Guide / Tutorial The popular guide to mining.

I am German speaking person and I have massive problems understandung anything at all with the new deep core mining since there are non (ZERO) tutorials on how the seismic charges work. I have no clue what a Abrasion laser is. I can see no "Asteroid fissures" and I do not understand how to activate or even see the needed screen after firing my seismic load onto an asteroid. I can never reach the deep surface deposits and nobody is here to help me with that.


Thank you, frontier!
 
I am German speaking person and I have massive problems understandung anything at all with the new deep core mining since there are non (ZERO) tutorials on how the seismic charges work. I have no clue what a Abrasion laser is. I can see no "Asteroid fissures" and I do not understand how to activate or even see the needed screen after firing my seismic load onto an asteroid. I can never reach the deep surface deposits and nobody is here to help me with that.


Thank you, frontier!
Well, I am not with frontier but I will try to help.

1-The abrasion blaster is a new mining tool. Look for a class 1 mining tool that isn't a mining laser, and does not require ammo. It fires a little hexagon of 6 bright dots.
2-The seismic launcher won't work on asteroids without fissures. So you do need to find asteroids with fissures first.
3-To find fissures, start by using the pulse wave scanner to find asteroids with features, they will glow yellow. page 19 of the guide has a picture. Some of those asteroids will have fissures, not all of them. They can be quite rare, persevere.
4-After you find fissures, you can use the seismic launcher by firing it directly at the fissures.

The language barrier is a trick, I do not speak german. But if all else fails try going to the galactic academy with an English-speaking friend, thus you can get better help, more directly.
 
Are there any tips/guides on increasing the hit ratio for core mining?

I'm using the wave pulse in hot spots identified by probes, but it's literally all surface and sub-surface asteroids.

I'm not finding any with fissures and it's just turning into yet another ED grind.

can't they just increase the % of fissure rocks .

Soooo...any tips/guides/locations on how to increase the detection rate for core mining would be very welcome!
 
Well Captain, besides making sure you're in a pristine ring, all I can say is that core mining is like sluicing for gold in a river: you need persistence and luck to find those fissures. Keep at it, try other rings, try hotspots...

And of course they glow bright yellow.


Thank you for that question Captain Oscar, it prompted me to adjust some text and clarify where to go for core mining. It wasn't obvious enough (so small update done)
 
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Could someone provide some screenshots of what 'roids with fissures are supposed to look like on the scanner? because I've prospected at least a dozen or more bright yellow ones and they didn't have any. What's worse, lots of small roids show up bright yellow too, even though they have no chance of having fissures.
I have managed to crack a few roids, but to me they don't look any different on the scanner to those that aren't crackable.
 
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Big update done for 3.3 - Beyond!

The big change is a number of new tools (seismic charges, abrasion blaster, sub-surface missiles) and explodey asteroids. From testing in Beta I garner that now there are two styles of mining:
-Core mining, blowing up asteroids to get to gems within. It is a low-tonnage, high value activity well suited to smaller ships.
-Classic laser mining, using mining lasers for metals. It is a high-tonnage, internals-intensive activity best suited to big ships.

So I wrote the guide with this split in mind, and actively advise against trying to fill 200+ tons with core mining in a big, sluggish ship. One could lose their sanity trying that. :) Some ships are capable of following both mining styles, the Krait II and Python come to mind.

Awesome job!
 
Could someone provide some screenshots of what 'roids with fissures are supposed to look like on the scanner? because I've prospected at least a dozen or more bright yellow ones and they didn't have any. What's worse, lots of small roids show up bright yellow too, even though they have no chance of having fissures.
I have managed to crack a few roids, but to me they don't look any different on the scanner to those that aren't crackable.

I had some initial luck, and then couldn't find any more asteroids with fissures.

I agree that I'm not sure the yellow vs orange colouring always works.
 
They don't look any different on the scanner AFAIK. There will be bright yellow ones without fissures (but with lots of other features) that look identically yellow to fissured roids. An important note is that small asteroids require few features to be bright yellow, but small 'roids cannot have fissures. So always go for medium to big sized ones.
Persistence, Patience and Luck! Keep at it.


And in other news: FDev brought out a video where they state that hotspots improve the chance of fissures and also helps the yield of laser mining! So I've done another update to put a DSS in virtually all the ship designs I offer.
 
They don't look any different on the scanner AFAIK. There will be bright yellow ones without fissures (but with lots of other features) that look identically yellow to fissured roids. An important note is that small asteroids require few features to be bright yellow, but small 'roids cannot have fissures. So always go for medium to big sized ones.
Persistence, Patience and Luck! Keep at it.


And in other news: FDev brought out a video where they state that hotspots improve the chance of fissures and also helps the yield of laser mining! So I've done another update to put a DSS in virtually all the ship designs I offer.

Nice! I need to check out that video then!
 
Also, it is just me, or the brightness of some roids depends on... how close you are to them? I swear to god, that I make a scan, and a far away roid will be very bright yellow, but when I get closer and check again, it will be orange at best.
Edit: After some more deep core mining, it seems to me that what I mentioned above might just be an indicator of whether a roid can be cracked. So even if one is bright when you scan it from afar, it's not certain it's going to be crackable. But if it remains bright when you scan it again from close by, the odds are high it's a good one.
 
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Well Captain, besides making sure you're in a pristine ring, all I can say is that core mining is like sluicing for gold in a river: you need persistence and luck to find those fissures. Keep at it, try other rings, try hotspots...

And of course they glow bright yellow.


Thank you for that question Captain Oscar, it prompted me to adjust some text and clarify where to go for core mining. It wasn't obvious enough (so small update done)

The guide is great.

I've already being doing all you suggested. However, the bright yellow tip isn't accurate. I finally found one, but it didn't really stand out in much way from all the other yellow ones, bright yellow or red/yellow.

