Newcomer / Intro Raw Materials and the '3-2-1' Rule

jpjeffrey

jpjeffrey
I read elsewhere in the forums that Raw Materials were likely to be found according to the '3-2-1' rule, as follows

SURFACE

3 x Common
2 x Standard
1 x Rare

PLANETARY RINGS
3 x Common
2 x Standard
0 x Rare

Not sure if this information is outdated, but the INARA website lists FIVE types of raw materials (in terms of being Very Common up to Very Rare) ie

Very Common: Carbon, Iron, Nickel, Phosphorus, Sulphur
Common: Chromium, Germanium, Manganese, Vanadium, Zinc
Standard: Arsenic, Niobium, Selenium, Tungsten, Zirconium
Rare: Cadmium, Mercury, Molybdenum, Tin, Yttrium
Very Rare: Antimony, Polonium, Ruthenium, Technetium, Tellurium

Q. Can anyone tell me if these 5 categories fit in with the '3-2-1' rule? Is it still current, or has it been replaced..?

Q. Also, for ASTEROIDS - is the likelihood the same as for Planetary Rings (ie just less rocks to choose from..?)
 

Maymo

Maymo
jpjeffrey said:
I read elsewhere in the forums that Raw Materials were likely to be found according to the '3-2-1' rule, as follows

SURFACE

3 x Common
2 x Standard
1 x Rare

PLANETARY RINGS
3 x Common
2 x Standard
0 x Rare

Not sure if this information is outdated, but the INARA website lists FIVE types of raw materials (in terms of being Very Common up to Very Rare) ie

Very Common: Carbon, Iron, Nickel, Phosphorus, Sulphur
Common: Chromium, Germanium, Manganese, Vanadium, Zinc
Standard: Arsenic, Niobium, Selenium, Tungsten, Zirconium
Rare: Cadmium, Mercury, Molybdenum, Tin, Yttrium
Very Rare: Antimony, Polonium, Ruthenium, Technetium, Tellurium

Q. Can anyone tell me if these 5 categories fit in with the '3-2-1' rule? Is it still current, or has it been replaced..?

Q. Also, for ASTEROIDS - is the likelihood the same as for Planetary Rings (ie just less rocks to choose from..?)
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about conventional mining, but I think that looks about right when mining on planets.

A trend I've noticed when scavenging for materials (both elements and manufactured) is that 'very rare' materials are often easier to get than 'rare' materials. At least for the upgrades I want to make for my ships they are anyway.

On planet surfaces, metallic meteorites not only have a very distinctive tone on the scanner but they have a tendency to come in packs of 3 and they each yield lots of chunks. This often leads to me scooping up plenty of 'very rare' materials yet still struggling to get my hands on an awkward 'rare'.
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
AFAIO, it's more like 5-3-2-1 rule.
You always have all the very common ones, 3 of the common and standard ones (grouped together), two rares, one ultra rare.
 
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jpjeffrey

jpjeffrey
Thanks for the info guys

Just a few follow-up questions....

(sorry, I'm like a dog with a bone sometimes!)


1 ASTEROIDS
So, same forumla as Planetary Rings.... ? (just fewer rocks)


2. The 'chances' of discovering any particular raw material

Take this case in point:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/308075-End-of-the-Road/page25

This is a link to page 25 of the now-famous 56,000ly rescue mission by CDR Chiggy to save CDR Macedonia, who needed 1 unit of Germanium to escape the system he was stranded in

At page 25 of the link, someone estimates his chances of finding Germanium at .75

Just on the face of it, it looks to me that the chances of finding Germanium were 5 out of 10 = 50%
BUT ... I'm very weak at maths; perhaps some MatheMagician can explain the probability calculation for me..?

(ie if you have, say, 3 shots x 50%, does this get you up to 75%...?)

- and, for anyone who doesn't know - Yep, they found Germanium! (at about page 29 of that link)

Thanks again for all the help
 

Limoncello Lizard

Limoncello Lizard
I do most of my material mining in metal rich or rocky rings. for mats it's metal rich > rocky > metallic > icy. I haven't mined very often in asteroid clusters, but I have never noticed any difference, though there are too few roids to get an accurate picture.

All the ingredioents for +50% jumponium are in rings: vanadium, germanium, cadmium and niobium.

jpjeffrey said:
2. The 'chances' of discovering any particular raw material
Click to expand...
It all depends on the specific ring. Unfortunately there isn't anything in the game to help this.

I have been doing some testing of mining for materials. Each ring is consistent in what materials you can get from it. How much you get is always going to be affected by RNG, but the materials available don't change.

For instance, testing in I-Carinae 5 (an earthlike with 2 rocky rings) the A-ring gave chromium, manganese, vanadium and cadmium, but the B-ring gave chromium, germanium, zirconium and niobium. So all the +50% jumponium mats, plus a few more. But looking in these rings for arsenic, tin or tungsten would be futile.

I found a nice ring with both arsenic (3%) and tungsten (1%) last night. Ross 467 1, also an earthlike, but with a metal-rich ring.

