Newcomer / Intro Why are all mining hotspots totally deprived of what they are supposedly a hotspot of, and how can people claim that they are making money with ...

[NorthernDevo]

Turreted mining tools can only be steered by someone joining your ship as a gunner in multi crew if you aren’t doing that fixed are much better.

You can’t fire more collector limpets than your controller can handle so they stop firing when that limit is reached so the technique isn’t wasteful and reduces the number of firing groups you have to switch through.

The displays for the seismic charge and subsurface missile are pretty critical for getting good results. See the video in this post to see seismic charges being placed and the optimum level on the display.

Newcomer / Intro - What are you up to?

Colonia (and the surrounding systems) have over time become a 'second bubble' of civilization. Back when it first started, there was almost nothing out there, just one station (Jaques) and then bit by bit it grew. There were some Community Goals that built other stations, and eventually some...

forums.frontier.co.uk

When starting out mining anything is good practise to help improve your skills and as long as you don’t let the pirates destroy your ship it is all profitable, earning insane sums per trip will come once you have the skills but don’t force yourself if you aren’t enjoying it after all there is plenty of time to acquire credits.

LOL I hadn't looked into this thread yet - thanks for using my video!

 

[ChipStar65]

Well, I've never met a hotspot I didn't like, I suppose mainly because I don't expect megabillions in short time. So I generally just happily accept what the Universe offers in terms of mining results, knowing there are good days and bad days but in the long run it's all profitable.

Like many others I started long before the mining "explosion" and basically had only missions to rely on for earnings, especially in the early months -- gold rushing just isn't in my blood. I did many Community Goals missions that paid extremely well -- I do wish they would return -- and also missions like Ram Tah's Guardian Relics Scavenger Hunt that took weeks to complete but earned me my Explorer Elite badge and a much better awareness of the actual size of this game. Also a few hundred million in exploradata cred and the mission reward. That was before I even decided to try the then-new mining methods (core, SSD, etc.). There was one CG (one of the last) that put me into the role of dedicated miner (mostly cores, 'cause BOOM!), and I banked a lot of cred from it as well as learning the ropes.

But none of it came quickly, so I'm not in the habit of expecting instant billions. I bought into bigger and better ships very gradually, spending at least a year with just my Python (preceded by about 5 other ships I could afford earlier on but sold to trade up) doing primarily Planetary Scan Jobs because they were fun and offered millions in rewards, and weren't combat missions (my Combat Elite badge was the last of my Triple Elite earned). Then I discovered Resource Extraction Sites (RES) and decided combat isn't so bad after all. Bye-bye Python (but I bought another later on), hello FDL. Just a long, steady haul from Sidewinder to Federal Corvette (now my mining ship) to Fleet Carrier, with even a few many-moons-long breaks because some bugs were way too annoying to play ED while waiting for a fix. When FCs were announced I spent a lot of time core mining (exclusively) to build bank for them but still came up a billion short once the Betas dropped. A couple more weeks blasting in the Pleiades' rings solved that. I had been hunting 'Goids there and bookmarked quite a few pristine or major reserves systems to mine in -- a bit of mutitasking that paid off very well..

I've played solo from day one because PvP is uninteresting to me and I don't like giving griefers the satisfaction of killing me (unavoidable early on). I learned to dance out of NPC interdictions every time except now and then in the TubbyConda (a ship I dearly love but it flies worse than a brick), but I've never yet lost cargo to a pirate, though a few ships got scragged early on. I made mistakes and paid for 'em, learned not to make 'em twice. And now, better than three years in, I am finally getting around to doing what I really love to do -- 100% pure exploration. But I did have to work hard (in game terms, that is) to gain this much-desired freedom, and it was neither an easy nor painless wilderness to traverse. For me, that's the charm, and comes with not a small measure of satisfaction.

