Returned from my little jaunt visiting one of the nebulae, being careful to head for a carrier free system.Another three systems have been 'lost' to the carrier scourge, but i did find one that had been crossed off the list had been vacated, so hopefully the situation will ease as FC's begin to move out.
Colonia is still heavily infested, as is Ratrai.
Deciding on a change of pace, I kitted out the K2 for mining and set off for the nearest ring to try out some deep core mining, which until now has been a bit of a blind spot in my skills armoury. I wasn't aiming to get anything particular, just wanted to get my head around the mechanics of core mining. Despite coming across numerous glowing yellow 'roids, thanks to the PWS, most of those in the Alexandrite hotspot i first visited yielded very few 'roids with fissures, most of the glow being from surface deposits of low grade minerals,which i ignored, having failed to equip an abrasion blaster or sub-surface displacement missile.
(this oversight has now been rectified).
I was lucky enough to find two or three Alexandrite rocks with fissures,however, and after a bit of faffing, managed to disintegrate them sufficient to gain a few tons of the good stuff, and a couple of tons of Monazite into the bargain, and despite the selling station only paying half price for the tonnage, i still came away with a couple of million profit, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.
I did shoot off about 90 prospectors, which yielded four cores, so i'll probably spend the next few days refining my methods, this time with the addition of the other mining aids,which will hopefully increase the return.
And i'm now an official splodey miner, so it's all good.
