Collector
-> doing this, even a full Cloud can be easily scooped up within a few seconds and rather few Collectors (I call it "Turbo-Scooping")

Cargo Hold at maximum Capacity and plenty of Limpets left?
- go into Modules Page and momentarily disable & re-enable all Collector Modules
-> instantly kills all active Collectors and allows you to fire a completely new batch, freeing Cargo space correspondingly

Surplus/Unwanted low-value Cargo you don't want? Need space for better stuff?
- Jettison/Abandon them while the Ship is kept in Motion at ~15-20m/sec or more
-> active Collectors will attempt to re-scoop the dumped Cargo right away, but the Canisters will all blow up when nearing the Ship (effectively preventing a re-scoop)

 

[Dbrn47]

Just doing a bit of mining here with an Anaconda (9 collectors / 10 bins / 4 medium mining lasers).

Now in all my tine with Elite since Premuim Beta I only mined about 70t of stuff so it's not a lot. So fair to say I'm a relative newbie at this.
I'm now unlocking Selene Jean who needs 500t of mining. So far I'm at around 270 after a few hours.

But I have some questions I hope there are obvious answers to.

1) Why do collector limpets sometimes expire way before their time ? Can they hit asteroids or even your ship (especially if it moves) ?
Can they also get themselves hit by your mining laser when going to collect stuff ?

Most of the time the collector limpets last a while (12mins?) but on occasion I get 3 or 4 all failing atthe same time not long after deployment.

2) Why do I get the message 'Refinery Full' when there are still empty bins ? Is this a message to say that one of the bins reached 100% ?
Not quite getting this one.

Any other tips would be much appreciated. Thanks.

If you are targeting a fragment or a piece of cargo when you shoot off a collector, it will only be valid for collecting that 1 piece and then will self destruct. Make sure you are not targeting any scoopable items when you deploy collectors.

Refinery full is probably a left over message from the days when it would not automatically process/allocate a new bin for another set of fragments.

 

[CMDR Rusty Dog]

Thanks FalconFly, great answers, that deserves some Rep !!


@Dbrn47 These collectors I have collect multiple items and stay with me from asteroid to asteroid.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Just doing a bit of mining here with an Anaconda (9 collectors / 10 bins / 4 medium mining lasers).

Your questions have been answered well. So I'm going to be picky.

An Anaconda only has enough power to properly use 3 medium mining lasers, unless you are using an engineered power distributor.
You could easily add more collector controllers. Cargo space isn't so important unless you are planning on spending several hours per mining trip. I used to use 17 active collector limpets on my Anaconda, or as few a 12 when I needed a fuel scoop or scanners. More active limpets makes mining much faster, though FalconFly's suggestion of aligning the fragment stream is a very good technique when asteroids are stationary or spining slowly.

You didn't mention if you were using prospector limpets. You should always use these, it speeds things up a lot. One 1A prospector controller is sufficient.

If all you want to do is reach 500 tons as quickly as possible, mine everything. It doesn't need to be profitable. But do lookout for painite to take to Selene later.

Pristine metallic rings are the best to mine in. Use ed utilities to fing one near you.

If an asteroid rotates over top of a fragment, it ends up inside the asteroid for a while. Limpets that try to collect these fragments will die. So either select stationary roids, or watch where they are rotation and plan where you drill them.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

The 4A 10 bin refinery even has this issue, even with only one occupied bin.

 

[V'larr]

Your questions have been answered well. So I'm going to be picky.

An Anaconda only has enough power to properly use 3 medium mining lasers, unless you are using an engineered power distributor.
You could easily add more collector controllers. Cargo space isn't so important unless you are planning on spending several hours per mining trip. I used to use 17 active collector limpets on my Anaconda, or as few a 12 when I needed a fuel scoop or scanners. More active limpets makes mining much faster, though FalconFly's suggestion of aligning the fragment stream is a very good technique when asteroids are stationary or spining slowly.

You didn't mention if you were using prospector limpets. You should always use these, it speeds things up a lot. One 1A prospector controller is sufficient.

If all you want to do is reach 500 tons as quickly as possible, mine everything. It doesn't need to be profitable. But do lookout for painite to take to Selene later.

