Mining

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http://www.vo-wiki.com/wiki/extensions/rotating/centaurmining.jpg Mining is probably the easiest way to make money in Vendetta Online. Simply equip your ship with a mining laser, find a good asteroid, and start raking in the credits.

To help get you started, there is a mining tutorial available at mining stations. It will give you the basic equipment, tell you how to equip the equipment, scan, mine and gives you a level 1 mining license. The level 1 license gives you access to a large port (L-port) mining beam, making it possible to mine in a Wraith with a scanner equipped. To find a mining station look next to the name of the station, There you should find a description of the type of station. Or check the stations chart for a station close to your location.

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 (and what % of the asteroid they make up), get less than 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 (which is a bad idea as it can take days for the asteroid to cool down) 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. Also, the ice roids will heat and cool much more quickly than the rocky roids.

As you gain mining licenses, you will have access to better mining beams. Some beams will extract ores with a higher probability, lower heat, and better extraction rates which translates into higher efficiency 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 miners, escorts, scouts, and transports.


Equipment

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 750m. It is available only after completing 120 prospecting missions.

Name Range Scan Interval Level Description
Mineral Scanner 500m 1 per 5s -/-/-/-/- Standard mining scanner.
Advanced Mineral Scanner 750m 1 per 5s Badge Reward for completing all Prospecting Missions.

Mining Beams

When you start out, you only have the small port mining beam available to you. As your levels increase, larger and more unique forms of the mining beam will become available.


Beam Range Rate Heat Rate/Heat Mass Level Bonus
Small port mining beams.
Mining Beam 100m 1 1.5 0.67 500kg -/-/-/-/-
Large port mining beams.
Mining Beam 100m 1 1 1 500kg -/-/-/-/1
Advanced Mining Beam 100m 1.8 0.9 2 500kg -/-/-/-/2
Mining Beam MkII 100m 2.4 0.8 3 500kg -/-/-/-/2
Xithricite Mining Beam 100m 2 0.8 2.5 500kg -/-/-/-/3 Xithricite 200%
Apicene Mining Beam 100m 2 0.9 2.22 500kg -/-/-/-/3 Apicene 240%
MagnetoTwin Mining Beam 100m 1.8 0.6 3 500kg -/-/-/-/4 VanAzek 180% Pyronic 180%
High-Density Mining Beam 75m 2.8 0.75 3.73 500kg Badge
Heliocene Mining Beam 100m 2 0.9 2.2 500kg -/-/-/-/5 Heliocene 200%
Pentric Mining Beam 100m 2.4 0.9 2.67 500kg -/-/-/-/6 Pentric 200%
IoPhase Mining Beam 75m 2.2 0.95 2.3 500kg -/-/-/-/7 Denic 300% Lanthanic 300%
DeniPhase Mining Beam 75m 2.2 0.95 2.3 500kg -/-/-/-/8 Denic 250% Pentric 240% Lanthanic 240%


Resources

List of Ores

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

Ore Name Mining XP/CU Mass Asteroid Type Description Rough Price/Unit Trade XP/CU
Common, found in almost every sector
Premium Aquean 4pt 70kg 1, 2 Dirty ice, mostly H2O with trace chemicals. low 3xp
Premium Silicate 5pt 150kg 1,2,4,7 Unrefined silicate material. 20cr - 70cr 3xp
Premium Carbonic 5pt 150kg 3,4,5,6,7,8 Ore which is heavy in carbon compounds. 30cr - 60cr 3xp
Premium Ferric 6pt 200kg 1,4,5,6,7,8 Ore composed mostly of iron. 70cr - 200cr 3xp
Semi-common: (certain sectors of almost every system)
Premium Ishik 7pt 150kg 1,2 A common asteroid composition containing lighter elements and chemical compounds. 100cr - 600cr 3xp
Premium VanAzek 7pt 250kg 4,5,6,8 A common asteroid composition containing heavy and radioactive metals. 100cr - 700cr 3xp
Rare: (certain sectors of a few systems )
Premium Xithricite 8pt 300kg 8 Ore containing the precious mineral Xithricite 200cr - 960cr 3xp
Lanthanic 10pt 200kg 1,5 Ore containing heavy and radioactive metals. 700cr - 1000cr 3xp
Denic 15pt 150kg 2 Rare ore found often in young solar systems 300cr - 1800cr 3xp
Extremely Rare: (often only a few asteroids in a sector)
Pyronic 12pt 250kg 2,4 Rare ore formed in the residue of a star’s collapse 200cr - 1200cr 3xp
Apicene 14pt 200kg 5 A rare asteroid composition formed only at very high temperatures 500cr - 1500cr 3xp
Pentric 18pt 150kg 7 A rare asteroid composition of complex chemical material 400cr - 2200cr 3xp
Heliocene 20pt 100kg 3,4 Rare ore formed under intense heat and tidal forces 400cr - 2400cr 3xp


Asteroid Field Features

Cluster of roids

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.

Pay attention to these features, as they can be helpful when used as landmarks. 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.