One ironic discovery came with the last ship purchase I made -- one might think a Dolphin a step down from Pythons and 'Condas and Corvettes (oh, my!) but it has, once properly engineered, become my premiere scouting and exploration ship. J's Nimble Minx is inexpensive to maintain, fun to fly and as reliable as a sunrise. Hint: One need not always trade up to trade better.

 

[NorthernDevo]

If I can add my two cents into the fray:
OP, the problem I'm seeing is that you are comparing your gains in mining (going back to that) to veteran miners. Everything in your first post (and most subsequent ones) shows that you are essentially expecting a 1-1 return: use your PWA, find a glowing 'roid, shoot it and rake in the cash.
It doesn't work that way. DC mining takes practice - not just in using your equipment but in developing a feel for which 'roids are going to pay out.
Let me point out a couple of misconceptions you're having, still sticking strictly to mining:

I tried common, major and pristine reserves, and it doesn't make a difference. I'm using a Python equipped with all the mining tools, so I can do all four kinds of mining I'm aware of. (That's another thing: Doing that leaves you unarmed, and that is ridiculous. If there was any realism to it, mining ships would be heavyly armed or at least very well protected, and you could hire NPC pilots for protection. Or perhaps not because hiring them would be forbiddingly expensive; but then, it would raise the question how pirates finance what they're doing ...)

Yup - and in addition to taking away weapons, you're more or less guaranteeing that you're not going to have any success at mining either. There are four ways to mine: Laser, SSD, DC and Surface. Pick one.
Surface mining is mat collection, so let's ignore that for now. In order to do the other three you need beams, SSDM's, an abrasion blaster, a Seismic charge launcher, plus all the goodies in your Internals and utilities. A Python has 3 Large and 2 Med hardpoints. This means that by mounting everything you need for mining, as you've noted you've got nothing for defence. However, in addition to that, most of your missiles and charges are going to be in awkward positions. You can put an SSDM or the SCL in the chin bay, which you need for accuracy - not both. Beams can go anywhere, but your A-blaster needs fairly careful aiming - so no matter what you do you're going to have a bad time using all three methods.
Pick one. If you want to go for Void Opals, select Deep Core. If you want diamonds, go SSD or laser - though I personally prefer SSD. You get a LOT of fragments lasering, but they're small, giving (I think) 15% of one ton. Each chunk you get subsurface gives you 75%. If you want to laser, go for Painite.

Regarding pirates - forget about 'em, they don't matter. One WILL scan you when you enter a Ring and then that's the last you need to worry about them. Blow them up if you wish - you now have the spots to arm yourself - but you don't need to bother. If you're interdicted, you kind of have to work at it to fail the minigame; a Python can easily break any interdiction by an NPC.
Also:

Without mining lasers, which produce the largest number of fragments, why do you need so many limpets?

This one quick: to put it simply; speed. A top laser miner barely (and often doesn't) stop his/her ship while lasering on the way to the next 'roid. They blast the rock, move on, retarget and hit the next one while the limpets gobble up the fragments. It's pretty impressive watching painite miners go at it. You can mine with only a few, but it'll take time and you will get bored. Also remember that all those fragments have a life-span. They will degrade on you if you don't get 'em into the hold quick enough.

With subsurface deposits, I have trouble letting the trigger go at the right moment because the display scrolls at an uneven speed. I guess the hit rate is about 50%, and it's only on spot when I'm lucky. I don't even really know which of the blue bars is relevant, the first one, another one or the bar before the first blue one, or somewhere else.

Is it normal for the drill display to scroll at uneven speeds? If that's so, it will contine to be all random.

OK - gotta stop you there. This is what I was talking about above - you need to learn what you're doing. Yes, in fact, the missile does burrow at different speeds, depending on the density of the substrate it's drilling through. that density is shown on the SSD readout - the bright lines above the horizontal bar. The longer the lines, the denser the substrate and therefore the slower the travel. you need to practice and get good at timing your release.

How do you get more than 1--3 tons from a subsurface deposit? With the asteroids I've found, there is no way that I could fill 224t from a single asteroid that has 4 subsurface deposits.

