Ship's Log FSN INDEPENDENCE: Home again

[Mohenjo]

Ship's Log FSN INDEPENDENCE, May 8 3307

After years in the deep, the Independence has returned home, having surveyed hundreds of planets and star systems. We departed from Nauni, on course to Eta Carinae, scanning and surveying all the way. After arriving at Eta Carinae, we surveyed the system, then set out for home, stopping only to scan and map any earth-type or ammonia atmosphere planets we came across. After a brief stop in the Pencil Sector for repairs, we carried on back to civilized space, and this morning docked in the HIP 40786 star system, docking at Bunch Enterprise base.

Sale of our data yielded an excellent 77 million credits, allowing the repurchase of the mining ship (Class 7 transport) Nostromo. The plan now is to return to mining. I gather there are several new tools and methods to do this, so I'll need to learn how it works, all over again. This is what happens when you don't do something for a while, you kind of forget how.
As such, for the time being, this marks the final log of the Independence for the time being.

Mohenjo, Commanding FSN INDEPENDENCE, signing off.

 

[Gwyther]

Welcome back home.

 

[Mohenjo]

Aaargh.

So, I kitted my Type 7 for mining, and cruised out to the rings of a planet.

The surface scanner effect on rings is new, and cool. Drop into a Platinum hotspot. Nifty.
The Pulse Wave Analyzer is new, and cool. Shows me a few yellow highlighted asteroids.

So, I fly over to one, pop a prospector into it and get the results. Several surface deposits, and the usual regular mineral content.

The Abrasion Blaster is new... but kind of a bland thing. Doesn't really produce much resources, but is useful when cracking open asteroids, I gather.
Mining Laser to get the basic materials, and move on.

The next yellow asteroid is much the same, and so on for several more. Eventually, I find one with subsurface deposits.

The Subsurface Displacement Missile is new and cool... if a little hard to use. It's going to take practice, but no worries.

Putter around for a few hours, and then I find one with fissures. THIS is what I'd been hoping to find, to crack open one of these asteroids. I target the fissure with the Displacement Missile... but nothing. A few more tries... nothing.

So I go back to base, sell my goods, then look online to see what's what. Ah, says I, it needs a different device the Seismic Charge Launcher. Funny, I didn't see that for sale at the station I'm at. I'll look online. Turns out the thing doesn't seem to exist. My build at Coriolis doesn't even LIST the Seismic Charge Launcher.

So, I do a little more looking around and discover it requires a class 2 weapon slot (Medium). Now, I'm depressed and ticked off.

The Type 7 doesn't HAVE a class 2 slot. I mean... cargo ships are the ones who are MOST likely to be doing mining... so why would they make one of the pieces of equipment so almost none of the ships can USE it?

Is there a way to change that? Is there an Engineer or something that will upgrade a slot to a higher level, or reduce the level of a piece of equipment?

 

[Mohenjo]

Aaargh.

So, I kitted my Type 7 for mining, and cruised out to the rings of a planet.

The surface scanner effect on rings is new, and cool. Drop into a Platinum hotspot. Nifty.
The Pulse Wave Analyzer is new, and cool. Shows me a few yellow highlighted asteroids.

So, I fly over to one, pop a prospector into it and get the results. Several surface deposits, and the usual regular mineral content.

The Abrasion Blaster is new... but kind of a bland thing. Doesn't really produce much resources, but is useful when cracking open asteroids, I gather.
Mining Laser to get the basic materials, and move on.

The next yellow asteroid is much the same, and so on for several more. Eventually, I find one with subsurface deposits.

The Subsurface Displacement Missile is new and cool... if a little hard to use. It's going to take practice, but no worries.

Putter around for a few hours, and then I find one with fissures. THIS is what I'd been hoping to find, to crack open one of these asteroids. I target the fissure with the Displacement Missile... but nothing. A few more tries... nothing.

So I go back to base, sell my goods, then look online to see what's what. Ah, says I, it needs a different device the Seismic Charge Launcher. Funny, I didn't see that for sale at the station I'm at. I'll look online. Turns out the thing doesn't seem to exist. My build at Coriolis doesn't even LIST the Seismic Charge Launcher.

So, I do a little more looking around and discover it requires a class 2 weapon slot (Medium). Now, I'm depressed and ticked off.

The Type 7 doesn't HAVE a class 2 slot. I mean... cargo ships are the ones who are MOST likely to be doing mining... so why would they make one of the pieces of equipment so almost none of the ships can USE it?

Is there a way to change that? Is there an Engineer or something that will upgrade a slot to a higher level, or reduce the level of a piece of equipment?

Oh, and I forgot to say... after HOURS in that Platinum "hotspot" I didn't see a single asteroid with Platinum in it...

 

[space voyager]

Funny, I didn't see that for sale at the station I'm at. I'll look online.

The big problem with Elite. Go out of the game to find... ANYthing.

So, I do a little more looking around and discover it requires a class 2 weapon slot (Medium). Now, I'm depressed and ticked off.

The Type 7 doesn't HAVE a class 2 slot. I mean... cargo ships are the ones who are MOST likely to be doing mining... so why would they make one of the pieces of equipment so almost none of the ships can USE it?

Is there a way to change that? Is there an Engineer or something that will upgrade a slot to a higher level, or reduce the level of a piece of equipment?

No way to change that. You can use a bigger cargo ship though. Type 7 is a conraversial ship all-round. Not fitting on a medium landing pad, not having a single medium mount... Sorry.

 

[Mohenjo]

It is what it is. Perhaps if they gave the Type 7 one medium hardpoint (the top one), it would help the ship. I mean, it could use all the mining gear, or if acting as a transport, would be SLIGHTLY better able to defend herself.

 

[Orvidius]

Something that's always annoyed me about the T7 is that the bottom hardpoint is off center, simply because there are two hardpoint doors there. It appears that it was originally intended to have 5 hardpoints instead of 4, but then it was decided that the 5th one wouldn't be used. So I think the ideal solution is to rework that part of the hull, center the hardpoint, and upgrade it to a medium size.

 

[GroG79]

Seismic change launcher you say?
@Kenneth McGrew

And for Platinum mining you go to metallic rings.. You can find Platinum core rocks but laser mining is sooo much faster (pick up the osmium too)