I just don't understand why FD has to make everything in ED such a boring grind fest.
 
I'm also a little gobsmacked FD didn't acknowledge (afaik) any of the on point feedback about the terrible UX with the fire groupings and mode switches.
This is most apparent when mining, as you can have 5 or 6 fire groups (all mining tools + defense weapons) spread over 2 modes.

It is an extremely clunky process to manage, and as such impossible to engender flow states to get into a a good rhythm for mining.

Just a really terrible UX and should have been obvious to any internal testers as well.

Why are they not addressing it?
 
I wanted to see if I could make a rock cracker on a budget and this is what I came up with, for just under a million. You need a medium hardpoint, a small hardpoint, enough room for refinery, prospector limpet, at least 16 tons of cargo, collector limpets optional but they make life much easier, same for shield, and a surface scanner for checking the belt. Hard to find all of this in a cheap ship but I was able to do it with cobra 3. if you have cobra 4 you can do this with shields. finally something cobra 4 is good at.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djm0PlNd18A
 
@Lance 'Spacecat' D.

First off, your guide is quite awesome, thanks for putting it together!


They don't look any different on the scanner AFAIK. There will be bright yellow ones without fissures (but with lots of other features) that look identically yellow to fissured roids.

I've spent the last few days looking into this very subject and I've found that fissure asteroids do have a distinctive glow intensity, which sets them apart from the rest.

Once I noticed that, I decided to put a comparatively crappy "visual guide" together to help other commanders out:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1593415736

As I mention in the guide, the problem is that, as we mine, we use the color / glow from asteroids around us (which aren't fissure asteroids, in most cases) as reference.
Because of this, we tend to "overestimate" certain kinds of asteroids (I call them "Evil asteroids" in the guide), we assume they're fissure asteroids simply because their glow is comparatively more intense than that of the rest.
The reality is that the glow from those asteroids is a bit dimmer than that of actual fissure asteroids, but the difference is hard to spot if there are no fissure asteroids around...

However, I do believe that practice is key here. After ~12 hours of core mining (while paying attention to glow intensity differences) I'm finally able spot fissure asteroids from a distance...for the most part :p
Sure, there's always the odd asteroid with a misleading glow, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

I'm now able to make 20+ million/hr, thanks to this "discovery", it makes mining worth it!
 
Also, it is just me, or the brightness of some roids depends on... how close you are to them? I swear to god, that I make a scan, and a far away roid will be very bright yellow, but when I get closer and check again, it will be orange at best.
Edit: After some more deep core mining, it seems to me that what I mentioned above might just be an indicator of whether a roid can be cracked. So even if one is bright when you scan it from afar, it's not certain it's going to be crackable. But if it remains bright when you scan it again from close by, the odds are high it's a good one.

I've found fissure asteroids which don't glow that much from up close, sadly. I think this has to do with how the graphics engine works, rather than anything else (might be wrong, ofc!).

Fissure asteroids do have a distinctive intense glow, problem is that our brains use the color / glow of nearby asteroids as reference, which can be quite misleading.
Remembering the exact intensity of light / color is one of those things humans tend to suck at.:D

Thankfully, we can take screenshots of fissure candidates (or record them) and use the images to create glow intensity charts, for instance.
That's the way I learned anyway [up]
 
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This seems like the place to ask: Is anyone else having trouble finding the new mining tools? I've been to half a dozen stations in as many different systems, and the only one I've been able to find is the Pulse Wave Analyser.
 
Nice guide...found it very helpful....thanks

I tried core mining for the first time in my python tonight with the pulse wave, abrasion blaster, displacement missile & seismic launcher, collection and prospectors + refinery.

It was all going quite well, found a hotspot using the surface scanner, managed to figure out the controls on the new weapons, even manged to find an asteroid with fissures and blew it up (though not very well) and I had accumulated a decent little haul.

However I then get disconnected (happens alot for me in ED). When I log back in I can't use the pulse wave or any of the mining weapons/tools. It just says I need to switch mode to use them?

It was working fine before but now I need to switch mode...to what mode & how? I have a feeling it may be a bug but the whole core mining and FSS is new to me so I could just have missed a step and not realised.

I couldn't see anything in your guide about mode switching so any help would be appreciated :)

Also when using the seismic charges, what is the best advice on how much to charge it for each type of fissure. To be safe I ended up charging it to the medium setting on all fissures and it eventually worked but I went into the red on the last charge. Again any guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks
 
Nice guide...found it very helpful....thanks

I tried core mining for the first time in my python tonight with the pulse wave, abrasion blaster, displacement missile & seismic launcher, collection and prospectors + refinery.

It was all going quite well, found a hotspot using the surface scanner, managed to figure out the controls on the new weapons, even manged to find an asteroid with fissures and blew it up (though not very well) and I had accumulated a decent little haul.

However I then get disconnected (happens alot for me in ED). When I log back in I can't use the pulse wave or any of the mining weapons/tools. It just says I need to switch mode to use them?

It was working fine before but now I need to switch mode...to what mode & how? I have a feeling it may be a bug but the whole core mining and FSS is new to me so I could just have missed a step and not realised.

I couldn't see anything in your guide about mode switching so any help would be appreciated :)

Also when using the seismic charges, what is the best advice on how much to charge it for each type of fissure. To be safe I ended up charging it to the medium setting on all fissures and it eventually worked but I went into the red on the last charge. Again any guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks

There is an option in the controls menu to switch HUD modes. (Combat and scanning) you need to be in scanning mode (blue hud) to use the scanners and mining tools.

With the seismic charges when you target the fissure it will say if its low, medium or high strength. This corresponds to how much 'charge' to put into the charges. Match them up and you can usually get in the blue with just a few decently placed charges.
 
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