Here's a thing,
Updated 12/06/17 due to complete overhaul of 0.8.1 Nex:
Why on earth would you mine?Mining is a somewhat low risk low reward style of gameplay where instead of going around earning bounties dodging kill fleets / trading and dodging pirates / smuggling and dodging patrols / Salvaging and dodging pirates, you go around asteroids and planets digging stuff up and selling it while doing all of the above. The main reason you would mine is if you are a Scavanger, who doesn't have money. In the current state of the game, mining synergizes quite well with Scavanging, as an effective way to turn supplies and machinery into money. This can be useful if you need to get more cash to get Drams or fuel for deep space scan missions, or Decent Ships for deep space blow up missions. Further, mining increases your XP ludicrously. If you need to get to higher levels fast, and
your frigate game sucks you lack the confidence to go bounty hunting, then mine - you'll be in higher levels in no time.
Alternatively you can roleplay as a honest, hard working man, and how he fights his way through problems to get more money, running away from pirates and trying to get as much profit from semi-legal mining, until you slowly grind your way to bigger ships and move on to bounty hunting, getting revenge on those bastards who enslaved your last three crews, and fighting your way to the top, conquering your own planets and going onwards and upwards until you are Elvis, King of the Sector - all from the humble beginnings as a plebeian miner with nothing but a ship, determination, and a dream of galactic conquest.
How do I mine?Okay, so, first: how well you Mine is determined by 'Mining power'. The higher your mining power, the more you'll receive when you get to mining. When you go up to an asteroid, there will be a popup that says 'Mine planet'. Click that, then go to List of Ships and Weapons that can mine. Certain ships, and certain weapons give mining power. So, having these weapons attached to your ships, and having ships in the list will increase your power, and give more goodies when you mine. This list is also given
here, courtesy of Histidine, although it's missing Hammer Torpedoes (1.5) and Pulsed Beam guns (Neutrino weapons, about 2.5ish).
Next, is CR. The higher the CR, the higher your mining power is raised
for that particular ship. The equation is (Mining Strength from Weapon + Mining Strength from Ship Ship) x [(CR)/60]. This is meaningless in 0.8.1, as all crew is at one level. However, this means that the highest fleet logistics skill that adds 30% CR increases your mining strength significantly. Also, if you're low on CR from lack of supplies, you'll noticed a reduced uptake in ore.
Next, and new for 0.8.1, is machinery - you will need machinery to mine similar to survey missions. The amount of machinery you need is about half (if I read this right) of your mining strength. This WILL be a barrier to starting up from a new game - you will instead need to scavange / buy some more machinery beforre you can mine. If you have less than the amount, then the amount of stuff you will mine will be reduced accordingly: [Amount of resources mined * (amount of machinery you have / machinery you will need)]. Once you have enough heavy machinery, you can proceed - having more than the required amount won't increase the amount of stuff you will get from mining.
Next, the Resource exhaustion on what you are mining affects your output - the higher the resource exhaustion, the less you get out of mining a particular object. The more you mine, the more resource exhaustion rises. Thus it may be more profitable to mine to a certain exhaustion, rather than going all the way to the lowest resource exhaustion, which is 80%.
Next is what is actually minable: Resource. Each planet / moon / object will have it's own amount of resource - this pops up when you press the 'mine' option on an uninhabited object. This is determined by planet type, and conditions. To see the conditions, fly up to a planet and survey it. once surveyed (or if it has already been surveyed), then go into low orbit. They pop up in the top right hand corner. The conditions then add a resource number, if you will, thus:
- Asteroid: 0.4 common ore, 0.1 Volatiles
- Sparse ore: 0.5 Common Ore
- Moderate ore: 1 Common Ore
- Abundant ore: 1.5 Common Ore
- Rich ore: 2 Common Ore
- Ultrarich ore: 2 Common Ore
- Sparse rare ore: 0.08 Rare Ore
- Moderate rare ore: 0.16 Rare Ore
- Abundant rare ore: 0.24 Rare Ore
- Rich rare ore: 0.32 Rare Ore
- Ultrarich rare ore: 0.4 Rare Ore
- Trace Volatiles: 0.2 Volatiles
- Diffuse Volatiles: 0.4 Volatiles
- Abundant Volatiles: 0.6 Volatiles
- Plentiful Volatiles: 0.8 Volatiles
- Trace Organics: 0.2 Organics
- Diffuse Organics: 0.4 Organics
- Abundant Organics: 0.6 Organics
- Plentiful Organics: 0.8 Organics
When you mine, the resource number tells you essentially how much of a resource you can get. It works like a multiplier (I believe). Higher numbers = higher amounts of that particular stuff you can get. For instance, with an asteroid it might be 0.4 Ore and 0.1 volatiles. If you were to mine this asteroid, you'd get ore, and a teeny bit of volatiles. These amounts go down with repeated mining. Different objects will give different amounts of 'stuff' depending on planetary condtions. Resource exhaustion reduces very, very slowly over time - in the timespan of months - but the resources do eventually come back.
