The Mining discussion thread.

Good Idea?


  • Total voters
    7
Hi guys. I've been mining today in a Cobra with 40T space & 4 bin Refinery. I found a Ring planet with unlabelled Ring type, but its clearly Metallic as I am getting loads of Gold, Plat, Pallad and Silver. Thats all I've been collecting, sometimes they were 50% sized chunks but quite rare. I'd say 4 hours got me 500K but i'm quite new so still a bit rubbish at scooping.
Upgrading the Power Dist really helped and in combat too.

That doesn't sound 'broken' to me.
 
solo mining dosn't peak my interesst much, but i have been curious to try it as a group.
i suspect that having 1-2 miners and 1 dedicated scooper/hauler could be pretty good.
 
Guys, we were testing the game. Its only natural to give testers ability to progress much faster than the paste of the "real" game. Things are not "broken" now, they were buffed for the testing purposes.

Be thankful there was no wipe.

In my experience testing for other MMO's when they are getting ready to set the amounts you get for something like mining they always make it a good amount, then the smallest amount they can possibly imagine using and then settle on something in between those two and to me it sounds like they are attempting to see how low that number can go and still make mining worth while. So in other words its just part of the process, hopefully.

Also this is from a person who is brand new to ED and the thing I notice the most is complete lack of good take off and landing video instructions though some of the fan made tutorial videos have been quite good for earlier versions of the game I never could find anyone who went through all the new gamma tutorials. Oh and the fact that I have heard that you can not group in ED which is a bit ridiculous that they would launch advertising they are an MMO and not having grouping in place.
 
pro-tip #1: Only mine "Metallic" rings/clusters that are either "Pristine" (best) or "Major Reserves" (a bit worse). If you are a really, really patient person, you can go as low as "Common Reserves".
pro-tip #2: Planetary rings are better than clusters, as they have huge amount of asteroids, so it's easier to find good ones.
pro-tip #3: Mine multiple chunks at a time, then scoop them all. Good number of chunks depends on how good you are with scooping (chunks disappear if you take too long), I usually go with 6, but YMMV.
pro-tip #4: The more bins your refinery has - the better, as 6 bin refinery allows you to go for platinum/palladium/gold/silver and still have 2 bins for secondary minerals that add up to a nice bit of change over time. On the other hand, upgrading mining laser or using multiple mining lasers doesn't seem to make a noticeable difference.

Hope this helps :)

Edit:

pro-tip #5: Don't go mining without a shield generator - when you're trying to scoop a chunk of ore 50m from the asteroid surface Bad Things (tm) can happen.
pro-tip #6: When starting to mine a new asteroid always target and check the first chunk of ore - if it's something like 2% palladium / 40% indite move on to the next asteroid, if it's something like 40% palladium / 2% indite keep mining.
 
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I combine mining with exploring. Already ran into some planets with generous rings, 70% silver roids were no exception. However, there is a bio waste load of Poledit... Ledopid... Lepolidite (or whatever it is called) in our universe. A little bit too much if you ask me (no offence). It'll be ironed out in time, I'm sure. To begin with, I enjoy it.
 
Mining: Dangerous

With G2.07, mining has gone too far off the other end.

Before, while I was mining, there were other miners and some system authority flying about in the asteroid cluster. I'm in a Federal system, democracy-level, and I'm Allied with the major faction.

Tonight, in G2.07, I flew in to grab 6 canisters of Bertrandite to complete a mission. By the time I'd broken off 5 pieces, I had the first pirate show up, demanding my cargo.
As soon as I finished with him, another one showed up. I was able to sneak some mining in-between and even during the fights. I had at least 10 back-to-back pirates by the time I left. Luckily for me, I'd hit on an asteroid with 40-50% Bertrandite which helped me reach my goal quickly.

So, FDev, thank you for making Mining a lot more exciting, but can we tone down the number of pirates showing up a bit? Thank you!
 
I was in a Cluster. Not one of the Extraction sites on a ring.

EDIT: To clarify... there are two places to mine. One is in the rings around a planet. The other are the asteroid belts around the star, where you find clusters of asteroids.

I found it a bit over the top as I was in a democracy system, and it was pirate after pirate with a few seconds in-between. Not so great for mining, but a heck of a place to go for bounty hunting! (Good thing I'm equipped for both.)
 
