Mining - How?

[Vastin]

Ok, I seem to be missing something very basic here. I've played the game through several times, but I've never had any luck mining.

So, I assume that one should equip a mining laser, or that plasma thingee the Feryn miners use, point it at some space rocks and shoot to make ore come out, or something like that.

But I have never seen a piece of ore in my life, and I eventually get bored of shooting the rocks. Is there some critical step I'm missing here?

[Bobby]

missing steps? no, though a mining cargo hold is reccomended.


not all rocks have ore, and it may take quite a few shots to get ore.

i usualy shoot a rock 8 times with a mining laser, then assume it is empy and move on, unless ore is produced

[Vastin]

I did finally manage to get some ore out of a few rocks, but it took much longer than I expected.

I have a lot of patience for farming Ranx and Ventauri capital ships - I'm not sure I have enough patience to shoot rocks.

Now if I could install some kind of cool prospecting system that would scan rocks for ore, and/or a mining auton that I could just set loose in an asteroid belt for a while whilst I shot at bad guys, I think I could get into mining.

But that bit about shooting rocks endlessly - Not so much. The problem is that they don't shoot back.

[omniaddict]

I did finally manage to get some ore out of a few rocks, but it took much longer than I expected.

I have a lot of patience for farming Ranx and Ventauri capital ships - I'm not sure I have enough patience to shoot rocks.

Now if I could install some kind of cool prospecting system that would scan rocks for ore, and/or a mining auton that I could just set loose in an asteroid belt for a while whilst I shot at bad guys, I think I could get into mining.

But that bit about shooting rocks endlessly - Not so much. The problem is that they don't shoot back.

Don't forget the *other* way to mine - install a laser-proof sheild or laser-proof armor, then blow up a couple of outlaw mining stations without killing the borer ships. get 10-20 borers shooting at you, then saunter through an asteroid field.

(hint: if you can get it, heavy meteorsteel is nice, since it's immune to lasers and kinetic, and the other outlaw mining ships shoot at you with kinetic. )

[Sheltem]

Certainly the borers will kill themself fast, will they ?

I suggest to mine nothing else than volcanic and metallic asteroids. Others are not worth the ore/time performance. Although you need quite much time*, volcanic asteroids give a moderate amout of rins(ores).

* maybe its just boring and thus feeling longer ...

[Fatboy]

or,




**** SPOILERS ****





find Laser reflective paste.

[Periculi]

Vastin, I wrote a simple ROM mod to find ore and target it based on Betel's sample of how to use filter to find the closest ore-bearing asteroid to you.

It's right here.

Just copy the code block into an extension and work out the details.

[Ttech]

NIce one p

[Clear Air Turbulence]

I've tried mining and haven't had much luck. I have never seen anything come out of an asteroid when I shot it with a mining laser. I have a couple of questions.

1. Do you have to keep shooting an asteroid many times to get it to spit out ore, or if you shoot an asteroid once and it doesn't produce ore does that mean you need to try another one, or should you keep trying to shoot that one?

2. What does it look like when you get ore? Is it something that comes off that is lootable, or something you pick up automatically when you fly over it?

[Aury]

I've tried mining and haven't had much luck. I have never seen anything come out of an asteroid when I shot it with a mining laser. I have a couple of questions.

1. Do you have to keep shooting an asteroid many times to get it to spit out ore, or if you shoot an asteroid once and it doesn't produce ore does that mean you need to try another one, or should you keep trying to shoot that one?

2. What does it look like when you get ore? Is it something that comes off that is lootable, or something you pick up automatically when you fly over it?

Since you've made the post, might as well answer it...
1) yes, you must keep shooting the asteroid many times, more so for the mining laser than the plasma lance. The "mining:#" attribute of the weapon's damage field controls this- the higher the number, the more likely and thus faster the ore will come out (I think)... or perhaps it correlates to the amount of ore you get.
2) it's a coppery chunk of asteroid and in .99-.99c it is marked as a dark-green blip on your radar (it does NOT show up on the system map). The ore chunk is about 32x32 pixels in size.

[Prophet]

very few asteroids actually contain ore so you need to shoot most of them. Give each one about 4-5 shots with the mining laser, if no little coppery blob pops out, move on. When it does pop out, you must dock with it and then you can bring it aboard your ship.

***SPOILER***







Sell all your loot from eridani and get a mining laser and a miner's cargo hold, mine all the ore in Eridani and sell it to the Corporate Enclave for huge profits. You should be able to make up to 6000-7000 creds if you sell all the ore at once (otherwise the Enclave will pay less for your 2nd or 3rd trip)
Then you can go show Arco Vaughn who's the boss!

[Aury]

Though mining is profitable, it can get somewhat tedious (especially when only low-yeild asteroids are present), so I'd personally not recommend doing it all at once, simply for the sake of having fun.

[Fossaman]

It's good practice for aiming, though. Especially if you do fly-bys of the asteroids while you're shooting at them.

[Clear Air Turbulence]

I've got it to work now, I've made quite a few rin with mining. Whenever I'm flying through an asteroid belt, I'll fire the plasma torch as I zoom past, and if I see anything pop up I go back for it. If it's high quality and I have hold room, I'll stick around and fill up if there's a Ringer base nearby.

[IceMephit]

I shoot each asteroid 8-10 times. if it produces ore i repeat the process until it stops giving me ore. Some of the larger asteroids seem to give up 2, 3 even 4 chunks of ore before being depleted and its not always the same ore. i have gotten titanium, plasteel and cerallox (?) ore from one asteroid.I also atopilot when i mine. Aim, hold fire, press autopilot. 10 shots in less than roughly 3 seconds. it has worked for me in 99c, RC1 and RC2. Cash money, without too much rick, and usually some decent armor.