Methanol Monohydrate Crystals - Mission impossible?

[ErdnussMaus]

Gathering first mining exp.
After searching ice rings for about an hour, i started mining methanol monohydrate crystals.
After another hour, refinery was about 70%, now i need to sleep.
But its creeping me:
If refinery reaches 100%, how many crystals will be there?
I have to gather 160 (tons?) so if it the answer would be "one" i would start to cry and maybe continue crying over night.

Thanks in advance :)

[Cathulhu]

100% = 1 ton.

Did you use a Detailed Surface Scanner to find Hotspots?
Did you use a Pulse Wave Scanner to find a good asteroid to mine?
Did you use a Prospector Limpet to enhance the outcome?

This can help you find a system with the stuff you need:
https://edtools.cc/hotspot

If looking for some video guide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVtcJ-nvp0c

[wil4me]

I'm sorry to say, but that's a bad mission you ended up getting. Each 100% in the refinery only gives you a single sample (ton) of that item. You're much better off going mission-free when mining so that you have more control over how long you want to do something.

The link Cathulhu put is one of the many tools that is used by miners who want to mine for the better paying objects. Sadly methanol monohydrate crystals aren't super valuable, so they aren't visible with edtools because they are more of a "miscellaneous" mined valuable.

[Alrik]

Originally posted by ErdnussMaus:

I have to gather 160 (tons?) so if it the answer would be "one" i would start to cry and maybe continue crying over night.

Heads up, that kind of mission usually has up to 6 days time limit ;-)

AFIAK Methanol Monohydrate Crystals are best mined in a wing, and even with 2 or more players mining it's hard to collect much.

By the way: the key to successful mining are collector limpets.
Many, many, many collector limpets.
Each active limpet increases the number of fragments you can collect, and with enough limpets you have to put the cheap stuff on the ignore list or otherwise you refinery get's full with it.

[Heimdall313]

Ah damn, that specific mineral is one to avoid. Mining missions are for stuff you can buy (Cobalt, Indite, Gold), or for the engineering material rewards you want Bromellite.

I don't think hotspots exist for Methanol crystals, but what you can do is look up good Bromellite hotspots; don't know any of the top of my head but I have like 4 spots in in-game bookmarks. Go to one of those hotspot planets / gas giant but land /outside/ the hotspot, since hotspot will reduce the odds of methanol popping up.

Im stuck at work or I'd have better info

[jamespfp]

There is a trick to everything in Elite, especially Mining. I can offer a couple of useful tips for Methanol Monohydrate Crystals.

First, as pointed out above Wing Mining is generally much faster for MMC simply because of how infrequently they tend to spawn in Icy rings, which also puts a cap on what the maximum percentage of the asteroids will actually be crystals. If you don't already fly with other players / Miners, therefore, your next best bet will be to find a Fleet Carrier which will allow you to either ( a ) sell it the MMC so that you don't have to keep the tons you have in your cargo hold, so that you can make more trips to the icy fields to find more tons; or ( b ) have already been "banking" it and will happily sell it to you. MMC is about the cheapest of the Minerals in the Market, but only FCs sell it. [edit] And if you don't bank it with an FC, your best bet to actually completing this mission will be to fly back to the station where you picked up the mission to turn in the tons you've gathered, or else risk an NPC pirate scanning them in your hold when next you go mining. Missions will allow you to turn in partial tonnage amounts, if necessary. Finding an FC to sell it to you outright is your best bet, otherwise.

Second, Icy Rings have a couple of significant differences in terms of what and how they spawn. As I mentioned already, there's a cap on what the max percentages will be (approximately 40%, whereas Metallic rings get up to 67%) ; but also, the distance from and the type of the Star in that solar system plays a factor. Icy rings come in 2 basic variations: high or low albedo, meaning, relatively Dark or Too Bright. Because of the larger amount of time required to use Laser Mining to get something specific like MMC, it is always best to find a good Ring which will make longer mining sessions feasible. Ideally, I'd suggest finding a good Low Albedo ring... perhaps the Icy Ring found in ARIMA.

Third, and most importantly: Hotspots play a huge factor in finding MMC, even though there are no MMC hotspots. The reason is because of the effect that Hotspots have in what will spawn inside their limits. Most people only talk about the type of Core Asteroids which will spawn, but Icy rings have one special feature, the Tritium Hotspot. Because of that Hotspot, almost all of the other types of deposit (subsurface, surface) will spawn as Tritium, but it also increases the spawn rates for high percentage Laser rocks. *However,* those Spawn Rates also mean there's a pretty darn good chance of rolling asteroids that *do* have close to the maximum percentage possible (ie. close to 40%) but which are *Not* Tritium. Since there's a limited number of possible "junk drops" (ie. methane clathrate, water, hydrogen peroxide, MMC, bromellite, etcetera) some of those rocks will be MMC with 25-40% laser content. In my experience, it's best to go to Hotspots which are overlapping as well; they don't have to both be Tritium, though, just one Tritium hotspot is enough.

Fourth, as a corollary to the third, is that if the Tritium Hotspot method of finding high percentage Laser rocks doesn't work, your best course of action will be to use displacement missiles on the very random Subsurface deposits which will have MMC in them as well as using your Lasers. This means you can use a Pulse Wave scanner to find rocks likely to have the necessary deposit types, but you'll have to go looking for them in hotspots which are Not Tritium. Therefore, the best possible place to find MMC will be in a Bromellite / Tritium hotspot which is overlapped, and the most efficient use of your time will be to have a build that mostly uses Lasers and Missiles.
[edit] I almost forgot to mention the runner up -- try using Void Opal hotspots as well.

Fifth, following up on your OP question which was answered - 100% in your Refinery equates to 1 ton in your cargo hold, *Yes,* and that is why you don't want to waste any time on Laser content percentages which are less than 15% in an Icy Ring. In fact, I might not bother with 15% either, unless I was Wing Mining and the percentage effectively doubled/tripled/quadrupled. The Percentage is basically a cap on how many mining fragments will make up a ton of Refined commodity; 15% reported by the Prospector probably yields a ton with 8-9 fragments collected, and thus the whole asteroid has maybe 3 tons in it (per member of a Wing, up to 4x = 12 tons), depending on how much was already in your Refinery bin waiting for more.

As I said above, the icy ring in ARIMA is a relatively decent location I've used very frequently, which has the added benefits of being very close to the center of the Bubble, with an abundance of FCs nearby, and which has a very low albedo ring with lots of hotspots.

One last thing: you're going to want a lot of limpets in your hold to get 160 tons of MMC, because you're going to be Prospecting everything. You definitely also need an A-Grade Prospector limpet controller, to maximize the yield.

o7

[Sighman]

A-rated mining gear is essential for maximum fragments from the asteroid and fewer fragments needed to craft each unit.

[bobdbilder]

You go to ED Wiki. Look up Commodities. Look up Minerals. Select MMC. The page now says to look for Icy Rings. You have a better chance in Pristine Icy Rings. 160 is tough if you are laser mining. Probably takes more than two hours but its more common than Bromelite.

Put materials you do not want on the Ignore list. It would help your limpet's life.
And you don't want to waste your prospector limpets randomly. Just shoot an asteroid and see what it digs out. If its the one you're looking for then back away and fire a prospector. The number of chips typically increases when you use prospectors this way. Your collector limpets will die prematurely in rings. So save them for when it really counts.

Good luck commdr o7