What's the most efficient way to mine Tritium?

[Shadowsnog]

if i may ask what exactly would you recommend to do when mining tritium?
lets say i found a tritium hotspot in a nice icy ring. should i prospect every roid, look for surface deposits and laser them and keep eye open for sub-surface? should i just pulse for shinies and go after subsurface mainly(/only)?

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

The best way is to not bother and have someone else bother about this.

 

[alexzk]

if i may ask what exactly would you recommend to do when mining tritium?
lets say i found a tritium hotspot in a nice icy ring. should i prospect every roid, look for surface deposits and laser them and keep eye open for sub-surface? should i just pulse for shinies and go after subsurface mainly(/only)?

I usually pulse, and why I'm flying to shiny I prospect all around and dig by lasers. Just for some fun. Mining becomes fun when I fly for months and collect flowers.

Best way is - not to get into situation when you need to mine 5000t per day.
I prepare trip plans, like "mine 100t each 3 jumps" and follow it since day 1.

 

[K Olley]

Little and often.

The less your carrier weighs the less tritium you need for each jump.

 

[alexzk]

Little and often.

The less your carrier weighs the less tritium you need for each jump.

True. All depends how long you want single mining session be. I made simulation program which acts like carrier, it shows 100t per 3 jumps is 2000 ly more to fly then 300t per 9 jumps with same initial load. For 9 jumps you need 310t to get the same distance.

 

[Codger]

Efficient mining and Tritium don't belong in the same sentence. That's my view on it

But if you're gonna mine it, don't expect it to be fast. Just take your lasers and sub-surface missiles and make it a relaxing time. There's no big secret to it.

 

[K Olley]

True. All depends how long you want single mining session be. I made simulation program which acts like carrier, it shows 100t per 3 jumps is 2000 ly more to fly then 300t per 9 jumps with same initial load. For 9 jumps you need 310t to get the same distance.

The other not so obvious fact is the base weight of the carrier and services installed before starting out.

 

[Darth Ender]

Sorry. I disagree. Mining 100t per 3 jumps is still better then deliver 700t over 57000 ly with 20 jump range

even a mostly empty carrier is going to use roughly 50t tritium for a 500ly jump. though that's an empty carrier.., and if you're always empty, why are you bothering to move it around? eventually it's likely going to be carrying a lot of commodities and you'll be using even more fuel.

so no, 1 hour of extremely unrewarding tritium mining between every other jump or less to get 100t is not better than just trucking it from across the galaxy over and over. at least that also makes you money from honking and periodic earth like scans and most importantly, let's you watch TV or some other interesting activity where as with mining every moment you don't spend hunting for the next rock that has a little tritium is more time you have to spend mining and no progress toward your goal of moving your carrier.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

That's why I'm loading up with enough Tritium to go to Colonia and back in one go. I'd rather spend a half billion loading up the carrier than a single minute trying to mine it out in the middle of nowhere.

 

[alexzk]

even a mostly empty carrier is going to use roughly 50t tritium for a 500ly jump. though that's an empty carrier.., and if you're always empty, why are you bothering to move it around? eventually it's likely going to be carrying a lot of commodities and you'll be using even more fuel.

so no, 1 hour of extremely unrewarding tritium mining between every other jump or less to get 100t is not better than just trucking it from across the galaxy over and over. at least that also makes you money from honking and periodic earth like scans and most importantly, let's you watch TV or some other interesting activity where as with mining every moment you don't spend hunting for the next rock that has a little tritium is more time you have to spend mining and no progress toward your goal of moving your carrier.

That's not so bad. 3 jumps with biology ~= 200 mils. Then 30 mins more to find Ice with tritium. Day is over. Next day you start with 40-50 mins mining of 120T. MK2 does it less then 1 hour (especially pulse scanner is fixed now).
And well, I said each 3 jumps, meaning I already have 17000 onboard. This scheme allows to cover 160 000ly + without additional buying.

 

[Darth Ender]

That's not so bad. 3 jumps with biology ~= 200 mils. Then 30 mins more to find Ice with tritium. Day is over. Next day you start with 40-50 mins mining of 120T. MK2 does it less then 1 hour (especially pulse scanner is fixed now).
And well, I said each 3 jumps, meaning I already have 17000 onboard. This scheme allows to cover 160 000ly + without additional buying.

