I didn't think it was to bad. It was the first time I tried mining in the game. I read through some of the mining tips on this forum, out fitted my Python for mining and I was done in a couple hours. The one that I thought sucked was doing the 5,000 light year trip for Palin. It was my first exploration trip and I tried to get excited about it, but by the end I couldn't wait for it to be done.