Pristine metallic rings are the best to mine in. Use ed utilities to fing one near you.

If an asteroid rotates over top of a fragment, it ends up inside the asteroid for a while. Limpets that try to collect these fragments will die. So either select stationary roids, or watch where they are rotation and plan where you drill them.

Seventeen collector limpets?

But...why?

I have trouble keeping up with 6 collectors (though only using two class 2 mining lasers) when I use a Mine-a-conda, I can't even imagine trying to feed double that number!

 

[Red Anders]

Seventeen collector limpets?

But...why?

I have trouble keeping up with 6 collectors (though only using two class 2 mining lasers) when I use a Mine-a-conda, I can't even imagine trying to feed double that number!

I use nine on the anaconda when I mine and eight on the python - three class 2 lasers on both ships and those limpets don't have a hope in hell of keeping up with the fragments. I don't care because I'd rather have more cargo space; mining is chilled gameplay for me not a race, but I'd have thought maybe 15ish would be what it takes to keep up with 3 class 2 lasers.

If by keeping up with them you mean flushing rubbish out of your bins though, don't bother - just collect the lot and then each time your collectors expire, drop all the rubbish and thrust down to blow it up, or just fly out of collector range of it before you launch a new set. The only time I get into micro-managing my bins is when my cargo hold is full and it makes no difference whether you keep up with the limpets or not at that point because nothing is going into your hold anyway, you can just wait until a refinery bin is 100% full of bertie or whatever other crap it may be and then flush it.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Seventeen collector limpets?

But...why?

I like swarms of limpets, though I wouldn't want to do it now with the ridiculously slow limpet deployment that 2.1 brought us.
Most I ever used was 20

It means you don't need to worry about wildly tumbling roids sending the fragments all over the place. I know how to place the fragment stream near the cargo scoop, which makes huge numbers of colectors unnecesary. But I found that I spent more time finding roids that this works for and aligning the ship than was saved. So MOAR limpets!!

 

[Red Anders]

@Dbrn47 These collectors I have collect multiple items and stay with me from asteroid to asteroid.

Regarding this, yes all limpets do that providing that when you first launch them you don't have a fragment targeted. If you do have something targeted, the collector will collect that item and then expire. It's not that some limpets do it and a different kind don't, if you have something targeted and launch a collector it basically behaves as a one-shot collector. If you don't believe me, next time you go out shoot just one fragment off an asteroid as soon as you drop into the ring, target it and then launch one collector, keeping the fragment targeted all the time. Watch it deliver your fragment and then explode.

The other reason it may be happening is that if the next fragment the limpets decide to collect is either inside an asteroid, or their path takes them through an asteroids spin, each one will try to collect it and explode one after the other. If you then launch new ones to replace them, they will also do the same thing, forever, until you stop.

Last option - if you're parked over a spinning asteroid it's possible to launch your limptets so that they fly into the asteroid immediately. That will also see them blow up.

Remember, limpets are phenomenally stupid with less direction-finding ability than a Big Trak. If you don't know what a Big Trak is, ask your dad.

 

[CMDR Rusty Dog]

Your questions have been answered well. So I'm going to be picky.

An Anaconda only has enough power to properly use 3 medium mining lasers, unless you are using an engineered power distributor.
You could easily add more collector controllers. Cargo space isn't so important unless you are planning on spending several hours per mining trip. I used to use 17 active collector limpets on my Anaconda, or as few a 12 when I needed a fuel scoop or scanners. More active limpets makes mining much faster, though FalconFly's suggestion of aligning the fragment stream is a very good technique when asteroids are stationary or spining slowly.

I'm using a freshly bought unmodded Anaconda and it's handling 4 lasers very well. 1xhuge 1xlarge 2xmedims. It strips asteroids clean in seconds.
9 collectors is way enough I'm finding. I usually have only 4 or 5 out at a time anyway. Also if they do all follow the same path and hit a spinning asteroid, I don't want to lose 13 in one sweep

I have followed FalconFly's suggestion of aligning the belly of the ship to the fragments and it's working a treat.