NOTE - Due to recent changes, resource exhaustion does not affect Asteroids (to save CPU space) and Gas Giants (Because in-story it was irrational to think you could strip mine a gas giant....although you can strip mine a planet...?)
Finally, there is the risk. Each minable object usually has a 'hazard' risk. The higher this is, the more likely it is you will have an accident. When an accident happens, three things may occur. You may have one, two or all four of these things happen:
- Crew die; lose too much crew and you'll lose CR, and thus lose supplies.
- CR is lost; costing supplies to repair.
- Armour is lost; costing supplies to repair.
- Heavy Machinery is lost; Despair
The main drain when mining is loss of crew, supplies and heavy machinery. Thus, when just starting out, it may be worth it to mine close to a market where you can replenish supplies, crew or heavy machinery. Alternatively, mine in a warzone, where you can sneak in and scavange heavy machinery from the wrecks. Magec comes to mind for a good spot to mine.
However, the flip side is when mining you can find secret caches. These happen a LOT LESS than accidents. According to Histidine (See below) the caches, from most common to least, are:
- A huge amount of Food, a large amount of Fuel, and/or a moderate amount of Supplies and Hand Weapons
- Between 1 to 6 Ship Weapons of the same type (Quality varies)
- A small amount of Heavy Machinery and/or a small/tiny amount of Rare Ores
- A tiny number of Drugs or Rare Metals
- A Fighter wing (Rare. Comes mothballed. Picked randomly from all FIGHTER, INTERCEPTOR and BOMBER role classified wings)
- A frigate level ship (Ultra Rare. Comes fully kitted out and mothballed. Picked randomly from all CIV_RANDOM, FREIGHTER_SMALL, TANKER_SMALL, COMBAT_FREIGHTER_SMALL, COMBAT_SMALL, CARRIER_SMALL role ships, with bigger 'weight' for SMALL_COMBAT. Sometimes something special comes along, like a CABAL Wolf or the Blackrock Imaginos. In a previous build I've picked up an NGO light destroyer.)
- An AI Core (Beta or Gammer, The Rarest)
These cache finds can, when you are just starting out with a small mining fleet, actually support you; the amount of supplies you find can fund several short jaunts, and fuel, rare ores, weapons and drugs give loads of dosh. Be careful however - many times you will find a cache of fuel that is much more than your fleet can handle. If you can't sell it - dump it, otherwise you are wasting supplies. Ship weapons can be used, and fighter wings can also be used if you so desire. Alternatively you can sell off what you find if you think it's going to eat too many of your precious supplies.
In order to mine you have to go up to a minable object and click on it as if you were going to an inhabited planet. At the prompt, mine. A bar will appear (similar to a planetary invasion or bugging a relay), and you'll have to sit next to the object until the mining completes. Then a prompt will fire, showing you what happened:
- How much stuff you mined
- If there was an accident, what happened
- If there were any caches, what you got out of it
You'll then be given the option to mine again, or leave. Rinse and repeat, taking care to not go over your cargo capacity, or run out of supplies and crew. I advise that you mine over and over until your cargo hold is full, or you run out of supplies / crew / heavy machinery, otherwise you are losing supplies needlessly in transit. While mining, you'll be stuck to the object, unless you drift away, or (and more annoyingly or useful, depending on circumstance), when you check the alliances / faction markets (The d key). When you exit out of the alliance and faction prompt it'll cancel your mining, causing you to start again in frustration, or giving you time to run right off from that Pirate patrol.
