The popular guide to mining

[Lance 'Spacecat' D.]

Greetings commanders

A long time ago, a player friend of mine (Hanako) wrote a popular guide aimed at players unused with powerplay, it's been well received as a beginner's guide to a complex subject. And a few months ago I kept up the tradition and wrote three further guides.

Introducing the Popular guide to mining!

Mining is just complex enough that it warrants having a guide to explain the ins and outs. This guide's purpose is to help out commanders unused to space mining, and there's a touch of humor thrown in for good measure.
If you're interested in the other guides, about powerplay, exploration or planetary landings, the links are at the end.

 

[Sevanje]

Was expecting another boring video, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Mining is a bit complex, as you say, but it could still use some developer love.

 

[Lance 'Spacecat' D.]

IMHO mining has reached a very sweet spot. Assuming you have a decent ship (type 7 or clipper) the money you can make competes with decent trading routes. There's less interdictions so I'm okay with less profit. The refineries work better than when I wrote this, so I need to rewrite that page about the refinery at some point.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Great Guide!

By the way, the python build I had, had 6 drones and 200 T cargo space. Usually by the time it took me to fill those 200 T, I was ready to sell anyway.

 

[Spike K]

Little side note...
The Collector Limpets I shot at a Planet "item" just smashed into the surface and died.

BUT

They do not disappear. They can be knocked around like soccer balls.. Shoot a bunch!

Nail em with your Turret and watch em fly on low G planets!
This may be fixed, but worth a shot.

\\///
Oo
==

 

[Lance 'Spacecat' D.]

Woah! I got kudos from Ziggy Stardust! Awesome!

I should be careful, or I'll get a big head. XD Feel free to share 'better' ship designs for mining folks, I have hardly tested many of them, and since this is a beginner's guide I was intending to give 'designs that work', not necessarily the very best. Tweak at will... Even the clipper I've used the most I figure could use a bit less cargo and one more drone.

And Spike K. That's hilarious! Gotta share this with the Elite Racers and see if we can make planet soccer with this find.

 

[Muzz UK]

Great guide shame you need to update a few screenies now 1.5 and Horizons are out but have some rep will pass this onto friends who want to start.

 

[Swifty]

Nice guide. More a personal preference thing but I set my Python up with 10 collectors and just 128 tons of cargo.

 

[VR Dextrovix]

That was a great read- some rep your way!

Oh, and page 8's subtitle probably has something after the word "gentler" which seems to have gone for a burton.

 

[Macy]

Thanks for this. I've decided to give mining a try. Its the only thing I haven't done in Elite. Nice work.
Merry Christmas.

 

[CiaphasHRO]

great work! thank you because i decided to day to spend some time mining but I already made the prospector mistake

 

[Lance 'Spacecat' D.]

That was a great read- some rep your way!

Oh, and page 8's subtitle probably has something after the word "gentler" which seems to have gone for a burton.

Thanks Dex, it's a bit tricky, folks with a resolution different from mine don't get the exact same results on google slides. I did a little adjustment that ought to fix it.

And yeah Swifty, various folks will vary their ship outfits. I think some of my designs deserve a few more collectors and a little less cargo. Assuming you have one of those sweet systems where you can sell minerals in-system... Aaaand if I'm not mistaken, your avatar is from the 'Redline' movie isn't it? I loved that crazy thing.

 

[Tath]

Nice guide. Well presented, well written, informative and entertaining.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Nice guide. Well presented, well written, informative and entertaining.

What he said.

 

[Lance 'Spacecat' D.]

Great guide shame you need to update a few screenies now 1.5 and Horizons are out but have some rep will pass this onto friends who want to start.

Aaand big update today!
I updated the refinery screen, it's nice those refineries no longer get stuck.
But the biggest change is the 'small mining ships' section. It turns out the Viper Mk4 can compete with a Cobra Mk3 in the light mining category (Hilarious, I know) but the real gem is the Cobra Mk4. Crazy thing has so many internals, it's the go-to light miner if one has access to it. Or if you just want to do an osmium/painite mission, it'll get you to a belt, eat a few rocks and come back safe for a small price tag. The perfect ship for a quick spot of no-stress mining.

 

[GluttonyFang]

Greetings commanders

A long time ago, a player friend of mine (Hanako) wrote a popular guide aimed at players unused with powerplay, it's been well received as a beginner's guide to a complex subject. And a few months ago I kept up the tradition and wrote three further guides.

Introducing the Popular guide to mining!

Mining is just complex enough that it warrants having a guide to explain the ins and outs. This guide's purpose is to help out commanders unused to space mining, and there's a touch of humor thrown in for good measure.
If you're interested in the other guides, about powerplay, exploration or planetary landings, the links are at the end.

Great work!

 

[CMDR Heisenberg B. Damned]

Brilliant, so easy to read, covers everything really well - excellent work OP.

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

Well done CMDR!

Excellent work and well worth the time to read

 

[Lance 'Spacecat' D.]

Update time!

The type-6 is a better miner than I gave it credit for, so I corrected the text.
A friend gave me a good Imperial Cutter design, and confirmed you can use three mining lasers with a class 7A distributor.
Plus some minor text tweaks.

 

[Archvillain]

Nice! +rep!

There is a noticeable omission though - it skipped over tiny mining ships and went straight to the large end of "small" and medium-sized ships. Mining in tiny ships is actually fantastic money when you're starting out.
(I thought this mattered enough to mention because combat income and some other money-makers are out of your reach at this very-early stage of the game. Mining is a low-cost low-risk way to rapidly build capital and learn flight skills)

For very small mining ships, such as a Sidewinder, you don't use a prospector or collectors, just a refinery, a mining laser, and a cargo rack. That's as little as $12800 credits of equipment - less than the cost of one tonne of palladium or platinum, so you can afford that equipment very early in the game.

When you're small-fry, just a few tonnes of hand-mined metal can double your net worth and buy you a better ship very quickly!

Tip from memory for manual mining (when you're not using collector drones and have to scoop manually) - it can be more useful to mine on the axis of the rock, so the chunks all line up for easy scooping and don't get knocked and scattered by a spinning rock protrusion. But really, when I was starting, I would cut one chunk, then scoop it, then cut another, then scoop it... and I still made bank (which bought me a fast ship for rares )

A hauler is a great beginning miner ship because it only costs $29,000 and has a huge amount of cargo capacity for that money. (Also, it's much cheaper to get bigger multi-bin refineries if you have a larger slot available for it)