help with mining ?

[durbanator]

i usually dont do any mining when i play so im feeling a bit curious. ive been trying to find a post on the forums related to mining in the vanilla game, but ive come up blank so far..
i did a few mining colony missions and the station master said something about mining volcanic asteroids for ithaluim ore.. how do i tell which type of asteroid is which?
is there any previous topic thats mining related, speficif to the vanilla game?

[Ttech]

I usually get a plasma torch and just blast down the astroid belt until I get enough hall to fill up my cargo hold..
Its no science.

[sun1404]

there's three types of asteroid in the 1.1 version game, and I think four in the 1.2 betas. The three types are: rocky asteroid, these are brown-white and the most common in the early-mid game (approximately from Eridani to Sanctuary, or from the beginning to before the Ares comes). These asteroids are somewhat abundant in ores, but only low to mid level ones. (I think max. at four or five.) The second type is the ice asteroid, these are bleak white, and usually appear in fields of asteroid, but not rings of asteroid. They hold almost no ores, and usually not worth the trouble and energy wasted to mine them. The last type, is the volcanic asteroid, which is what you should find and mine. They're black rocks with red magma visible in places. Usually only found in the late mid game - late game (Jiang's Star to Heretic, the place where Sung Citadels starts to appear to the end). They holds much ores from level six to ten, and are a prospective source of income. They starts to be common in the late game, where the Ares is dominant and the CSCs starts appearing. I don't know about the forth type, but I heard they're just between the rocky and volcanic asteroids. Nothing special.

I wrote this purely from my experience with mining. They might not be absolutely accurate, but should be enough for a guideline. If anyone sees anything wrong, please fix it with your knowledge.