The largest known single payout for one asteroid is the Egg, in Kirrae's Icebox - that is the area you referred to earlier. With four SSD's it can on a regular basis deliver up to 74 tons of LTD's in a single pass - but you need to know how. Don't just hit any blue reading, hit the 2-bar ones. They deliver on average 6 chunks per hit and can be hit anywhere between three and nine times. Once you know how fast the missile is burrowing - you now know to look at the density reading - you can accurately release and hit them every time.

And I don't understand the pilot handbook about core mining. It says a weak fissure would need a strong charge and a strong fissure a weak one. I would expect a strong fissure to need a strong charge because it needs more strength to blow something up that is stronger. In any case, I tried both, and it didn't make a difference. When the asteroid is blown up, it has 3 outcroppings, and that's it. That gives maybe 1.5t and that's it.

you've got that backwards, and that's why you're not having much fun - or earning much coin. All I can say is read the handbook again - I just did and yes, it does seem counter-intuitive. What it's saying is that the greatest boom comes from a high-strength charge into a weak fissure. You need to balance your charges, like in my video above (well - on page 2). In that vid, I put high-strength rounds into high strength fissures, weak in weak, but the last - a weak fissure - I dropped a med in to bring the detonation into the blue. Once again, and this is what it comes down to, it takes practice. A normal DC 'roid will have anywhere between 10 and 18 chunks freed; that doesn't count the ones you need to abrade off.
What it boils down to is that you're not getting returns and you're not having fun because you haven't learned how to mine yet. There is NOT a 1-1 return - i.e. 'blow this up, get so many chunks' as in other games. It's a matter of careful work, searching, hunting, planning your set once you find the 'roid, dry-running the 'roid until you understand its movements, and ONLY pulling the trigger when you know you're ready. It is NOT easy.
You certainly won't get any better just sitting around and complaining that the game's broke - pick ONE type of mining, and get out there!
THEN you'll be raking it in. I got my Elite DC'ing void opals and did it in a short time - you can too, once you pick it up.
Good luck.

 

[SportyScribe]

I suppose I was lucky when I returned to the game after a 5 year RL break in that it was before the FC update and Borann was around.
it took me a few goes to learn how to get into the right hotspot, and I set myself a goal of being able to laser mine enough to get into a Python and up to 1bn Cr.

I also have a bunch of ships and have dabbled in passenger missions, combat and have trade to fall back on.

I have moved onto sub-surface mining and that seems to be the better method for me... but I haven’t had a chance to check out the new hotspots yet...

At the end of the day OP if you don’t like mining, don’t do it. Plenty of other things to do, including going and playing something else.
FWIW I try out aspects (mining, passenger missions) using a smaller ship and then looking to see what I can upgrade to from there. And like @Tyres O'Flaherty I am a slow miner and I don’t live for the mega meta payouts. I get what I get and that does for me.

My game time is limited so I gain nothing from flouncing about spitting out my dummy about how I don’t have credits for nice things. But I make my gameplay fit around those constraints.

 

[badibeat]

If I can add my two cents into the fray:

Since we have such an excellent overview in this post I will only add a few things I learned about laser mining (Painite):

A medium Mining Laser is more efficient than two small Mining Lasers combined.
Get real close to the asteroid as the Mining Lasers have a falloff of 300m and to minimise travel distances for the limpets.
You don't need as many collectors if you are really close to the asteroid and point the laser in a direction that makes the fragments drift below your ship. This keeps the travel distance of the limpets low and they can collect before the fragments drift further away. it may even be better to pause the lasers from time to time until you get the "no valid collection target" message so the limpets can keep up and the fragments don't drift far away. Rotate / move your ship only slowly as long as limpets are busy.
The fragments always come from the same single laser as long as all lasers are hitting the asteroid.
Ideally, the Collector Limpets are finished delivering the fragments shortly after the asteroid is depleted. They become much less efficient if they have to travel longer distances, and the chances that they get destroyed because they hit surfaces of nearby, rotating asteroids are reduced.

