Subsurface mining builds

[FullMetalDad]

I have not suggested neither the type-9 or the Cutter because of their lack of agility. I may do some tests in the type-9 or the Cutter later to see if their collector numbers and cargo capabilities can offset the lack of agility.

I took my T9 out to the new triple last night with two subsurface launchers on the outer medium hardpoints (medium mining laser in center) and can confirm your observation with the Cutter: "the missiles will not hit the deposit if you are centering the reticle on it."

However, I used fixed missile racks and not turreted - perhaps this could help as I noticed in your Cutter build you also had fixed. This made it very difficult to adjust for aiming. Coupled with the general lack of agility, I had to pass on many subsurface deposits on rotating asteroids. I also went through both banks of ammo missing terribly and had to synthesize ammo to finish up.

But when I could hit, the mining was good. Might try a test run with turreted missile launchers to see if that fixed the aiming reticle problem. I have A-rated un-engineered thrusters, so engineering might make some (small) difference.

Thanks for the build info.

 

[ErichZann]

Yeah the Corvette should be great for mining whereever you don't need a good jumprange.

I just can't bring myself to use that battleship for mining... Anaconda and Python have much more of a miner vibe.

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

I just can't bring myself to use that battleship for mining...

As stated above - it does remove all fear of having to relog and deal with the NPC pirates spawning. They did manage to get a few LTDs out of my hold with hatchbreakers, but did not survive long enough to scoop them. My collectors swiftly put them back in the correct place once the commotion had settled.

Nothing wrong with mining with teeth. I think I do still prefer the Python for pure mining, but the Corvette experience was surpisingly positive.

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

However, I used fixed missile racks and not turreted - perhaps this could help as I noticed in your Cutter build you also had fixed.

This actually never occurred to me and I am unsure if mining turrets work in this fashion. Worth testing though - I am sure I can find some carrier that sells them around Kirre’s Icebox.

 

[Kamiyoda]

This actually never occurred to me and I am unsure if mining turrets work in this fashion. Worth testing though - I am sure I can find some carrier that sells them around Kirre’s Icebox.

Let me save you some time. Nope none of them work automatically in turrets.

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

Let me save you some time. Nope none of them work automatically in turrets.

Did you check this for all turret settings?

I mean, once you get the hang of your hardpoint placements it is not difficult to compensate. It is slightly funny to keep aiming to the left of the deposit for 90% of the run and then switch to aiming to the right because the ammo on the first launcher ran out.

The fixed versions also require less power.

 

[Kamiyoda]

Did you check this for all turret settings?

I mean, once you get the hang of your hardpoint placements it is not difficult to compensate. It is slightly funny to keep aiming to the left of the deposit for 90% of the run and then switch to aiming to the right because the ammo on the first launcher ran out.

The fixed versions also require less power.

Yeah, not just me either. It's one of the first things people tried with the new mining equipment. Though I'm not surprised.

 

[FullMetalDad]

This actually never occurred to me and I am unsure if mining turrets work in this fashion. Worth testing though - I am sure I can find some carrier that sells them around Kirre’s Icebox.

Tried a new layout for the hardpoints on the T9 miner: 2B subsurface missile in center and two 2D mining lasers on sides, with two 1B subsurface missiles in the small hardpoints. With this configuration, I had no problems aiming at the reticle with either the medium or small, and never ran out of ammo on smalls. Two medium lasers just help fill bins while looking for subsurface deposits. YMMV

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

I had another outing in the Corvette and managed to fill it up completely in 46 minutes using only the ammo of one of the launchers. I was doing pretty well in the mini-game though and would still recommend going with two to be certain.

 

[Alien]

With the rise of subsurface mining (and just in case it will not be nerfed into the ground in short order), I have put together a few possible builds for anyone wanting to get into subsurface mining. Below I give the Coriolis links for both an unengineered and an engineered version of each ship and discuss the pros and cons.

The general build philosophy is:

1. All necessary equipment on board: Surface scanner, refinery, prospector, sub-surface displacement missile launcher, cargo racks.
2. As many collectors as possible and a bumper shield.
3. Additional mining lasers to fill up the cargo hold quickly if only a couple of tons remain to full cargo.
4. A reasonable amount of cargo space.
5. Maximal speed possible by having the best thrusters.
6. Maximal FSD range.
7. No fuel scoop. This choice may be evaluated on a personal basis regarding access to carriers and/or other refuel options.
8. For the engineered builds, the most important modification is the thruster upgrades.
9. Hardpoints not used for mining have been left empty. Feel free to fill them with weapons of choice (whether offensive weapons to fight NPC pirates or core mining equipment).

Python: The usual suspect
Total cargo: 192 t
Refinery slots: 6
Prospectors: 2
Collectors: 8
Speed/boost speed: 267/348 m/s (engineered: 388/507 m/s)
Unengineered
Engineered
The Python is a very good ship for many purposes, including subsurface mining. A lot of cargo space and 8 collector limpets and a fair amount of speed as well as agility. This should be the baseline ship (although I am biased here).

I used this ^^ as a basis for a surface mining build.
Things I learned ....

