I was liking that until you mentioned the T9. What you say about the T8 and Python applies also to the T9 and Cutter, except the difference is more, plus you have the dangerous lack of speed with the T9. I guess T9 might be a choice if you can't get a Cutter, but a couple of days of grinding the mining missions (purchase the stuff, don't mine it) at Cubeo using the T9 would get you one and the money to buy it and a fleet carrier to put it in.
True. I don't have the cutter so it tends to slip my mind. It is the better ship when it comes to large mining ships but both are serviceable.
This thread is about what's better (actually what's worse); however, better or best, worse or worst, have different meanings to different players depending on their situation, their ideas and their time. Best for me is not necessarily best for you.
Through these forums, we can all put our ideas and knowledge down so anybody can use it for their own advantage and to match their own needs. There is rarely an exact answer to any of these types of questions without qualification.
There's nothing wrong with a T9. Many people made billions using them. Could a Cutter or anything else have got them more? Would they have had more fun? Would they have been more satisfied? Could they have had more time at the pub or with their girlfriends? Only they know, and most don't care, but some do. Here's the information, let them choose.
Yesterday I was tinkering around in edsy to see if I could come up with a feasible laser-mining-only Type-8 build. I have yet to test it with actual mining (I made a quick laser-firing test to see how quickly it drains the power distributor) and was going to originally post the build here after having tested it with actual mining, but here it is now anyway:
Hardpoints:
- M: 2D mining laser
- S: 1D mining laser
- S: 1D mining laser
- S: 1D mining laser
- S: 1D mining laser
- S: 1D mining laser
- 1C lightweight alloy (heavy duty)
- 4A power plant (armoured)
- 5A thrusters (dirty tuning)
- 5A FSD SCO (increased range + mass manager)
- 3D life support (lightweight)
- 4A power distributor (weapon focused)
- 3D sensors (lightweight)
- 5C fuel tank
- 7: 7E cargo rack
- 6: 6E cargo rack
- 6: 6E cargo rack
- 6: 6E cargo rack
- 5: 5A collector limpet controller (lightweight)
- 5: 5A collector limpet controller (lightweight)
- 4: 4A refinery
- 2: 1A prospector limpet controller
- 1: 1I detailed surface scanner
I know that the 3C mining limpet controllers give you one more collector limpet, so I could have 8 of them rather than 6. However, they are equivalent to 5C collector limpet controllers rather than 5A ones, so you get shorter range and lifespan. I'll need to test this in practice.
Isn't the refinery getting constantly full if it has that few slots? How do you handle with that?
I understand that for core mining you don't need many slots because you are just getting a few different materials anyway. But for laser mining? Unless you are putting almost everything worthless in the ignore list, I suppose...
There are two types of material you will find when mining, your metals and minerals which are commodities and your raw mats.
Any commodity that you do not wish to mine you put on the ignore list.
Always collect raw mats, DO NOT put them on the ignore list, the limpets will only collect raw mats when you have space for them, when a raw bin is full the limpets will automatically stop collecting that type of raw mat and leave them alone, If you are crafty you will trade up the ones that you regularly fill at a mats trader for those mats that are not obtainable by ring mining.
The number of materials that you collect is obviously up to you, but as I work out in the black from a carrier I may at times be collecting up to 8 different types of commodities from a metallic ring or 3 different ones from an icy ring, with a carrier I can store rather than have to sell immediately, this also allows shorter timed runs.
The above also counts for core mining, with a large refinery fitted you can afford to take any type of core, save them up in the carrier then sell them when you want.
t8 is a medium trader why use it for mining it oggles my mind use a ship for what its intended, i think ive said this before 07
Because being different is what we do, the T8 is a really good core miner, how many medium ships have a size 7 slot?
O7
I think if you're still going to pursue the Type 8 as a laser miner, it'd be best to invest in those pre-engineered small mining lasers (see here analysis of new mining laser also holy moly is the reddit media embed horrible )
per the wiki: ""Modified Mining Laser" can be purchased from the Human Technology Brokers at Zetian's Recall in LTT 198. Note that LTT 198 is permit locked by Torval Mining Ltd"
Also, the general wisdom around r/Eliteminers is that D-rated collectors are nicer for laser mining, if you are concerned with optimal-fragment-to-hatch time considerations - they have longer explanations there of course
A bit over an hour to fill the entire 320 tons, worth 5856 merits.