 

[everstream]

It's a really nice thread, because I have just started a couple of days before into the new kind of mining to gather some osmium for Marsha Hicks. Well my last mining experience was years ago, mining AllYouCanFind for Selene Jean and later on some painite for whoeverelse All done in old manner: laser, prospector and collector. Now I landed in some system 3000 LY to the north from Colonia and found a ring with 5 hotspots of painite, one with platinum and one with monazite. Well, 130 limpets and three or four hours later I've had my osmium, a little bit painite from exactly one deep core, some gold and asked myself, how yellow is yellow and what means "hotspot"

At the end I've done what some of you has described - permaboost in asteroid field - 380 m/s in an Anaconda. The estimation - one good asteroid in 30-50 kilometres - is something I can really confirm.

I understand now, mining is nothing, what I like. My way is:
1. Get a transportation/courier job, for 180 tons of cargo or even several jobs until 256 tons in the Corvette are full. Payout - up to 6-7 millions for the 180-er job, if I play 15-20 hours within 3-4 days continiously. Yes, that's a grind.
2. Get the pirates for this job on your tail: here they come - 4 Anacondas, best materials delivered free of charge to your cargo hatch. And don't forget the bounty payout - another million or two.
3. Repeat until you are tired

In regards of earnng money: yes, exactly in the beginning of the game - courier jobs on small and middle ships. If you are somewhere near Alpha Centauri and have gathered good reputation with almost all factions in the system: take a Python and 20 "data delivery" jobs to Hutton Orbital. Two/three hours of hopping between the stations and waiting for jobs in the board, then start the long journey and take 40-60 million payout, after an hour and a half of doing nothing but waiting The way to get more than 10 million per hour at the quite "middle game". And before I got to the Python, I did my first flights to Hutton in a Viper MK VI.

And in regards of combat (only solo): engineer that old Python and cut through the same 4 "dangerous" Anacondas. rather equal if with incendiary MCs or screening shell fragment cannons.

Elite is fun. Just invest more than 3 years and 1500 hours

 

[Maolagin]

It's a really nice thread, because I have just started a couple of days before into the new kind of mining to gather some osmium for Marsha Hicks. Well my last mining experience was years ago, mining AllYouCanFind for Selene Jean and later on some painite for whoeverelse All done in old manner: laser, prospector and collector. Now I landed in some system 3000 LY to the north from Colonia and found a ring with 5 hotspots of painite, one with platinum and one with monazite. Well, 130 limpets and three or four hours later I've had my osmium, a little bit painite from exactly one deep core, some gold and asked myself, how yellow is yellow and what means "hotspot"

At the end I've done what some of you has described - permaboost in asteroid field - 380 m/s in an Anaconda. The estimation - one good asteroid in 30-50 kilometres - is something I can really confirm.

Analogous to the post a few above yours, I would interject to say that mining benefits hugely from taking the time to learn what you are doing. For instance, the results you describe sound like you were in a Painite hotspot in a metal-rich ring. That means you will find (relatively rare) Painite cores there. However, Painite only occurs as a laser mining mineral in metallic rings. You should easily be able to clear 20-30M/hr in Painite taking even a Cobra to laser mine in a Painite hotspot in a pristine metallic ring. Ten times that with an optimized ship, location, and technique. And that's still true after this week's mining nerf.