Types of Asteroids

Ferric/Aquean/Silicate (1)
Aquean/Silicate/Ishik/Denic (2)
Carbonic/Silicate/Heliocene/Pyronic (3)
Ferric/Carbonic/Pyronic (4)
Apicene/Lanthanic (5)
Ferric/VanAzek (6)
Silicate/Carbonic/Pentric (7)
Xithricite/VanAzek (8)

Mineral Maps

Most guilds and or players have their own maps and protect this information to keep their roids from being overheated. If you would like to share your own personal information with the rest of the server feel free to place your info in the proper section of one of the system charts found here.

Missions

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 rewards, the advanced mineral scanner and the high-density mining beam, can significantly speed up searching for rare ores.


Trade Guild Mineral Missions

The Trade Guild offers, among many other mission types, "mineral" missions. Mineral Missions are most abundent at mining stations. They are offered elsewhere but not at the same volume you can get at a mining specific station. Most of the time these missions are oriented around getting the station that you've accepted the mission from the ores that is most needed. A majority of the time the station will ask for either aqueous or silicate ore to be collected. If you spend a while doing these missions you will get other types ranging from Ferric, Carbonic, VanAzek, and Ishik. On very rare occasions though, they may ask for you to bring them back some Pentric, Xithricite, or Pyronic ore. I have yet to take a mission that has asked for the more extremely rare ores, though it's certainly possible.

The pay for these missions varies but the majority are around 1000cr per mission and around 800-1400 trade experience per mission. The mining xp you get for mining the ores is negligable but considering the amount of mining that can be done with multiple beams concentrated on a roid/roids over a period of time, it is fairly easy to get the lower-level licenses. I've also found that the mining missions are a great way to build faction standing with a particular faction. Search out a specific faction and see if they also have a mining station.

Profitability

Ore prices range from single-digit credits to about 2400c/crate, depending on the ore, the station you sell it, and several other factors. 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.

Mining Rate Explanation

(This mining information is thanks to Dev. Andy Sloane)

The rate at which you mine decreases linearly as the temperature increases, and the combination of the two factors leads to an exponential decay in mining rate. The "time to crate" is precalculated and shown to you as a linear progress bar, although in reality you would mine faster at first and slower towards the end of the crate.

Larger asteroids have a higher thermal mass; the specific heat is technically constant for all asteroids, but it also assumes perfect thermal conductivity. So the heating is not local to the surface, but throughout the asteroid and affects everybody mining it.

The formula is complicated because it is more naturally expressed in terms of instantaneous extraction rate and heating rate; to get a time value you have to integrate. That has been done already, so here it is: 

 TimeToCrate(NumCrates, initialT, ThermalMass, GunHeatingRate, GunEfficiency):
     let dQ = Ho*GunHeatingRate/ThermalMass - BlackBodyRadiation(ThermalMass)
     if dQ == 0 then
         NumCrates*initialT/Ke
     else
         initialT*(exp(NumCrates*dQ/(Ke*GunEfficiency)) - 1)/dQ

where initialT is the asteroid temperature when you start mining, ThermalMass is the heating rate constant of the asteroid (typical values range from 200 to 700), Ke and Ho are global constants calculated based on several parameters; Ke is currently 2.3010 and Ho is 36.945. GunHeatingRate and GunEfficiency are both 1 for the default gun. BlackBodyRadiation we can ignore as 0 for now, although here's the formula we use if you want to be more accurate:

BlackBodyRadiation(m) = Ho/(m^1.9)

(this is just a heuristic function based on the sizes of asteroids and the cooling rates we wanted). In fact this is wrong, because it should radiate more as the temperature increases, but our "physics" is less important than our "game mechanics" here.

So, assuming a standard mining gun, a temperature of 10 (the minimum), and a thermal mass of 300, it takes 4.463 seconds to mine one crate. With an extraction rate of 3 it only takes 1.461 seconds. With a heat of 0, extraction rate of 3 it reduces to 1.448 seconds (but this makes a much bigger difference at higher temperatures). For example, it would take 4.345 seconds to mine three crates with a heat of 0 and an efficiency of 3.

Also the black body radiation which cools the asteroids down after you heat them has been neglected, but that only makes these time estimates very slightly pessimistic.

This is further complicated by the presence of multiple people (or multiple mining beams from the same person); there is a small bonus to grouped mining but not even Andy understands how that works.

In order to update the temperature of an asteroid after mining, you can use the approximation newT = initialT+dQ*TimeToCrate where dQ is the same dQ from the TimeToCrate formula; heating increases temperature linearly.

Other Mining Notes

Mining with multiple similar beams on the same ship is more efficient (ore / heat) than mining with a single beam of that type.

Mining with multiple people is also more efficient,but you must be grouped to recieve the efficiency bonus.

Still Need Help?

These players are available ingame mentoring in this field:

Sources

Information was gathered from the following sources:

Mentor Nation Times Other Chat Methods
Black 2 Serco Whenever email
Cunjo Serco Late evenings/nights EST N/A
Mark McDoogle UIT Mon-Thur 5:30-8pm PST,
Sat-Sun Speratically all day 		email
Miharu Itani Sat/Sun: daytime, evenings; Other days: evenings email, AIM
Ming Serco 20:00 - 23:00 GMT N/A
Solra Bizna Serco 3:30PM - 1:30AM CST N/A
Woodstock UIT 1:30AM - 4:30AM PST most nights. Monday and Tuesdays anytime dmwood001@sbcglobal.net
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