I had played with it one evening way back when, but never tried it since. I wrote down in my notebook (yes, it's still annoying to me that I need to *write* down systems with pristine metallic planets) a few locations. So, I loaded out my Anaconda (don't laugh) with a prospector and collector controller. I flew ~200ly out to the closest of my "pristine" locations.
Interesting. The planet is so far out that there is literally no light hitting it. It might as well have been a black hole. I finally oriented myself so that the bright blue star made the slightest visible semblance of rings. I ended up crashing into it and getting pulled out of supercruise. Ah well.
Next. How the heck do these drone thingies work? Um, turns out, I had no ammo. I thought just buying a controller would, ya know, come with ammo. Silly me. Anyway, I tried mining in the dark and collecting manually via cargo scoop. That was so bad...I cannot even describe how inept I was. Maybe a smaller ship could do it, but, my idea was to have a mining gunship with drones doing all my work for me. But I had no ammo. Le sigh.
So. Looked up what I did wrong. You need limpets, which is ammo for said collectors/prospectors. You buy this in the munitions page. Unlike cannons, you can choose how much to buy, so that's why it's not obvious to buy a certain amount automatically. I bought a bunch, then realized I filled my entire cargo hold with them. Luckily, you can actually sell them back with no cost penalty. (For now). I went to a fairly close system with a metallic ring that I luckily found just to test out what the hell I was doing.
Mining is really fun! Sent a prospector limpet to an asteroid, got it's info, then started mining. I launched two collector limpets. I squee'd at my radar. I saw to white triangles (the collectors) go collect the ore (white rectangles) and really quickly bring them back. I smiled because it reminded me of Dwarf Fortress, when you finally get a dumb dwarf to go get something. I used the debug camera to see if it was all real, and indeed it was! The collectors constantly make collision warnings because they just float a few meters down from you if they aren't busy. They also crash into your scoop, but I have yet to record damage from it. If anything, they destroy themselves (but after transferring cargo)?
Anyway, it's no trading substitute, but I had a lot of fun doing something new. I eventually bought a hopper with 9 slots and flew back out to that pristine area. I am mining in complete darkness, but the collectors solve that problem for me. I have my lights on, so I am not running into asteroids.
Apologies for being long winded, but this was pretty fun. And seeing "Painite" in the prospector's analysis is freaking awesome.
Interesting. The planet is so far out that there is literally no light hitting it. It might as well have been a black hole. I finally oriented myself so that the bright blue star made the slightest visible semblance of rings. I ended up crashing into it and getting pulled out of supercruise. Ah well.
Next. How the heck do these drone thingies work? Um, turns out, I had no ammo. I thought just buying a controller would, ya know, come with ammo. Silly me. Anyway, I tried mining in the dark and collecting manually via cargo scoop. That was so bad...I cannot even describe how inept I was. Maybe a smaller ship could do it, but, my idea was to have a mining gunship with drones doing all my work for me. But I had no ammo. Le sigh.
So. Looked up what I did wrong. You need limpets, which is ammo for said collectors/prospectors. You buy this in the munitions page. Unlike cannons, you can choose how much to buy, so that's why it's not obvious to buy a certain amount automatically. I bought a bunch, then realized I filled my entire cargo hold with them. Luckily, you can actually sell them back with no cost penalty. (For now). I went to a fairly close system with a metallic ring that I luckily found just to test out what the hell I was doing.
Mining is really fun! Sent a prospector limpet to an asteroid, got it's info, then started mining. I launched two collector limpets. I squee'd at my radar. I saw to white triangles (the collectors) go collect the ore (white rectangles) and really quickly bring them back. I smiled because it reminded me of Dwarf Fortress, when you finally get a dumb dwarf to go get something. I used the debug camera to see if it was all real, and indeed it was! The collectors constantly make collision warnings because they just float a few meters down from you if they aren't busy. They also crash into your scoop, but I have yet to record damage from it. If anything, they destroy themselves (but after transferring cargo)?
Anyway, it's no trading substitute, but I had a lot of fun doing something new. I eventually bought a hopper with 9 slots and flew back out to that pristine area. I am mining in complete darkness, but the collectors solve that problem for me. I have my lights on, so I am not running into asteroids.
Apologies for being long winded, but this was pretty fun. And seeing "Painite" in the prospector's analysis is freaking awesome.