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Oh ya... i went to one of those once in a Federal system with a population in the billions. Figuring it would be safe. lolno Hello Mr. Python Pirate please go away haha

I just fly into the rings now. No enemies unless a player is smart enough to lock onto my signature. Hasnt happened yet.
 
Mining tonight (2.07) in a planetary belt - not extraction zone - I was greeted for the first time by about 3 or 4 different System Authority Vessels over the course of an hour or so who scanned me and moved along. Never had that in previous versions and I thought it was very cool and immersive... Federal authority on patrol. Even more cool was having 2 pirates scan and attack me while I mined. VERY COOL! (where's the Feds when you need them? lol... not that I really needed them.) I didn't have a horde of them like the OP - which I can see might get a bit annoying if too much of it, so I agree with his suggestion to tone it down if his experience is going to be the norm - but I gotta say, having those few knaves attack me made the game and mining so much more enjoyable. Nothing like a bit of intense combat amid an asteroid field to break up the monotony of digging for chunks. These are the kinds of things I love seeing FD implement. Just gotta remember balance, Devs.
 
I was at a cluster today in imperial space. At 20 or 30 km from the marker I didn't see another ship at all, maybe try that? There was still plenty of Asteroids out that far.
 
I realise it's early days - this bit of NPC flavour is less than a week old. But, having experienced it in a variety of different situations so far, I can say:

Spawning of the NPC pirates at Clusters and Rings needs a lot of work.


Currently, you can travel 100 LY, lugging mining and scanning equipment to the middle of nowhere. If you see a ringed Gas Giant with pristine metallic/metal-rich reserves, you can stop there to mine away.

You haven't seen another ship for an hour, and you drop into a randomly selected place in the rings.

And then, in that distant system, random planet, arbitrary ring location, RIGHT THERE is a pop-up NPC saying, "WHAT TREATS DO YOU CARRY?".


lol


So he was lurking there, like Dynamo The Magician, waiting to jump up and amaze you. How did he KNOW I was coming to this rock? Incredible! :)


Sometimes, three other NPCs arrive, and they start fighting. Just LEAVE ME ALONE, MAN! Go fight somewhere else, haha.


It needs work. Context is important.

- If you exited SC in rings or cluster of a distant, empty system, it's not expected that an NPC can then "find" you.

- If you exited SC in a not-so-empty system, the speed at which an NPC pops up needs to be chosen carefully. I get your wake can be "seen" by someone after you're gone, so it's *possible* for someone to track you down. But not in 5 seconds.

- If you exited SC at a marked location in a busy system, sure... NPCs could be there already.


It needs some TLC in order to remain believable.
 
Yesterday my experience was just like yours. I think I collected more in bounties than rocks :) Tonight, however it was very safe with only the feds occasionally checking me out?
 
Nor sure if this was just co-incidence or not, but I would be mining away with no ships in sight, then as soon as I found a rock with gold in it, 3 or 4 would magically appear.....
 
Just equip an adder with a couple weapons of your choice (I prefer gimballed lasers on size 1 HPs) and you'll be able to make some beautiful money on the side as long as you aren't mining on Anarchy.
 
With G2.07, mining has gone too far off the other end.

Before, while I was mining, there were other miners and some system authority flying about in the asteroid cluster. I'm in a Federal system, democracy-level, and I'm Allied with the major faction.

Tonight, in G2.07, I flew in to grab 6 canisters of Bertrandite to complete a mission. By the time I'd broken off 5 pieces, I had the first pirate show up, demanding my cargo.
As soon as I finished with him, another one showed up. I was able to sneak some mining in-between and even during the fights. I had at least 10 back-to-back pirates by the time I left. Luckily for me, I'd hit on an asteroid with 40-50% Bertrandite which helped me reach my goal quickly.

So, FDev, thank you for making Mining a lot more exciting, but can we tone down the number of pirates showing up a bit? Thank you!

I haven't tried it yet...but I hope mining is this dangerous. It will give a reason for me and my friend to do mining runs together at release. Please no more nerfs. Keep the Dangerous in Elite: Dangerous
 
I haven't tried it yet...but I hope mining is this dangerous. It will give a reason for me and my friend to do mining runs together at release. Please no more nerfs. Keep the Dangerous in Elite: Dangerous

For sure. But let's swap the magic pop-up pirates for something plausible, eh? :)
 
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