But that was collecting everything indiscriminately. I know that that's not the most efficient way to get merits, and that I should be more selective and only collect the actually valuable stuff and put the worthless junk in the ignore list, but this was just a first test. Maybe I'll try the selective approach next.
This is how I'd do it. If you're not going to mine in the haz RES, you swap out the docking computer for a DSS. This is assuming you want to sell to the market, not a fleet carrier. If selling to a fleet carrier, you can swap the GFSDB for more cargo. https://s.orbis.zone/qKFj
The only real advantage of D-rated limpets is the weight. They all travel at the same speed. The difference, apart from weight, is the power they use, the lifetime, and the distance they die at. The weight affects your jump range and travelling time if you sell to the market in a system a long way away. for PP, you don't do that, so no advantage at all.Also, the general wisdom around r/Eliteminers is that D-rated collectors are nicer for laser mining, if you are concerned with optimal-fragment-to-hatch time considerations - they have longer explanations there of course
Some think that the shorter range of the D is an advantage. They say that it won't travel too far to retrieve fragments then get stuck or expire, but I don't think that's true, or it doesn't work like that. Instead, the problem is you moving when the limpets are either travelling or collecting. The D ones will expire and leave the fragments, while as the A will continue to bring them. If you have good mining technique none of that matters, except that you lose concentration in a long session. It's too easy to move to the next rock thinking all collection is complete, when some of the limpets haven't finished, especially when your materials are full, so there are a lot of white dots around, or you've been ejecting stuff for the pirates. I therefore recommend A-class collectors unless you need the extra jump range. The difference isn't much, so it's nothing to get hung up on unless you're after perfection.
https://old.reddit.com/r/EliteMiner...basic_principles_of_outfitting_your_ship_for/
https://old.reddit.com/r/EliteMiners/comments/bt36el/combined_laser_and_core_mining_guide/
If nothing else, they're consistent in their advice
it is indeed all up to what manner of perfection you opt for - and what style you follow; as you say, optimal collection technique probably wants to avoid moving prematurely like that.p.s. I'm gonna have to try and figure out how to stop reddit links from being turned into these cluttered media blobs....
Last edited:
I made another run, but this time using the ignore list. 14356 merits. It really makes a difference.
I suppose I could be even more aggressive with the ignore list, only collecting the really valuable stuff (such as gold, silver and osmium only), although I think it will take quite a bit longer.
https://old.reddit.com/r/EliteMiners/comments/if859b/mining_in_a_high_res_inside_painite_hotspot/
Not unlike mining, the more you dig on the subreddit the more gems you find
Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/EliteMiners/comments/if859b/mining_in_a_high_res_inside_painite_hotspot/
Not unlike mining, the more you dig on the subreddit the more gems you find
A lot of the Reddit stuff is out of date. Painite got nerfed years ago. It's a shame they don't do housekeeping there to get rid of the stuff that's been superseded by new technology, new knowledge and latest gameplay. There's a lot of good stuff there, but if you don't know about everything, you can't tell what's right or wrong. I cringe when I look at the beginner stuff, and I'd judge that whoever wrote about RES mining has never actually done it. They say you need an SLF and weapons. I do it in a shieldless unengineered Type 6 with no problems at all. Look at the Anaconda in the linked thread. This one would mine at literally double the speed with twice as many lasers and twice as many collectors. https://s.orbis.zone/qKIV
To answer the question about RES mining. If you have a choice of location, RES mining should always be first choice, since you get extra stuff with very little downside. Also, you don't need a DSS, which releases a slot for something else. It's not really much different to mining anywhere else. You don't need weapons and you don't need to shoot anything, which only wastes time.
