Early Game Asteroid Mining

[NoStepOnSnek]

I'm wondering if I can get some help from the community. I started the reforged eden mod with some friends and I started on the Pandora planet. AMAZING start. It's the most gratifying survival experience I've done. So I'm trying to build up enough resources to get my first capital ship and get out of the starter system as the following is my real problem and why I want to leave: The zirax sneak attack my SV while I am asteroid mining. I usually let my mining drills chew through 1 iteration of the drill and then switch to detector, ping, and then back to mining. So I'm a very skittish player, if I see the slightest sign of a zirax patrol nearby me I leave. On 3 occasions now my SV has been surprise attacked by zirax interdictors and interceptors, killing me instantly. How can I avoid this and also get resources early game? (Pandora is very light on resources and not many if any POIs that give those special resources like neodymium, sathium or erestrum.)

Thanks in advance :D

[piddlefoot]

Secret for when your desperate.

What I do, is I build a tiny escape SV, cockpit and few blocks thats it, small as it is, and have that ready to spawn in BP list, then fly to roid you want to mine, deconstruct SV and dig hole into roid to hide......

When finished, spawn SV and run forest RUUUN !

Pesky little drones !

Make sure you suck in as much air as you can before you exit SV !
Take some oxygen bottles, the manual type.

Be aware of the temp etc and what boosters you might need to be in that playfield.

Good luck Forest !

[NoStepOnSnek]

Thanks!! I was thinking of that. Although it seems like reforged galaxy adds some extra complexity. Like EVA boosters require gold which I haven't found in system at all yet. And the fancy laser hand drill requires zascosium and other rarer minerals so you're stuck with the mechanical hand drill for a long time. Do shields protect you well enough to escape? I'm wondering if I could drop my turrets in exchange for a shield and when I get in trouble just run. I usually run anyway, letting my turrets fight back (they usually kill the easier zirax drones but can't do much against the interdictors)

[piddlefoot]

Yes its not overly easy like in later stages, takes more planning.
Shields, well that depends on a few variables.
But they should give you a fighting chance to run !

[Balthazaar]

To suggest a different approach. Build a warp drive for your sv. Trade for missing materials if needed. Explore moons and planets in your solar system.

Mining asteroids in space can be very challenging. Lot easier to mine on planet surfaces, till your strong enough to mine asteroids.

CV, when built for the purpose, and your ready; can mine asteroids and handle fights too.

Hope this helps, good luck Galactic Survivalist!

[NoStepOnSnek]

Thank you all for the help. I'm thinking you're right. I should stay away from asteroid mining. It seems like the zirax interdictors spawn right on top of me or very near, WHEN I'm sitting still like mining an asteroid or parked in a POL station. at this early stage they seem to have enough firepower to wipe me out if I'm stationary. I haven't encountered them when I'm moving however.

[NoStepOnSnek]

Although I have to admit, reforged eden is pretty awesome. I like the base game a lot but the mod really ramps up the difficulty and makes you consider your actions a lot more carefully. It was super gratifying to finally feel protected while on pandora. Now I need to get out of system because the zirax are just ridiculous in the starter system.

[therealcryoflame]

Another method of protecting yourself while mining.

Keep your SV small and just the basics you need. You want the footprint of the vehicle to be compact. When you are ready to start mining first dig out a hole large enough to fit your SV inside and then park your SV inside the hole. On a planet you can fill in the entry hole and completely conceal yourself. On an asteroid I've found that making an L-shaped cave to be a very effective way of concealing/protecting my SV. The entry hole lets me fly into the cave and then park it off to the side enough that no portion of it is visible through the entry hole. I will jump out of the SV and use my drone to do the actual mining while I'm concealed in the cave. When the drone gets killed I know they are nearby and I'll need to take them out or wait for an opportunity to run.

[ChumSickle]

Reforged Galaxy/Reforged eden is a totally different experience, in my opinion. Especially in space. I am still trying to figure out the drone mechanics myself, as sometimes I will be left alone, and then sometimes interceptors will randomly appear and wreak havoc with me.

The mod was designed, in some ways, to slow you down a bit. Make you think through issues, and come up with solutions.

[Obsidiac]

Interceptors seem to show up when nearing an asteroid in faction space. Still not sure about that.

[NoStepOnSnek]

Yeah ChumSickle is right. It's a vastly different experience and much harder than vanilla. Pandora was particularly hard because the zirax were in orbit but not on the planet so we couldn't mow the lawn for them to get neutral reputation. There were also no POIs (that we could find) that had neodymium or sathium so we had extreme difficulty getting out of system. We finally were able to leave system by finding planet based deposits to mine on moons. We made the cheapest, easiest to build capship and got the hell out of dodge :) It was very fulfilling. Unlike vanilla this universe is much more populated and we decided to settle on an easier planet 6 or 7 jumps out of Delta (Pandora), also with zirax but with lots of trees to cut down to bring them to neutral. If you haven't checked out reforged eden, do. especially if you like a more hostile, slower progression with more meaningful choices.

[mathaniel]

I`ll testify it`s harder= better, even for a hammer head like me lol. I play slow, so right up my alley. "Seems" like a lot of xp, and lots of mats from nodes, but not really, it`s really well balanced.

[Norðtann]

2 minigun turrets are enough to deal with every single stray drone. Just leave some ammo in the box, dont turn off power and u can mine safely as long as no huge carrier vessel or other warship like cruiser or destroyer show up (and they are much slower than drones)

Additionally those minigun turrets dont use much CPU (better than a gatling gun) and they cut Zirax down with awesome precision.
U should consider armoring ur ship with at least a bit of hardend steel, so that stray bullets dont hit ur warp generator, then u are fit to fight countless drones without problems.

[mathaniel]

Noted eric22 thanks.