30 min + 1 hour per tritium top up (and I'm being very generous with 100t in an hour regardless of what skill you bring to mining unless you have already mapped the field) is 1.5 hours. you have to repeat that at the next 3rd jump all over again. assuming you started maxed out and are going across the galaxy and back. that still amounts to 100 mining trips or 150 hours of tritium mining for this journey.

unless your journey is intended to be spread out over a year, that's about 149.5 hours too much of tritium mining.

hauling is a better option. since you'll likely realize taking your carrier out into the black was a stupid waste of time to begin with and your life would be so much better if you just decommissioned it and bought a new one rather than deal with tritium mining or the repeated jump loading screens of hauling it. since there is absolutely no reason to bother with deep space far away from either bubble.

 

[alexzk]

unless your journey is intended to be spread out over a year, that's about 149.5 hours too much of tritium mining.

hauling is a better option.

Correct. Except it is not enough You may go left side in Colonia direction, do there tricks with tritium deliveries and steal another 17000t. But if you will go right side of the Disk - there is no stations there to refuel.
So when you travel to right-side of the Disk, there is no hauling options, you will have to dig. So need a plan to make it less painful.
P.S. Can't decommission - all my fleet is there.

 

[Darth Ender]

Correct. Except it is not enough You may go left side in Colonia direction, do there tricks with tritium deliveries and steal another 17000t. But if you will go right side of the Disk - there is no stations there to refuel.
So when you travel to right-side of the Disk, there is no hauling options, you will have to dig. So need a plan to make it less painful.
P.S. Can't decommission - all my fleet is there.

I'm sure they get pushed to the nearest station when decommissioned. free travel.

if you're taking your carrier into the black for 160,000 ly journey, with your mining method that's just a bit shy of 500 hours of just waiting for the jump timer and mining for tritium. nothing else. unless you are traveling outside of your carrier and have a very high jump range to keep up to honk systems along the way.

if that's your planned use of time and your carrier then pain doesn't really have meaning. the carrier is really pointless to take around. i should know since i did a two year stint deep in the far reaches of the galaxy with mine thinking i could make an adventure of it and brought my ships with me in case i wanted to switch things up or 'gasp' actually had a need to. but all this kind of decision does is kill any enthusiasm you have for the game because it's a total, pointless, waste of time. and once you realise that, it's too late to turn back without suffering thru an equally long return journey.

if fdev had any desire to make more profit from this game they would add a fee payable in their arx to return carriers to last inhabited systems. they would make a bunch of money and save players from abandoning the game. that's how punishingly boring tritium mining is.

every minute feels like a minute you are closer to death with nothing to show because you are a slave to this rng lottery they call mining and for tritium all the winners are rewards that give you less than the ticket cost.

 

[alexzk]

I'm sure they get pushed to the nearest station when decommissioned. free travel.

if you're taking your carrier into the black for 160,000 ly journey, with your mining method that's just a bit shy of 500 hours of just waiting for the jump timer and mining for tritium. nothing else. unless you are traveling outside of your carrier and have a very high jump range to keep up to honk systems along the way.

if that's your planned use of time and your carrier then pain doesn't really have meaning. the carrier is really pointless to take around. i should know since i did a two year stint deep in the far reaches of the galaxy with mine thinking i could make an adventure of it and brought my ships with me in case i wanted to switch things up or 'gasp' actually had a need to. but all this kind of decision does is kill any enthusiasm you have for the game because it's a total, pointless, waste of time. and once you realise that, it's too late to turn back without suffering thru an equally long return journey.

if fdev had any desire to make more profit from this game they would add a fee payable in their arx to return carriers to last inhabited systems. they would make a bunch of money and save players from abandoning the game. that's how punishingly boring tritium mining is.

every minute feels like a minute you are closer to death with nothing to show because you are a slave to this rng lottery they call mining and for tritium all the winners are rewards that give you less than the ticket cost.