You didn't mention if you were using prospector limpets. You should always use these, it speeds things up a lot. One 1A prospector controller is sufficient.

If all you want to do is reach 500 tons as quickly as possible, mine everything. It doesn't need to be profitable. But do lookout for painite to take to Selene later.

I have 1 prospector controller but again I rarely use it unless I have a bin I need to fill up because it's almost full.
Otherwise there's no point for me as I am just mining anything and everything to reach 500t. I'm at 403t now which means I've mined 333t in two days (around 2-3hrs each time).
On the first day I already managed to acquire the necessary 10t of Painite which was great. Today even though I mined twice as much I only got 3 tonnes.

Pristine metallic rings are the best to mine in. Use ed utilities to fing one near you.

Already there. I researched it a little before starting so I knew which system to fly to even though it had no nav beacon so I had to detour and stick on an advanced scanner then re-refit again, grrr. I'm in HIP 67120 (4th planet)

If an asteroid rotates over top of a fragment, it ends up inside the asteroid for a while. Limpets that try to collect these fragments will die. So either select stationary roids, or watch where they are rotation and plan where you drill them.

Noted, thanks ! I've certainly been more careful with these since FalconFly's response. I really thought 500t was going to be a slog but it actually isn't when you have a decent setup. I did spend 200m on the Anaconda which I`ll sell when done but it's been a great experience so perhaps once Selene Jean is satisfied I`ll buy a Clipper and kit that out for future mining.

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Regarding this, yes all limpets do that providing that when you first launch them you don't have a fragment targeted. If you do have something targeted, the collector will collect that item and then expire.

Aah I see what you mean ! Good tip !! Not that I've been targeting them at all but on occasion I do to see how far away they are so I can position closer. I`ll watch that in future.

Remember, limpets are phenomenally stupid with less direction-finding ability than a Big Trak. If you don't know what a Big Trak is, ask your dad.

I'm 49yrs old so I know Big Trak. I always wanted one and never got one . My Dad, unfortunately, is long passed away but he wouldn't have known what it was anyway.
Beeeeeeeeeep....bip beep bip beep beep.....

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

I have 1 prospector controller but again I rarely use it unless I have a bin I need to fill up because it's almost full.
Otherwise there's no point for me as I am just mining anything and everything to reach 500t.

I do a fair bit of strip mining, including in rocky, metal rich and icy rings. I've tested whether it's more efficient to use prospector limpets doing this or not. I found that it was much faster to fill an Anaconda by using a prospector on each roid before drilling it than it was to not use prospectors at all. This was pre 2.1 and using lots of collector limpets, so it may be a little different now.

 

[V'larr]

Prospectors increase the output of each asteroid if you mine it with the limpet active, right?

 

[Codger]

I recently did my first mining trip for Selene as well. Don't forget to keep 10T of Painite. If you don't get 10T of Painite, stay till you do. Otherwise you'll just have to go back for it, it's the next thing she wants.


If you're interested in my little mining story, it's here:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/275248-The-Zen-of-Mining

PS I've watched some of your videos, very nice!

 

[Red Anders]

Prospectors increase the output of each asteroid if you mine it with the limpet active, right?

Even if you don't as far as I recall, as long as it's been prospected you get the extra fragments even if the prospector expires before you start mining. Although if the prospector does expire before you start mining, presumably because you're using a multiple prospector controller (thanks once again FD for finally fixing them ♥) and still mining the last rock, we're back to MOAR LAZORZ

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Even if you don't as far as I recall, as long as it's been prospected you get the extra fragments even if the prospector expires before you start mining.

I always assumed it reverted back to the original. I'm going to have to test that sometime soon.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

For all I can tell, once Prospected - always Prospected (unless you leave the local Mineral Distribution Instance of ~8-10km and it gets re-randomized; would be tough to find a specific Asteroid again over that Range though).
Only when losing connection or logging out to Menu & Back a new Prospector is needed, Asteroids then lose their "has been prospected" status.

Full Fragment count, but you don't get the "Asteroid Depleted" Message of course.
So I made it a habit to keep a live Prospector on them, but should it expire I'll continue mining it and rely on the oldschool secondary hints (SFX & no new visible fragments).