I have also been testing ringed landable planets to see if there is any corelation between the planet metalicity and the rings, but I have found the rings to be different.
 

Taronas

Taronas
Interesting topic, thanks. Mined my first germanium on a planet yesterday!

Then I wanted to try some mining in a belt. Shortly after I dropped there from SC three NPCs appear, pretty high rank, apparently looking after my cargo. Fortunately I had none and quickly jumped away, without doing any mining :(

Since this was a zero population system I assume that random NPCs will always spawn around me in mining locations? Or is there a trick to remain undisturbed?
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
Taronas said:
Interesting topic, thanks. Mined my first germanium on a planet yesterday!

Then I wanted to try some mining in a belt. Shortly after I dropped there from SC three NPCs appear, pretty high rank, apparently looking after my cargo. Fortunately I had none and quickly jumped away, without doing any mining :(

Since this was a zero population system I assume that random NPCs will always spawn around me in mining locations? Or is there a trick to remain undisturbed?
Click to expand...

You will meet ships everywhere in the inhabited space and even about 500LY from the "borders" of it. Even the seemingly uninhabited ones.

When you drop into the asteroid ring there's always someone following you, "checking up on you". If you're in a high security system, there is a pretty good chance it will be cops, sometimes it's another miner, otherwise it's pirates.
But don't worry too much. If you don't have anything in your cargo hold, they will just scan you and leave you alone (in 90% of cases). Or you can start boosting immediately after dropping and simply vanish from the radar of anyone who could have followed you.
 
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Limoncello Lizard

Limoncello Lizard
Taronas said:
Since this was a zero population system I assume that random NPCs will always spawn around me in mining locations? Or is there a trick to remain undisturbed?
Click to expand...
You will always get NPCs, usually pirates, anywhere within 500ly of the bubble. It's a bit silly, but this is a game.

If you only have limpets in your hold, they will ignore you. If you do find that you had forgotten a couple of units of cargo, drop it for the pirate than he will go away happy. Or you could either fight, or boost away until you see the pirate has high waked out of the ring.

Just avoid mining in a RES and you will be left alone. Just never log out in a ring once you have started mining as you will get pirates after your freshly mined cargo once you log back in.
 
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jpjeffrey

jpjeffrey
Hi all
After reading the responses to this thread I decided to conduct a little private survey of planets I passed.
It's not very scientific; I'm 44,000 ly from Sol, heading towards Beagle Point; my objective is to simply get there, accumulating scan data along the way.

Having read the responses, I simply checked out the next 50 'landable' planets I encountered and scanned with the DSS.

- I ignored moons, asteroids, 'cue balls', and planetary rings.
(Yes, these can be a source of minerals, but they didn't fit in with my itinerary plan (= 1000 ly per session, then back to real life! :) )

Anyhow, here's what I found:
(hope this image gets included ok, I'm not very experienced at this)

SOThdTy

Conclusions:
(based on this VERY limited sample)

Just to recap, the 5 categories of minerals are

1. VERY COMMON - Carbon, Iron, Nickel, Phosphorus, Sulphur
2. COMMON - Chromium, Germanium, Manganese, Vanadium, Zinc
3. STANDARD - Arsenic, Niobium, Selenium, Tungsten, Zirconium
4. RARE - Cadmium, Mercury, Molybdenum, Tin, Yttrium
5. VERY RARE - Antimony, Polonium, Ruthenium, Technetium, Tellurium


There are some odd exceptions (see the table in the graphic) but overwhelmingly these conclusions seem to be borne out:

Conclusion 1:
All 5 of the Very Common minerals are ALWAYS present
(spot on, Chris Simon! :) )
- this means that you can refuel, repair and rearm your SRV on any landable planet - ie these are all accomplished with 'very common' minerals

Conclusion 2:
There'll always be at ONE 'very rare' mineral, but no more than one.
If you're not using a DSS, and are just on the surface prospecting 'on spec' for a particular 'very rare' mineral- then, if you find a 'very rare' mineral that isn't the one you're looking for, you'd best move on to the next planet etc.

Conclusion 3:
Normally, there'll be a total of 11 minerals available.
Five of these are 'very common' and one is 'very rare'.

The remaining five are allocated across the remaining 3 categories (COMMON, STANDARD, RARE) in a range of possibilities, as follows:

COMMON - STANDARD - RARE
3-1-1
2-2-1
(the above are the most common, but I have experience almost every other combination - see the graphic)

Hope this helps!

As always, any commentary welcome.

In particular - the above only applies to the LANDABLE PLANETS I encountered; I wonder if anyone can confirm (or otherwise) that the same principles apply to MOONS, ASTEROIDS, and PLANETARY RINGS
 

Mazelinho

M
jpjeffrey said:
Q. Can anyone tell me if these 5 categories fit in with the '3-2-1' rule? Is it still current, or has it been replaced..?

Q. Also, for ASTEROIDS - is the likelihood the same as for Planetary Rings (ie just less rocks to choose from..?)
Click to expand...

