How to obtain Loadstone today

[gizmo6023]

There are a bunch of techniques published from pre 7.0 but I see no current info.
I have an empire to build and the pitiful drop rate of loadstone is cramping my style.
I have sent collectors to high use mining systems on repeat orders collect drops and nada.
Is the only way to get them now to spend hours in a mining ship busting rocks or the one in 10,000 chance some XEN ship will drop one when your gate trap pops them?

[rpvb3]

My standard way is to just part a destroyer near a very active mining field and do my map viewing and empire management there for awhile. You will see unstable crystals and lodestones popping up and send a fighter to go collect them. I don't mine them myself, the NPCs uncover them all the time and don't pick them up.

[Venerable_Sin]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von rpvb3:

My standard way is to just part a destroyer near a very active mining field and do my map viewing and empire management there for awhile. You will see unstable crystals and lodestones popping up and send a fighter to go collect them. I don't mine them myself, the NPCs uncover them all the time and don't pick them up.

Yep. The less asteroids there are, the slower the container spawn rate.

You would think high density asteroid fields would have a lot of asteroids to pop, but this isn't the case when you've been mining the field for awhile along with NPC's. Not sure if the rate was changed or if this is what I seem to be running into but at the start of my play through it was fairly fast to receive asteroid loot. Today it seems to be quite different and much slower. Not sure how to find newly/fully loaded asteroids unless finding sectors with millions of resources over tens or hundreds of thousands will do the trick. I'm too scared to play too much on 7.0 or 7.1 atm....... Xenon seem broken.

[Comander-07]

I just bought them from a HAT freeport

[NoDMoD]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von gizmo6023:

There are a bunch of techniques published from pre 7.0 but I see no current info.
I have an empire to build and the pitiful drop rate of loadstone is cramping my style.
I have sent collectors to high use mining systems on repeat orders collect drops and nada.
Is the only way to get them now to spend hours in a mining ship busting rocks or the one in 10,000 chance some XEN ship will drop one when your gate trap pops them?

The easiest way I have found, is to park next to a couple of miners (which are mining) and wait a few minutes, they will start appearing and you just collect them.

[gizmo6023]

I spent an hour chasing my mining ships around in a scout and got nothing. I spent another hour in a Crane busting every rock within a reasonable distance and finally got 3 loadstone, I did not keep a detailed count but it was at least 20 rocks, likely closer to 30 busted for scraps.
I just started X4 a few weeks ago and I have never seen the drop rates claimed on forums or YouTube.

[Wraith]

Are you not doing the minigame and just breaking open the rock?

You don't even need to be in a miner

[gizmo6023]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Wraith:

Are you not doing the minigame and just breaking open the rock?

You don't even need to be in a miner

I have done both ways but I just captured the Crane and wanted to take it out for a test drive. The Crane has no "main gun" fitted just turret mounted mining lasers, I did not see a way lock them to attempt the minigame. I will grab a M ship and try the minigame again tomorrow.

[Killzad]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von gizmo6023:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Wraith:

Are you not doing the minigame and just breaking open the rock?

You don't even need to be in a miner

I have done both ways but I just captured the Crane and wanted to take it out for a test drive. The Crane has no "main gun" fitted just turret mounted mining lasers, I did not see a way lock them to attempt the minigame. I will grab a M ship and try the minigame again tomorrow.

Dude get a scout or Moreia or Xperimental shuttle something fast and nimble. Put the cheapest beam laser, less damage it does the better. Get to Second Contact or Heretics End or any Asteroid Belt, look for small rocks are better. Once there activate scan rocks will turn orange or blue when near them, once you go very close you will notice bright spots each rock has 5 or 6 of this spots shoot them every four or five they will drop Lordestone or Unstable Crystal or Space eggs. I just did this and in 55 minutes i got 40 lordestone that's like one stone every 1,5 minutes.

[Tankqull]

you have to be in an undocked ship in that sector for them to be droped by miners poping asteroids.
thus i prefer sitting in a nimble ship in family nhuut sector that is having a repeated order to collect containers in the asteroid belt while im doing my dishes.

[gizmo6023]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Tankqull:

you have to be in an undocked ship in that sector for them to be droped by miners poping asteroids.
thus i prefer sitting in a nimble ship in family nhuut sector that is having a repeated order to collect containers in the asteroid belt while im doing my dishes.

I tried riding in one of the miners and then one of the 10 collectors I have running in Pious Mists Xl. I will give it a try in Family Nhuut and see if it is just a sector issue.