Why do different levels of mining laser/refinery exist?

[AddictedFool]

I'm asking that question because of the TERRIBLE system that exists for the current mining system. The part that breaks down is when you have to scoop up each little piece individually by running it over at a snails pace so you don't bump it out of the way. There is literally no reason to get a better mining laser or refinery because you are 100% bottlenecked by the scooping part of the system. I've gotten pretty decent at it so I can get them about as fast as would be possible, but that doesn't even come close to catching up with how fast a laser breaks them off or how fast you can go through the menu to clear your hopper.

Are you supposed to mine as a group with one person cutting the asteroid and like 3 or 4 people scooping up the chunks? Do better lasers give you better chunks with more material? I'm hoping this comes off less as a rant than an actual question, but there is a complaint to be made that the current mining system is pretty much broken as is because of the insane gathering system.

 

[TehGM]

Tbh, I have a nice place to mine now so i decided to stay there for a few days. Started mining with hauler (money saving!) and scooping was nice, then switched to adder - now it bumps off often.
So it seems like it depends on the ship.

 

[undercovergeek]

current mining system is pretty much broken.

or its working exactly as designed but you just dont like it

i dont like bananas - very rarely do i go to church and ask god to change them because hes clearly broken them

FWIW better mining lasers will cut quicker in my experience, better refineries have more bins so you can collect more things at once

 

[Symo]

I've been doing a bit of mining and find it quite relaxing, though its not very profitable unless you can find a decent system (which I did but it was crawling with pirates which wasn't very relaxing, my adder sucks at combat). My adder does seem to like bouncing them off if I'm doing less than 10 mph, though I have a feeling its often something to do with my ship or the chunk bouncing off or getting stuck in the asteroid collision.

 

[Joe Spivey]

Collecting the chunks becomes easier the more you practice. If you are doing it right you should be able to shoot off a chunk and catch it within a few seconds... rather like a dog catching treats in the air.

Edited to add: Use the scoop aiming box rather than watching through the window. Oh and if you want big profits go for PRISTINE/MAJOR RESERVES - METALIC systems.

 

[metatheurgist]

Don't know if it's changed but in Beta I could zap all the chips off an asteroid and have them all scooped in minutes. The bigger laser meant that I could get all the chips out faster, the more bins made it easier to just keep gulping chips.

 

[AddictedFool]

or its working exactly as designed but you just dont like it

i dont like bananas - very rarely do i go to church and ask god to change them because hes clearly broken them

FWIW better mining lasers will cut quicker in my experience, better refineries have more bins so you can collect more things at once

If you got a banana, and it came without the middle and there was only a peel, that would be broken. You can call the current system broken, because there is literally no point in getting a better laser (I'll give you the better refinery because it gives you more options in your hopper, but that is still 100% unnecessary because you can click through the menu and empty the hopper manually faster than you can scoop the chunks). This isn't an opinion, it's just how the game is currently designed (poorly).

The point stands, there is a bottleneck in the current mining system from having to collect them in such a silly way. It's like having a GTX 980 with an Intel 486 processor. It doesn't matter if you can blast through 1 million chunks per second, you can only collect them as fast as you can scoop them which is about 10% as fast as the cheapest laser I could get.

 

[undercovergeek]

with a one bin refinery, if the palladium runs out and you have 95% of it full, and you mine another asteroid and it yields gold or platinum, what are you going to do with your almost full hopper - purge almost 14k? thats what the second bin is for, keep the palladium safe and scoop the gold with the other bin