How do you manually mine?

[DazaKiwi]

Frustrating process so far after trying to google and try things out.

I have Orc Collector, Drilling Mobile laser, and mineral scanner. I am using a Mercury TC class ship.

I go up to an astroid that is marked on the Sector map, blow it up with my drill laser, it explodes into large chunks. Which if you target these they cannot be 'scanned' for yeild info. It is difficult to tell which chunks belong to the astroid you hit and others that were around it initially.

Sometimes the explosion has white light effects and debris flying when i blow up some of these chunks that came away from the first hit, but afterwards there seems to be nothing to collect. An old guide i read, said you had to open your cargo bay doors with O, which also triggers your sheilds to drop and you are able to pick up ore. But this was old old info, and O does not do anything, nor is there an hotkey option for cargo bay doors. So i figure much has changed with mining.

Is this suppose to be difficult and tedious to mine vs high rewards?

Also I had read you can order a ship to mine. So far i have read, you need Mine & Trade software (which i havent come across yet) another guide said Explorer Command Software, which i have, and in Special orders there is nothing about mining.. I also read ai mining, is best done when you are out of the sector as they tend to be less buggy.

So it would be nice to read an to update, easy steps guide to know how to manually mine as well as order a ship to mine.

Also yield numbers do not have any reference, does 2 yeild mean, only 2 units of ore, or does it mean a rating number?

Are astroids listed in the sector map all there is, or there are more you have to find by scanning each sinlge astroid?

[Harrison]

To manually mine you have to blow the big rocks into really little rocks and then run them over with your ship.

For the Mine and Trade to work I think you need to equip the ship with the "ore collector", "Mineral Scanner", and either "Trade Command Software Mk. 1" or "Trading System Extention." You'll find the command under Trade, not special.

[DazaKiwi]

Thanks for your reply. How small are the rocks suppose to be until you can collect them? What yield count is worth your time?

[Harrison]

Really... small? Basically if you bounce off it (if you hit too hard and it's too big, you'll die), it's not small enough and if shooting anymore just makes them disappear then they're just right.

As for the yield, I'm not sure how manual mining is effected by it. I had some automated miners once upon a time that were set to mine and trade. I just left them to their business.

I toyed with the manual mining for the novelty. I didn't put anymore effort into it than learning the most basic mechanics. In other words, no yield count was worth my time.

[ormac]

I think according to the lore the yield is the content of the asteroid of that mineral (or frozen water). I think the yield just impacts the speed of the mining station you place on the asteroid. to be comparible to all the NPC mines I think the basic yield is 25.

Only done the barest amount of personal mining breaking it down then going to scoop it was just too disruptive a workflow. Also only done a small amount of automated mining. found it easier to trade ore and silicon from the working mine basically

If your scanner can detect the map asteroid it gets put on the map and thats it. I think everything else is considered rocks (which you can also mine) but they dont show up on the map.You might want to place something nearby so you can marshal your miners if your after the rocks.

Though the scripts may not need this to work.

[DazaKiwi]

Good info ormac- thanks. Yeah mining manually seems like a big time sink, bit disappointing, took me awhile to find a Mobile Drilling laser and i had hoped i would make more money from mining, but the slow process is not fun at all along with the confusion of what broken up chunks are from the astroid with minerals and what was surrounding rock before blowing up the astroid.

Unlike other games where you have a laser that extracts the minerals from the rock directly as it breaks it up even if they had made it so that it takes some time to do like repairing your ship with your repair laser in eva at least you know you are getting somewhere in terms of gathering resources. I will give it another go and see how much ore i get for my time and also I might try and see if i can get the Ai to mine for me, if its going to be a time sink then will go back to buying ore cheap and jumping to sectors where you get a good return. Was hoping manually mining would of increased my profits. Its too early for me to buy stations.

Also it would of been great if you could salvage from derelict ships and stations, i dont think you can? that could of been a risk and reward since a sector wiped out could be in theory a place pirates would be, maybe doing their own salvaging. And salvaging from your eva suit with a special tool could allow you a chance to get some equipment from the ship that you can sell. Anyway im getting off topic.

[Purplefairy22]

Originally posted by Daza_NZ:

I have Orc Collector, Drilling Mobile laser, and mineral scanner. I am using a Mercury TC class ship.

I want an ORC collector too.
With legions of Orcs i could easily replace the XENON And become supreme leader of the universe Mu ha haw.

[DazaKiwi]

Originally posted by Purplefairy22:

Originally posted by Daza_NZ:

I have Orc Collector, Drilling Mobile laser, and mineral scanner. I am using a Mercury TC class ship.

I want an ORC collector too.
With legions of Orcs i could easily replace the XENON And become supreme leader of the universe Mu ha haw.

lol

[Raging Chimera]

Mining is sort of meant to be automated to provide a source of automated income and to kick start the economy. You are better off getting a fleet of mercuries setup to "Mine and Sell Minerals".

Such a fleet is usually one of the first things I purchase. Buy and outfit them cheaply, buy one, then another, until you have a dozen or so.

If you want to take part I would recommend getting a discoverer setup as an explorer and go scout sectors and asteroids to send your automated miners to. There are valuable rocks to be found.

[DazaKiwi]

Okay thanks for the tips. Those mining ships fitted for automated mining will need to have full shields to prevent them getting destroyed by collisions with astroids? if they do get damaged do they report it? do they go off and get repaired automatically? or is it a seldom occurance since its the Ai?

[ormac]

It's best to put the maximum number and strength of shields on all your ships to improve surviveability. They might report damage but by that time they might almost be destroyed. they don't go and get themselves repaired automatically if damaged.

Damage and destruction is probably a seldom occurace for miners. Dependance on pirates attitude or disgruntled factions. (races).

[Harrison]

Collisions with asteriods will most likely be the least of your worries. Especially if you put them in some out of the way sector that you have few pressing needs to go to.

As long as you're not in the same sector with your ships (any ship for that matter) they can do all sorts of balck magic, like sail in straight lines and dock by reaching some arbitrary point near a station. The physics, or what passes for physics in these games, only become relevent when the player is present in sector.

Which is why I prefer to command my burgeoning empire from some place out the way that few of my ships go to, like Legend's Home or Earth.

[Raging Chimera]

Originally posted by Harrison:

Which is why I prefer to command my burgeoning empire from some place out the way that few of my ships go to, like Legend's Home or Earth.

Yep, good advice. You will lose ships but if you stay out of the busy systems you will lower your losses.

Automated miners generally aren't the ships I lose. I mainly lose explorers, the occasional Universe trader and fleet supply ships. The automated universe traders can hold their own if you equip them with some fight command software and some MkII drones... especially as they gain levels.

New players should also remember to setup emergency jump parameters for their automated ships and configure their ship turrets/missile defense for survival.

[Waterpijp]

If the collecting of the ore isnt working u might want to press O to open the cargo bay doors, this might activate the function to attract/collect the ore


Greetz!

[Zoran]

Originally posted by Yendependgonashootuinthappendix:

If the collecting of the ore isnt working u might want to press O to open the cargo bay doors, this might activate the function to attract/collect the ore


Greetz!

mean