Haz RES should be the most dangerous, but actually it isn't any more so than anywhere else. You drop into the RES, fly out to 16km, wait for any following pirates to scan you, then start mining. Other pirates come about every 30 minutes on average. In a medium ship, like Python or T8, you'll have filled up before any come most times. In a bigger ship, when the pirates come, just give them what they ask for. There's plenty for everybody to share, and they don't ask for much. Alternatively, if you have a ship that can do around 500m/s boost, you can do about 3 or 4 boosts to run them off the radar and carry on mining. That also works if you can't figure out what they want and they start shooting you. It helps a lot to have good shields because if you're unsure of what they want and they start shooting, you can carry on mining until they say, "all this can stop if you give me....", then you can give it to them and they'll stop shooting after a bit.
You mine in a band 16km to 20km from the centre because there are fewer pirates the further out you are, but you get no RES bonus beyond 20km. That means you go round in a big circle. To stop yourself from getting disorientated and going back in the direction you've already mined, you take note of the sky. One half has the yellow Milky Way and the other has black sky with stars. You should try to keep your wings in the plane of the rocks and try not to roll, so that you don't get disorientated, then keep the yellow sky above you. Use your lateral thrusters a lot to stay level. Finally, when you're at 17.5km, put the RES marker on the left side of the mini radar right on the edge, which points your ship at a tangent to the 17.5km circle. If the dot on the mini radar is hollow, you're going away from the centre and if it's solid, you're going inwards. That's how you navigate to stay in the band.
If you're mining platinum for money, it's worth also picking up say samarium, to give to the pirates when they don't specify what type of cargo they want. When you fill up with platinum, you can dump any samarium you have at the last couple of rocks. That won't help if you're mining for PP merits.
Haz RES mining is much more entertaining than normal mining. It's great when the pirates start arguing over who gets the cargo you dumped. When they all make demands together, like say one wants 20T of platinum, one wants 10T of anything and another wants 935,381cr worth of cargo, 20T of platinum will cover all of them. That's when they start fighting over it and leave you alone while you're mining.
Last edited:
The query was about RES mining, not painite
To me this reads as 'Should be first choice, if this and if that and if x and if y' - it's good that you're experienced and comfortable enough to do it while conscious of the risks and tradeoffs involved, but the stakes are significantly higher in terms of punishment if you make a mistake at any of those points. Hence, preparing for that with a bigger safety net than a naked Type 6 (which is really about as paper-thin razor's edge you can get, in that regard), is going to be the wiser general choice, and probably not a first for someone starting out, but rather something to try once familiar with the process involved.
And not for nothing... it's largely the same advice I see in that thread
Last edited:
I'm not sure what you're on about. The linked thread was about RES mining for PAINITE. I was criticizing that link. The things I was criticizing were the ship builds, the idea to shoot pirates and, of course, the idea to go for painite. I would also add that it's very superficial - nothing about navigation and orientation, which is one of the most important aspects. The thread is 4 years old, and, by the looks of it predates multi-limpet controllers.The query was about RES mining, not painite
To me this reads as 'Should be first choice, if this and if that and if x and if y' - it's good that you're experienced and comfortable enough to do it while conscious of the risks and tradeoffs involved, but the stakes are significantly higher in terms of punishment if you make a mistake at any of those points. Hence, preparing for that with a bigger safety net than a naked Type 6 (which is really about as paper-thin razor's edge you can get, in that regard), is going to be the wiser general choice, and probably not a first for someone starting out, but rather something to try once familiar with the process involved.
And not for nothing... it's largely the same advice I see in that thread
RES mining is more engaging than normal hotspot mining. It's also much more productive. It doesn't require any skill. Instead, what's needed is a a small amount of knowledge in how to deal with the pirates without shooting them that can soon be learnt. I've made videos about how to do it using any ship, including beginners ships, if anyone is interested. Nobody should be discouraged from doing it.
If you had tried a T6 in a haz RES yourself, you'd know that you get the same initial scans as anywhere else, then the pirates go away for a bit. A T6 is full with 86T after you've mined 3 or 4 rocks, which takes an average of around 10 minutes. It's rare to see another pirate after the initial ones in that short time, and if you do, you're already pretty well full, so just leave. It's that simple. The only difference between that and hotspot mining is that you start prospecting immediately in a hotspot while you wait for the pirates to scan you. In a haz RES, you fly out to a distance of 17.5km from the marker, then wait for any nearby pirates to scan you, while you start prospecting.
Last edited: