Newcomer / Intro Trying to understand what I'm doing wrong with mining

DanielKT

DanielKT
I've seen some posts and such about how much cash some people have got with mining and I'm struggling to figure out how.

I have a mining ship. Actually I've tried mining with 4-5 different ships. I currently have a T10 that is rather amusing to watch the pirates bounce off of. Has 320 cargo space
and all the required mining tech.

Thing is; I can't seem to make remotely the same amount of cash that I seem to be able to simply blowing up pirates. I mean I blew up pirates for a few days and bought this T10 and the gear for it.
I scanned out a Low Temp Diamond location near where I'm staged at the moment and I've been mining that for a couple hours now and I don't even think I have the amount from one kill mission.
Also haven't found a single core asteroid in this entire time.

Am I missing something that I should be doing?
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
Do you have a pulse wave scanner? That will reveal asteroids actually worth mining.
Other than that, you're probably doing it right, only in the wrong place. Finding a good hotspot is partially a matter of experience, but to be honest, mostly luck.
Fly around, scan the rings, drop into hotspots and spend some time there to see whether it's worth it or not. And if you want to be sure to find pristine rings, fly away from the inhabited space - many "well known good spots" are being perpetually depleted, because most players like to use Google rather than their ship and her equipment. :LOL:
 
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DanielKT

DanielKT
Chris Simon said:
Do you have a pulse wave scanner? That will reveal asteroids actually worth mining.
Other than that, you're probably doing it right, only at the wrong place. Finding a good hotspot is partially a matter of experience, but to be honest, mostly luck.
Fly around, scan the rings, drop into hotspots and spend some time there to see whether it's worth it or not. And if you want to be sure to find pristine rings, fly away from the inhabited space - many "well known good spots" are being perpetually depleted, because most players like to use Google rather than their ship and her equipment. :LOL:
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Well I didn't use google to find the spots I've found so far. 1st one was "okay". Had two LTDs and a Alexanderite all overlapping but it's 80 ly away from where I am >_>
The current ones I've tried locally don't overlap and I think I need to find a new star system to mine in. It's all pristine ice rings with no traffic but not finding anything to speak of once I'm actually within the ring.
It still didn't seem to pay out like the bounties do though, so maybe I'm still doing something wrong?

The systems I'm in don't look like they get any traffic aside from me.

The ideal spot I'm looking for is a triple or better overlap of a high end material, yes?
 

DanielKT

DanielKT
Codger said:
Mining is fairly complicated, and there's more than one way to do it.

This is a very good WIKI of mining info, and it's up to date, unlike a lot of stuff out there.

Perhaps it will help answer some of your questions:

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com www.reddit.com
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I ran into that problem with out of date info and I was having issues sorting out what was current and what wasn't. So thanks, I'll have a look through your link.
 

varonica

varonica
Don't look for activities with most profit, do what you enjoy doing, if that makes money then profit follows.....

Other than that, yes mining is complicated and you shouldn't expect to make the same as an experienced miner, and you have done the right thing and come to the forums to ask for advice from experienced miners. I won't give any because I don't mine, but if you ever need exploration advice I will be happy to give it!
 

DanielKT

DanielKT
varonica said:
Don't look for activities with most profit, do what you enjoy doing, if that makes money then profit follows.....

Other than that, yes mining is complicated and you shouldn't expect to make the same as an experienced miner, and you have done the right thing and come to the forums to ask for advice from experienced miners. I won't give any because I don't mine, but if you ever need exploration advice I will be happy to give it!
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it isn't so much "most money possible". It's more of doing different things that are roughly comparable in terms of net progress towards a goal.

For example: "Buy a T10" or "Upgrade a module to the next level."

For both of those, the progress stick would be credits. I don't mind working towards something but the mining has so far felt like I'm banging my head on the wall compared to bounty hunting. Kind of like I'm being forced to do the bounty hunting to make and significant progress. And by significant, my best mining haul ever was some 30m after a couple hours.
The bounty hunting is paying 2x-3x that for the same time period.
 

Ashnak

Ashnak
AFAIK the current ( large ship) mining meta is Platinum (Palladium, Painite if you stumble across them) laser mining in overlapping hotspots. Core mining doesn't yield similar profits any more - especially not in a large ship, as payout is now much stronger coupled to the ratio between demand in the station and what you have in your hold (aka "volume tax").

Finding cores themselves is a knack - or was, even before FD broke the PWA (and later supposedly fixed it, but I haven't been core mining since then).
 

DanielKT

DanielKT
Ashnak said:
AFAIK the current ( large ship) mining meta is Platinum (Palladium, Painite if you stumble across them) laser mining in overlapping hotspots. Core mining doesn't yield similar profits any more - especially not in a large ship, as payout is now much stronger coupled to the ratio between demand in the station and what you have in your hold (aka "volume tax").

Finding cores themselves is a knack - or was, even before FD broke the PWA (and later supposedly fixed it, but I haven't been core mining since then).
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Kind of sounds like I shouldn't really bother with the core mining stuff given my lack of success even finding them, let alone good ones. Replace the kit with more mining lasers to deplete a rock nearly instantly instead and jsut power my way across a field.
 

aRJay

aRJay
My impression is that your video card, monitor and graphics settings in general and for the game have a big influence on how things look using the Pulse Wave Scanner so practice helps.

There is a lot more to do core mining and it looks impressive so it can be worth doing for that alone.

Mining laser ships are limited by the size of the Power Distributer as mining lasers will drain it incredibly fast, my best setup was on an Anaconda with I think 2 medium and 2 small mining lasers, the ideal is the capacitor empties at the same time as the rock becomes depleted.
 

Astaran

Astaran
The issue with mining are the volatile prices of the former go-to stuff like Painite, Low Temperature Diamods and Void Opals. Finding a station with good prices is down to luck and frankly not worth the effort. I rather mine two additional hours something with stable prices than wasting 2 or 3 hours searching for a place with acceptable prices for the above.

Cr/H videos for mining are usually garbage, since they only tend to calculate the time spent in the ring itself. Not the time needed for mining, searching for and actually finding a location where to sell for a good price, travelling there and only then selling your goods. This is especially true for rookie miners who do not own a Fleet Carrier yet. So when certain youtubers claim they are making hundreds of millions Cr per hour with mining, take it with a Cutter load of salt.

My suggestion therefor is to use tools like http://edtools.ddns.net/miner and go for something with stable prices like Platinum. I also mine Painite, but usually store it away in my FC until I come across some decent prices at https://eddb.io/ or https://inara.cz/commodities/. Laser Mining is at the moment probably the safest (unfortunately also most boring) way to mine. Subsurface and Core Mining are more fun, but not really time-efficient.

Last but not least, when you go Laser Mining, aim for double or triple hot spots. Look for asteroids with at least 15+% of the intended mineral. You will find plenty of 40-50% asteroids as well, but don't look exclusively for those. Move unwanted minerals to your ignore list in your contacts panel, so you can focus on filling your refinery with the intended stuff.

One last piece of advice though: Mining is a relaxing and calm activity and pretty neat after a stressful day at work/school/university etc. But keep things balanced when playing Elite to avoid burn out. Engage in other activities as well. Get yourself an exploration ship and head out for a week or two. Do some bounty hunting in a combat ship. Visit the Generation Ships or participate in a CG.

Have fun, CMDR o7
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
Astaran said:
Cr/H videos for mining are usually garbage, since they only tend to calculate the time spent in the ring itself. Not the time needed for mining, searching for and actually finding a location where to sell for a good price, travelling there and only then selling your goods. This is especially true for rookie miners who do not own a Fleet Carrier yet. So when certain youtubers claim they are making hundreds of millions Cr per hour with mining, take it with a Cutter load of salt.
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plus even if such tutorial IS true and well made, it will remain valid for, say, a week or two? Mining is an ever-shifting job and while tutorials in general are good, when comes to mining, 3rd party tools and youtubers making "billion per hour" videos - both of which have the effect of concentrating a lot of players on one particular aspect and in one place and crashing the economy, really don't do it any service.
 

Codger

Codger
DanielKT said:
The bounty hunting is paying 2x-3x that for the same time period.
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Right now I'd say bounty hunting, esp with massacre pirate missions, is faster and easier than mining, money-wise. I've done lots of both.

I can reliably earn 50-100 million per hour doing either one, so I just do what I feel like at the time. But mining took much longer to learn -- it's not as simple as many make it out to be.

I think it would be a good thing for you to learn mining, just to give you options. I like to mix things up, else I get bored.

But you won't make more money mining these days. So the choice is yours if money is all you're after.
 

DanielKT

DanielKT
Codger said:
Right now I'd say bounty hunting, esp with massacre pirate missions, is faster and easier than mining, money-wise. I've done lots of both.

I can reliably earn 50-100 million per hour doing either one, so I just do what I feel like at the time. But mining took much longer to learn -- it's not as simple as many make it out to be.

I think it would be a good thing for you to learn mining, just to give you options. I like to mix things up, else I get bored.

But you won't make more money mining these days. So the choice is yours if money is all you're after.
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That's basically what I'm trying to do. Trying to figure out mining as an viable alternative to bounty hunting.

Just not having much luck at it.
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
DanielKT said:
That's basically what I'm trying to do. Trying to figure out mining as an viable alternative to bounty hunting.

Just not having much luck at it.
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Think of it as fishing. The big catch is a bonus, not the goal. :)
The whole point of mining for me is that I get to relax and the money is just a byproduct. And it's decent money whether you're lucky or not, to be honest.
 

znôrt

znôrt
DanielKT said:
Just not having much luck at it.
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try to ask more specific questions.

you say you don't find core rocks. are you looking in the appropriate places? hotspots have no effect on number of cores, only types. do you know the shapes of rocks you need to look for? are you using a pulse wave scanner? all this information is in the links people have given you, but you don't tell us what your specific problem is. if you can't find any cores then it's not much use to talk about how to farm them or what ship is more efficient.

core mining is actually quite enjoyable, but like everything the mechanic gets old fast and nowadays laser mining is simpler and more efficient. any case for me the best part is the beauty of places you get to spend time in.

also keep in mind that if you were stacking massacre missions that's just broken, it's a legal exploit and there is no equivalent in mining atm, so no way you would make anywhere near those insane amounts of money with any form of mining.
 
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