Tips for Surface mining?

[Furry Eskimo]

I know how the srv's radar works, and I can mine, plus I know where to find each material (I think,) but do you have any quality of life tips?

Running over each rock individually to collect it is very time consuming, but limets don't work on planets.

Are they any methods that make collecting materials from planets easier?
Again, running back and forth over rocks is, boring. It's worse when I disciver larger items, because my srv can only hold two items before I have to return to the ship. Regardless of how close the ship is, this is a time waster. But unlike many parts of this game which are also time watsers, this one requires me to carefully pay attention and micromange my controls, while I drive over rock, after rock..

I need to do this for engineering and tech broker purposes, but I want to make this as painless as possible.

[Turd Ferguson]

nope :(

only advice I can give you is concentrate on grade 4-5 materials and trade down.

far less time consuming that way. you can trade 81 grade 1 materials for a single grade 5....that's a huge time saver.

I don't bother collecting ANY materials lower than grade 4 anymore if I can help it.

[Furry Eskimo]

good point.

[Pauly]

There are places you can farm high grade mats with little to no driving and trade for all the others like Turd said.

[Witcher]

Pretty sure 3.1 update increased the discoveries of outcrops and their cousins.

[Furry Eskimo]

Good to know!

Until today I didn't realize these materials could be converted That will make this much eaasier.

It's still time consuming though, especially since some of the materials I need ARE the highest level of rarity.

Now you said you can farm a location. How does that work?
I know some things ask for meta-alloys, and that sounds challenging.. Althought I hear players can buy it and share with others.

Does that apply to other special items? One engineer is asking me for cigars, but I hear you can only buy ~8 at a time, and she wants 50. I'm hoping someone can buy extra, give them to me, then go get more, but idk.

[Turd Ferguson]

meta alloys are easy. find a live barnacle and farm it. cigars are a rare comodity. theres 1 place to get then and there's a limit to how many you can have (its cargo) so you'll have to make several trips.

[Furry Eskimo]

That's too bad.

But ok, so meta allows. How do I farm a place? Do I have to leave and come back, or wait a period of time? Also I hear it's easier to farm them in offline because they're hotspots of activity.

[Witcher]

Each barnacle farm has a max of 5 meta alloys IIRC and then you simply log out/back in to respawn them

[Turd Ferguson]

Originally posted by Furry Eskimo:

That's too bad.

But ok, so meta allows. How do I farm a place? Do I have to leave and come back, or wait a period of time? Also I hear it's easier to farm them in offline because they're hotspots of activity.

shoot them and pick them up. then relog and repeat.

[One Eye Jack]

I get almost all of that stuff asteroid mining. Way less of a pain. Just let your limpets do all the work plus get paid while you’re at it.

[Furry Eskimo]

Unfortunatly it seems like there are many materials I simply can't get by asteroid mining. I have an inventory packed in various elements, but I'm starved for the materials, even Common, on the surface of planets.

I thought I could go around, blow up rocks, and have my ship use limpets to collect them, but no.

And wow, that is easy. XD
That must make for good money too!!

Now, does that trick also work for other minerals? Can I go to a rock on a planet, colelct it, and re-log in to collect it again? I thought these spawn randomly,

[Turd Ferguson]

Originally posted by Furry Eskimo:

Unfortunatly it seems like there are many materials I simply can't get by asteroid mining. I have an inventory packed in various elements, but I'm starved for the materials, even Common, on the surface of planets.

I thought I could go around, blow up rocks, and have my ship use limpets to collect them, but no.

And wow, that is easy. XD
That must make for good money too!!

Now, does that trick also work for other minerals? Can I go to a rock on a planet, colelct it, and re-log in to collect it again? I thought these spawn randomly,

rocks are random spawns. Barnacles are presistent.

[Witcher]

Originally posted by Turd Ferguson:

shoot them and pick them up. then relog and repeat.

If you see a gigantic flower descending, I won't go shooting at it hoping for a bonanza of meta alloys to drop

[Agony_Aunt]

I can offer one small tip. Its better to gather materials on a higher G planet.

When you shoot a rock on a high G planet, the materials fall together in the same place. You drive over, left panel, and just select each material. Its really quick.

On a low G planet they go all over the place and take time to land. This means driving around, targetting each bit, and scooping.

[Bannor]

I wrote a whole lot about it *here* which I'm not going to repeat.