Mining

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Mining

Mining involves grabbing a ship and a mining beam and extracting valuable ores from asteroids.

You generally use a scanner to identify which ores are in asteroids, get <100m away from the asteroid, and then fire a beam to start mining. When you mine the lower-level ores, you get 'premium' versions of that ore, as opposed to the regular version of the ore that is sold at stations.

The more you mine an asteroid, the hotter it gets. The hotter an asteroid gets, the slower it mines. All asteroids start at 10 degrees Kelvin. Efficiency drops off significantly after 20 or 30 Kelvin. Some miners can go to 200 or 400 Kelvin in certain circumstances and still feel that it was worth it for the profit. After you stop mining, the asteroid cools. Small asteroids heat and cool more quickly than large ones.

As you gain mining licenses, you will have access to better mining beams. Some beams will extract ores with a higher probability, which translates into higher efficiency in terms of time, heat, and money.

As you gain experience, you will learn which ores are valuable, where to find them, and where to sell them. You might even get involved with group mining, involving escorts, scouts, and transports.

List of Mining Scanners

There are only 2 scanners right now.

The Mineral Scanner has a range of 500m, and will activate whenever you 'target' an asteroid. There is no need to 'fire' it, flash the green light, etc. If you are going very fast, it will 'lag', as it only updates itself once every 5 seconds or so.

The Advanced Mineral Scanner is exactly the same as the Mineral Scanner except that it has improved range of 750. It is available only after completing 120 prospecting missions.

List of Mining Beams

Name License Required Range(meters) Rate(kg/second) Heat(K/s) Mass(kg) Specials (ore %)
Small:
Mining Beam 0 100 1.0 1.5 500 None
Large:
Mining Beam 1 100 1.0 1.0 500 None
Advanced Mining Beam 2 100 1.8 0.9 500 None
Mining Beam Mk II 2 100 2.4 0.8 500 None
Xithricite Mining Beam 3 100 2.0 0.8 500 Xithricite 200%
Apicene Mining Beam 3 100 2.0 0.9 500 Apicene 240%
Magneto Twin Mining Beam 4 100 1.8 0.6 500 VanAzek 180% Pyronic 180%
Heliocene Mining Beam 5 100 2.0 0.9 500 Heliocene 200%
Pentric Mining Beam 6 100 2.4 0.9 500 Pentric 200%
IoPhase Mining Beam 7 75 2.2 0.95 500 Denic 300% Lanthanic 300%
DeniPhase Ming Beam 8 75 2.4 0.95 500 Denic 250% Pentric 240% Lanthanic 240%
High-Density Mining Beam ? 75 2.8 0.75 500 None

NB on Heat: A roid will heat up slower or faster depending on the size, a larger roid will heat up slower, the same is true for cooling down.

NB on High-Density Mining Beam: Requires the Master Prospector badge.

List of Ores

(Note: Information on this list will become incorrect as sectors are explored more thoroughly)

Ore Name Mining Experience Points Mass per cargo (kg) Known Asteroid Appearance Description in Station Rough price range (credits/crate)
Common, found in almost every sector
Premium Aquean 4 70 White Ice, Blue Ice Dirty ice, mostly H2O with trace chemicals. low
Premium Ferric 6 200 Rock, Blue Ice Ore composed mostly of iron. 70-200
Premium Carbonic 5 150 Rock Ore which is heavy in carbon compounds. 30-60
Premium Silicate 5 150 Rock, White Ice Unrefined silicate material. 20-70
Semi-common: (certain sectors of almost every system)
Premium Ishik 7 150 White Ice, Blue Ice A common asteroid composition containing lighter elements and chemical compounds. 100-500
Premium VanAzek 7 250 Rock A common asteroid composition containing heavy and radioactive metals. 100-400
Rare: (certain sectors of a few systems )
Premium Xithricite 8 300 Green glowing rock Ore containing the precious mineral Xithricite 200-900
Denic 15 150 White Ice Rare ore found often in young solar systems 300-1800
Lanthanic 10 200 Sharp Rock, Blue Ice Ore containing heavy and radioactive metals. 700-1000
Extremely Rare: (often only a few asteroids in a sector)
Heliocene 20 100 Light Round Rock, Dark Round Rock, Dark sharp rock Rare ore formed under intense heat and tidal forces 400-2400
Pentric 18 150 Medium Tan Rock A rare asteroid composition of complex chemical material 400-2200
Pyronic 12 250 White Ice, Light Round Rock, and Dark Round Rock Rare ore formed in the residue of a star’s collapse 200-1200
Apicene 14 200 Sharp Dark Rock A rare asteroid composition formed only at very high temperatures 500-1500

Prospecting Missions

These are missions in which you find 30 asteroids of a certain ore. There are 4 missions per system, and with 30 systems in the game that makes 120 possible missions total. After you finish 120 you get access to an improved mineral scanner and an improved mining beam which are sold at certain stations.

The missions generally ask you to search for Carbonic, Ferric, or Silicate. Sometimes they will ask you to search for Ishik or VanAzek. VanAzek is generally agreed to be the biggest pain because it is generally spread out over a wide area. There are a handful of missions to find Xithricite.

These missions are generally thought to be very boring, so don't expect excitement or glory. But the reward, the advanced mineral scanner, can significantly speed up searching for rare ores.

Profitability

Ore prices range from pennies to about 2300c/crate, depending on the ore, the station you sell it, and maybe your nationality. Players can drive the price of ore down when they repeatedly sell the same ore at a certain station. This especially happens if there is rare ore right next to the station.

Rumors have it that the price of other items can be brought down too, since items manufacture depends on ore.

Group Mining

Group mining is mining involving more than one player. The point is generally to improve efficiency, or enable mining in dangerous sectors. There are many different tactics of group mining. Here is a basic list of some group activities that are known to exist.

  1. Unarmed Miner, Transporter:
    One person mines, another transports. This improves efficiency over single person mining, since the beam is 'always on' and time is not wasted transporting. Works in safer places. Broma-ba Slick showed me this.
  2. Unarmed Miners / Bot-dragging Escorts:
    This takes advantage of the fact that bots will 'swarm' after you if you shoot them even once. The escort thus drags the bots away from the mining area. bsp showed me this. Works with high-level bots.
  3. Unarmed Miners / Scout / Escorts:
    A scout can scout for the valuable asteroids, while escorts take care of the low-level bots. Solra Bizna showed me this.
  4. Unarmed miner / Armed scout-escort:
    One player does both scouting and escorting. Miner follows closely behind. Works with low-level bots.
  5. Armed miners:
    Miners who carry their own weapons. Works against low-level bots.

Geological Features

Vendetta asteroids fields have certain patterns to them. They are sometimes in long 'strings'. Sometimes there are large 'clusters' of a certain type of rock or ice. A few asteroids rotate. There will be 'groups' of types of asteroids, with a sort of 'border' between the groups. On a system wide level, the asteroids are often arranged into belts around stars, with each sector of the belt having asteroids of similar mineral composition.

Noticing these features can help you. They can act as 'landmarks', so once you find a rare asteroid, you can use them to find it again. The features may also act as 'guide posts', with rare ore being concentrated around certain features or types of rock.

Mineral Maps

Once you find a nice rare ore, it might be helpful to write down where you found it. Here are some maps from those who have done exactly that:

mining:Mineral Maps

Sources

Information was gathered from the following sources:

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