Surface Mining for Mats

[Abysinth]

When we mine for mats here on Terra Firma a vein is found and that is dug out.

I suggest a new SRV for mining [drill and what ever] plus the detailed surface scanner for finding these sub-surface veins of raw mats then use this new SRV for mining them out.

veins could have 10 units [v. common] up to, say, 1,000 units [v. rare] for returning to at a later date, with the discoverer Cmdr hoping to keep them secret or sharing them to their fellow Cmdrs or publically

 

[Sysmon]

All sorts of ways we mine on Earth. Open pit mines for disseminated metals and complex near-surface vein systems, underground for stuff too deep for surface pits and stuff that's more structurally controlled. Dredging including suction dredging for sloppy near-shore and off-shore stuff. And don't get me started on oil and gas. Farming is pseudo-renewable blue sky mining.

The current system may be a bit simple, but it's a start. Maybe when the good old (Frontier/FE) mining machines are reintroduced, we can pretend they are doing just that. Then we can have all sorts of fun stealing each others loot.

S