Not replaced but rather folded.

I cannot tell much about rings but I did some extensive SRV scouting back then.

When Horizons launched materials where divided into 4 categories instead of 5 since IIRC engineers.

very common: iron nickel carbon sulphur phosphor
common: zinc manganese selenium chromium vanadium germanium arsenic zirconium
rare: tin cadmium tungsten molybdenum niobium mercury
very rare: yttrium tellurium polonium technetium ruthenium antimon

The 3-2-1 rule applies to this table: a planet has (exactly) 3 common, 2 rare and 1 very material. A landable body features all very common materials with the exception of metal-rich world. These only have iron and nickel from the "very common" set.

So this rule could also be called the 5(2)-3-2-1 rule.

Beginning with engineers Frontier changed the number of material categories from 4 to 5: very common, common, standard, rare and very rare. Frontier adjusted the spawning tables (from my observation) accordingly.

However, the 5(2)-3-2-1 distribution rule hasn't changed with engineers. For this reason if a planet has yttrium (rare, post-engineers) you'll never find e.g. antimon (very rare, post-engineers) on the same planet since both yttrium and antimon are in the same pre-engineers category introduced with the release of horizons.

Hope this helps and you are not too confused. :p
 

YinYin

YinYin
jpjeffrey said:
I wonder if anyone can confirm (or otherwise) that the same principles apply to [...] ASTEROIDS, and PLANETARY RINGS
Click to expand...

Rocky and metal rich asteroid locations (individual belt cluster or ring) follow the 5-3-2-0 rule.

Most icy asteroid locations follow the 5-3-2-0 rule, with some exceptions missing the very common metals (iron and nickel).

Most metallic asteroid locations follow the 5-3-2-0 rule, with some exceptions missing the very common non metals (carbon, sulphur, phosphorus).
 

Limoncello Lizard

Limoncello Lizard
Are you using the "Insert Image" function? It only works on URLs, not from files.
Or you can wrap the url in IMG code:
[ IMG]http://imgur.com/SOThdTy[/IMG ] (take the spaces out of the text)
 
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goemon

goemon
the 3-2-1 rule was set up, when there where 4 groups of materials ingame, not 5:

(All) Very Common: Carbon (C), Iron (Fe), Nickel (Ni), Phosphorus (P) and Sulphur (S)
(3) Common: Arsenic (As), Chromium (Cr), Germanium (Ge), Manganese (Mn), Selenium (Se), Vanadium (V), Zinc (Zn) and Zirconium (Zr)
(2) Rare: Cadmium (Cd), Mercury (Hg), Molybdenum (Mo), Niobium (Nb), Tin (Sn) and Tungsten (W)
(1) Very Rare: Antimony (Sb), Polonium (Po), Ruthenium (Ru), Technetium (Tc), Tellurium (Te) and Yttrium (Y)

as planets (and rings having 3 +2) still follow the old grouping and rule, the new grouping into 5 just don't fit.
 

Rob Galaxy

Rob Galaxy
I cannot confirm these days, that Arsenic is common. I spent the last three days jumping around to find Arsenic. Visited the common known moons/planets in CUPIAT, DECIAT, etc.
But Arsenic dropped completely rare, so I managed to get only 10 Arsenic in a search which last in sum about 36 hours game time.
On the other hand I am now filled up with tons of Yttrium, Polonium, Ruthenium, Antimony, Molybdenum, Cadmium, Mercury and all the other rares.
They dropped extremely high and often instead of Arsenic on the moons.
 

goemon

goemon
Rob Galaxy said:
I cannot confirm these days, that Arsenic is common. I spent the last three days jumping around to find Arsenic. Visited the common known moons/planets in CUPIAT, DECIAT, etc.
But Arsenic dropped completely rare, so I managed to get only 10 Arsenic in a search which last in sum about 36 hours game time.
On the other hand I am now filled up with tons of Yttrium, Polonium, Ruthenium, Antimony, Molybdenum, Cadmium, Mercury and all the other rares.
They dropped extremely high and often instead of Arsenic on the moons.
Click to expand...

as drops from different sources (mesodorites and outcrop for exampel) use "slots" to determine the material found, arsenic "slots" are very often "eaten up" by other common materials; a good arsenic source not only has a high percentage of arsenic, but also low percentage of the other two "common" materials on the planet...

that said, i usually get my arsenic from barnacles or fumaroles these days, as it is more relieable.

also, "common" was just the ingame category when surface prospecting was introduced, the 3-2-1 rule applies to the original grouping... common was never common ;-)
 

Blackbeard

Blackbeard
Limoncello Lizard said:
Are you using the "Insert Image" function? It only works on URLs, not from files.
Or you can wrap the url in IMG code:
[ IMG]http://imgur.com/SOThdTy[/IMG ] (take the spaces out of the text)
Click to expand...

You are able to upload image files, also. Just click the "From computer tab" after clicking "Insert image", and then choose the file.
 
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