I understand now, mining is nothing, what I like. My way is:
1. Get a transportation/courier job, for 180 tons of cargo or even several jobs until 256 tons in the Corvette are full. Payout - up to 6-7 millions for the 180-er job, if I play 15-20 hours within 3-4 days continiously. Yes, that's a grind.
2. Get the pirates for this job on your tail: here they come - 4 Anacondas, best materials delivered free of charge to your cargo hatch. And don't forget the bounty payout - another million or two.
3. Repeat until you are tired

In regards of earnng money: yes, exactly in the beginning of the game - courier jobs on small and middle ships. If you are somewhere near Alpha Centauri and have gathered good reputation with almost all factions in the system: take a Python and 20 "data delivery" jobs to Hutton Orbital. Two/three hours of hopping between the stations and waiting for jobs in the board, then start the long journey and take 40-60 million payout, after an hour and a half of doing nothing but waiting The way to get more than 10 million per hour at the quite "middle game". And before I got to the Python, I did my first flights to Hutton in a Viper MK VI.

While it's true that mission running is rarely optimal for earning credits - it's better for farming engineering materials or rank/rep/influence - it sounds like you're recommending an extremely grindy and low-payout approach. I don't understand where those 15-20 hours are even going in this story.

The trick to missions is to pick a couple of factions you want to work for - and if you don't care about BGS effects, pick a faction that is present in a bunch of systems, because the rep you build will apply in every station they appear in. Rep up to allied with that faction(s) by doing missions and taking the Rep++ reward. That faction will then give you abundant high-reward missions. Which ones you do really depend on your preferences. If you like running cargo, then yes cargo delivery pays well. Look for deliveries of valuable goods, since the payout is based in part on the value of the mission goods. Lately people have been seeing Tritium delivery missions that pay 50M for a single jump delivery! (But they're rare, don't count on that.) Source missions can also pay well, but beware since you have to find a place to buy the goods, and the really high payout missions will tend to demand goods that are harder to find.

Personally I quite like stacking up surface scan/attack missions (disable power grid, interact with hub access point, etc) - build a fast and well-shielded ship and you can knock out a bunch in very quick succession, then stop by an Interstellar Factor to pay off the bounties before going to claim the rewards (1-4M a piece, usually). The technique here is to use an accurate long range weapon to hit the power generators, or else fly up close and scan the access points from the ship, depending on which the mission asks for. Either way you have to be able to survive the base laser turrets firing at you for as long as it takes to get out of range. They're not nearly as dangerous as station defense turrets, and only have a 3-4 km range, so a DBX can do it, and something like a Krait II is honestly overkill.

 

[everstream]

sound like you were in a Painite hotspot in a metal-rich ring.

Completely right, first in a monazite hotspot, then in the painite spot, both in the metal-rich ring.

And that's still true after this week's mining nerf.

I've mined yesterday and two days ago, so maybe after the nerf .. haven't followed the news.

extremely grindy and low-payout approach. I don't understand where those 15-20 hours are even going in this story.

It depends on: if I really take out the Anacondas, just for fun and materials, it takes longer. Otherwise it takes 10-12 munites max from taking the mission to payout. So I can get something about between 30-42 million per hour - without highly sophisticated analysing of Asteroid fields and shapes and with a quite simple weapon loadout. The 15-20 hours means, that if I don't play for some weeks or even a couple of months, I still have the same rep at the factions (no interest in BGS, influence, whatsoever). But the mission payouts start underneath a million and grow continiously within 15-20 hours to the range of 6-7 million for a "single jump delivery". If I play every day, I don't need to level up the missions/payout that long.

What I mean with "my way" is, how I earn "enough" money and have fun without making a game as hard as a real world job. Since I play in Solo and see no real need in FCs, I don't need that much money in that short time. My real "goals" in all that time were the "big three". And the "optimal" setup on every ship - never ending story of engineering

 

[Ashnak]

I've mined yesterday and two days ago, so maybe after the nerf .. haven't followed the news.

The mining news... oh well, FD tried to adjust the Low Temperature Diamond (LTD) yields, and completely messed up everything, up to fleet carriers being effectively stranded for now since they can't find enough Tritium to refuel.
How bad they messed up - well, one sign for that is that they acknowledged it only yesterday in this post https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/fleet-carriers-patch-3-known-issues.550912/ , which is a rare thing indeed, so expect another patch coming in soon(tm).