Starting with mining?

[IndieGameplayITA]

A friend of mine has purchased Elite Dangerous right not. I'm here to ask if it's possible to start mining since the beginning. Can you tell me a fitting for him

[Farrel]

The absolute minimum you'll need are a detailed surface scanner, refinery and some mining lasers, with collector limpets and some cargo space being so highly recommended it's pretty much mandatory.

Honestly, it's not worth trying to mine in anything smaller than a cobra...And genuinely, I'd suggest saving for an Asp for realistic money making potential from mining.

Before then, stealing kills in a low-danger resource collection zone is probably a much better investment of your time. (Hang around scanning ships until you see one with a 'wanted' tag, wait for the police to attack them and then make sure you get some hits in just before they die)

[Wyaston Hypatia]

Whilst it is possible to do mining (not deep core) in the starting sidewinder, it would probably put them off it for a long time. I think it's better to save up for a larger ship like a cobraIII before giving it a go. Fortunately it doesn't take that long to earn the credits to buy one nowadays.

[<Caeris↝]

Everything good explained in this video:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5esd-dvVeFk



Also here for advanced ones:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM8Qcpx1K38

[Storm]

in the starter sectors theres a distinct lack of mining equipment, you can only get the hopper, collectors and limpets (NO prospectors and NO deep core). this makes mining at the start a matter of luck...
i had a go at this awhile ago, and in about 4 hours of looking and mining blind, i ended up with about 80k for my efforts (missions or res sites were 10x better).
once out of the starters its a different matter of course!

[ornot.demar]

I started out doing simple courier runs. Go through the board and pick up a bunch for the same neighbouring system and you can net a decent amount in the starting sidewinder, with no real risk to yourself.
Kill stealing always seemed grubby to me, but it is the absolutely best way to make a fortune in bounties in a sidewinder.
You can go core mining in an Adder, but I'd suggest saving for a Cobra 3, there's not really enough cargo space otherwise. I did make a neat million or so on a rare materials trade run in an Adder though. You can't buy much, so the small cargo space isn't a problem. I did have to upgrade my FSD, and then spend a few hours hopping far enough away to sell for a reasonable amount, but I did feel a nice sense of achievement in my new Cobra 3, which I could then finally use for Low Temperature Diamond mining!

[Ildryn]

If you go laser mining with him you can drop the ore (remember to drop it far from the station 10 or so at a time) for him to sell himself. Get him into a AspX or a Python and then teach him how to mine.