Well, my target is 57000 ly away. Carrier access only. Didn't find a way with 76ly Anaconda before carriers. So i returned to bubble but this journey was not finished. So I want to do it finally (this is my 7th attempt to go ).
So now I do as I said, and if I calculate correct, then on destination point I will have fuel to go back without mining. Then I will decide what to do - keep mining and visit more OR jump-jump back.
Also yes, I follow carrier on Anaconda, at my current position this is 3 NS jumps. In fact, if I meet bio planet that can take couple days, so mining is not so long.
Also I decided I can spend couple months, as during last 16 updates it was only 1 with vista on board which I really like. Everything else does not look worth to stay. Possible I will go in Archonage to do some relaxing pew-pew for couple days as well.

 

[Brrokk]

even a mostly empty carrier is going to use roughly 50t tritium for a 500ly jump. though that's an empty carrier.., and if you're always empty, why are you bothering to move it around? eventually it's likely going to be carrying a lot of commodities and you'll be using even more fuel.

so no, 1 hour of extremely unrewarding tritium mining between every other jump or less to get 100t is not better than just trucking it from across the galaxy over and over. at least that also makes you money from honking and periodic earth like scans and most importantly, let's you watch TV or some other interesting activity where as with mining every moment you don't spend hunting for the next rock that has a little tritium is more time you have to spend mining and no progress toward your goal of moving your carrier.

Oh, I agree about extremely unrewarding tritium mining. But absorbing tritium mining in a good graphical experience in an immersive SF game setting is IMO quite cool. I'm happy to do a bit of mining now and them in my rotation of ED activities. And among mined commodities, tritium with its buffed subsurface deposits is one of the quicker ones.

 

[Darth Ender]

if fdev made some of the other things you have around tritium roids worth anything, i think that would go a decent way towards making it less soul sucking without effort from fdev.

like i dont feel anywhere close to how i feel mining trit when I'm mining platinum. the only reason that is is because there is gold, silver, palladium, osmium all around too.

if they want to exert effort, lithium hydroxide is common in ice roids. you can make tritium by bombarding lithium with neutron radiation. let's allow releasing lithium hydroxide very close to certain stars to cause a reaction, where the containers explode and release a random fraction of 1 ton of tritium and misc byproducts that can be collected and refined to tritium. the more ideal the star and closer to it, the better the yield.

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

The way you're talking about materials, mapping, percentages... you're laser mining it aren't you? Instead of sub-surface mining, which so far has been mentioned as the best way no less than 5 times in this thread.

 

[Darth Ender]

The way you're talking about materials, mapping, percentages... you're laser mining it aren't you? Instead of sub-surface mining, which so far has been mentioned as the best way no less than 5 times in this thread.

i subsurface when i come across roids with subsurface deposits. i have the ability to mine in all types as the opportunity arises whenever i am out.

in between coming across them I'll laser mine. because otherwise you are spending most of your time traveling to roids getting nothing accomplished in the hope that your next potential subsurface actually has trit and not something worthless.

miners like to be selective in the time they count and especially like to leave out the fact that they are timing a familiar path or ignoring the time it takes to deal with pirates when discussing mining in a res site. i count the time from launching from the carrier to landing back on it. tritium mining is by far without a doubt the most boring thing to mine. whether you are trickling in with lasers or getting slightly more with long bouts of traveling between rocks.. it still amounts to the entertainment of calling in to cable internet phone support.


this is as much due to the rarity of tritium as it is due to tritium being found in places where the other stuff around it is worthless garbage.

 

[Northpin]

I remember getting between 200 and 300t of tritium per hour using a specialized Conda laser build, mining near the center of the tritium hotspots.
Sure some rings are better than others, but I always found ssd mining a bit on the slower side

 

[Darth Ender]

I remember getting between 200 and 300t of tritium per hour using a specialized Conda laser build, mining near the center of the tritium hotspots.
Sure some rings are better than others, but I always found ssd mining a bit on the slower side

a lot has changed regarding hot spots in general and tritium in particular since that time.

that sounds like mining before the ltd nerf... which came along with the refactoring of hot spots. the ltd nerf impacted ice roid commodities in general because these things are predicated on the stellar forge and fdev couldn't close the issue of ltd's being too common without impacting other elements found with them. fdev did eventually cut fuel costs to carriers to compensate.

unfortunately, a crappy session due to the game loop is still a crappy session even if you're doing it 10 times instead of 20 times.