• How to use the detailed surface scanner to highlight the hotspots in a gas giant's ring
• For surface mining I don't need the pulse wave analyzer and subsurface displacement missile launcher
• I kept the fuel scoop instead of a 2nd prospector limpet controller
• In order to see what the asteroid has, I needed to target the prospector limpet as it's flying to the asteroid
• I needed to look in the bottom left corner at the target info panel
• This panel (not the left hand navigation panel, it's to the left of the hologram of what you have targetted) also tells me how much materials the asteroid as (starts at 100% and as * you shoot mining lasers at it, goes down to 0%) and how much of the different materials the asteroid has, for example, 18.75% Low temperature diamonds
• How to set materials to ignore so the limpets don't pick them up (look in the navigation panel under contacts tab, scroll down and highlight what it is, which might also have multiple materials in the same line, then to the right of that line it says "add [material] to the ignore list"

On my fourth attempt at mining since I ever started playing ED on day 1 of the Alpha .... I finally know how to do mining (surface mining ... not tried sub-surface and deep core mining yet)

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

I used this ^^ as a basis for a surface mining build.
Things I learned ....

• How to use the detailed surface scanner to highlight the hotspots in a gas giant's ring
• For surface mining I don't need the pulse wave analyzer and subsurface displacement missile launcher
• I kept the fuel scoop instead of a 2nd prospector limpet controller
• In order to see what the asteroid has, I needed to target the prospector limpet as it's flying to the asteroid
• I needed to look in the bottom left corner at the target info panel
• This panel (not the left hand navigation panel, it's to the left of the hologram of what you have targetted) also tells me how much materials the asteroid as (starts at 100% and as * you shoot mining lasers at it, goes down to 0%) and how much of the different materials the asteroid has, for example, 18.75% Low temperature diamonds
• How to set materials to ignore so the limpets don't pick them up (look in the navigation panel under contacts tab, scroll down and highlight what it is, which might also have multiple materials in the same line, then to the right of that line it says "add [material] to the ignore list"

On my fourth attempt at mining since I ever started playing ED on day 1 of the Alpha .... I finally know how to do mining (surface mining ... not tried sub-surface and deep core mining yet)

Yes, the builds are fairly similar to laser mining builds with a number of tweaks. There are however a lot of guides already on how to make a laser mining ship and my focus here was to provide specialized sub-surface miners.

 

[Alien]

Yes, the builds are fairly similar to laser mining builds with a number of tweaks. There are however a lot of guides already on how to make a laser mining ship and my focus here was to provide specialized sub-surface miners.

I didn't know how to do a mining build, despite watching youtube guides and other guides .... your guide literally laid it out for me, so thank you.

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

Update: I have added another Anaconda build. This time with the added philosophy of being self-sufficient in that it can travel back and forth to the Bubble without the help of fleet carriers or switching out any equipment. It sports a size 6 fuel scoop, has a slightly smaller shield and 2 collectors less than the original Anaconda builds. The unengineered version has a laden jump range of 21 ly, but the engineered version can jump 39 ly laden with 256 tons of LTDs. This is without any Guardian FSD booster. I will also add two options with FSD boosters shortly.

Edit: Done, added the FSD booster builds.

 

[Dorray]

I mix subsurface with core mining. 440M in 1.5hrs is my record.

 

[Alien]

Update: I have added another Anaconda build. This time with the added philosophy of being self-sufficient in that it can travel back and forth to the Bubble without the help of fleet carriers or switching out any equipment. It sports a size 6 fuel scoop, has a slightly smaller shield and 2 collectors less than the original Anaconda builds. The unengineered version has a laden jump range of 21 ly, but the engineered version can jump 39 ly laden with 256 tons of LTDs. This is without any Guardian FSD booster. I will also add two options with FSD boosters shortly.

Edit: Done, added the FSD booster builds.

I'd be very much interested in surface mining builds .... I think you could tap into a need in the community for ship builds for different roles/scenarios

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

I'd be very much interested in surface mining builds .... I think you could tap into a need in the community for ship builds for different roles/scenarios

To be honest, I find that there are quite a number of guides on laser mining already. For example, there are a number of suggested builds over at the EliteMiners subreddit. I am not sure that I would add much to that discussion.

I am also not really qualified to offer advice on how to build anything but mining ships. While I do dabble in other activities like exploration, combat, and trading from time to time - I spend a lot more time mining.

 

[Lowbee]

Let's see what happens to mining after the update. Hope it's not on the nerf list.

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

Let's see what happens to mining after the update. Hope it's not on the nerf list.

Indeed, let's see. Servers should go offline any minute now and patch notes should follow.

 

[[VR] Orodruin]

Nerfed:

Mining

• Reduced the largest possible yield when subsurface mining for Low Temperature Diamonds by around 25%.
• Decreased the effectiveness of the peripheries of Low Temperature Diamond hotspots.
  • Overlapping hotspots for Low Temperature Diamonds, when coupled with the new Subsurface Mining changes, were more effective than the centre of the hotspot itself. This change increases the drop-off of the hotspot's ring, reducing the likelihood that a double-overlapped hotspot is more lucrative than either of the hotspot's centrepoints. A well-placed triple hotspot will still be very effective at increasing the likelihood of finding Low Temperature Diamonds. This change does not affect any other hotspots or minerals.

It remains to be evaluated how much.

 

[Exterminatus93]

The translator does not translate it very well, the laser mining is not affected, right?

And with the ****(fdev you should not know) method, what difference does it make to reduce it by 25%, which can be 2-3 fragments per underground area