SO, what's a good mining ship to muck around with?The Shepherd is a good starting miner; it has a mining power of 9.0, good cargo capacity, good crew capacity, and when given unstable injectors it has enough speed to run away in a fight. I must stress - the Shepherd-(D)
CANNOT is now slightly worse at mining. It kind of sort of equals out to a Shepherd, except slightly worse. The downside of both Shepherds is they're not that efficient. Mining Pod wings can mine, but need to be attached to a carrier in order to work properly. Arguably they can be very, very efficient, adding 8 mining power to a carrier, but carriers tend to be too expensive. Having a high burn level fleet is preferable to both fly away from incoming threats, as well as speed up resource drop-offs/get to the mining faster. Other ships with medium energy slots or lots of energy slots are quite useful miners, (The Sunder-D comes to mind here; load up with mining blasters and get Level 3 Industrial skills and congrats, you are now printing money) but are usually better off being actual fighter ships due to high supply consumption. Civilian ships with energy slots are brilliant miners.
Custom factions will often have pretty good mining ships.
-The Enlil from Shadowyards, with a medium hardpoint and four universals, you can attach 4 mining lasers and a mining blaster to create a really effective mining boat. Don't worry about the military vs the civilian - the civilian one is slightly better armour wise, but when it comes to mining there's no real difference between models.
-Dedicated mining vessels from Diable and NGO often have high mining power but low cargo and personnel capacities. They're not really advisable to have, as they aren't really THAT impressive or efficient mining wise.
-The Telchine from Scy Nation is an absolute monster for what it does, being like a much better version of the Shepherd in every way except combat. Its drones are also hilarious. So is it's deconstructor beam. Just keep in mind that it's a civilian ship. Another really, really good ship for any miner is the Centuar-F. Decent cargo, cheap, and the simple attachment of a mining blaster or heavy mining laser to it's medium universal makes it a really, REALLY nice mining cargo boat. Attach a PD weapon and you have a semi-competant close support ship.
-Don't get me started on the Junk Pirate's Reaper. Just...don't.
-Neutrino brings Pulsed Beam Guns and Pulsed Beam Cannons. They aren't that strong weapon wise (weak versions of the phase lance essentially), and the heavy mining laser from Tiangdong is just straight better than the Cannon, but the pulsed beam gun is the best small energy mining waepon power wise (I think) in the game. Synergizes VERY well with Shadowyard ships.
-The Tiangdong Qianzi (the Sunder one) is a brilliant destroyer and an amazing miner - if you have Tiangdong installed, and you're just starting out and want to mine, make this your flagship. Also included in the mod is the Heavy mining Laser - 8 OP, mining strength 8, a nice upgrade to the tactical laser. Insert into medium hardpoint and now your mining ship can double as a long-range suppression ship. Coupled with the Buffalo-Carrier from this mod, you can get a good, fast support cargo ship. Disappointingly the Tiangdong armoured mining pod is actually not very good; because it's a drone (Perpetually at 83% efficiency) and has smaller numbers than a mining pod (3 mining lasers vs. 4) it's about half as effective. Also burn 9. Use armoured pods for combat instead of actual mining. The Chengdu and Dingjin...shouldn't be bought for mining purposes.
-The Blackrock's Gondactylactus is a good destroyer, but it also doubles as a fine miner without having to add a damn thing to it. If you want combination mining and combat without worrying about mining weapons etc., get this ship. And then another one. And another one.
And then a Nevermore.
Because why else would you download Blackrock?
The Gondactylactus (P) is for all intents and purposes the same as a normal Gondactylactus, except it has D-mods (which can be removed), a flashier paint-job, and doesn't mine. I think. So don't use it.
-Metellson. Oooo golly, if you want to mine, then download Metellson
WHEN IT UPDATES. The lore behind this faction is it's a mining conglomerate (ha HA, geology joke!), and (relatively recently) things have been tweaked to reflect that.
The Mining Lance and the Maser offer mining versions of the phase lance and the pulse cannon. If you can, get them. Use them. You won't be disappointed. The Miller Autocannon is I think the only kinetic weapon that can mine - however, being mining strength 1, it's not really worth it to fit out a lasher with nothing but these. Shipwise, the Pala is a pretty cool mining version of the Cerberus, the Rastrum is somewhere between the Shepherd and Enforcer (Although it should say somewhere the Rastrum only chucks out 2 drones), and the Varingur is almost hands down the best mining ship you can think of - high mining power, two forward facing hybrid slots for energy weapons so you can really ramp up the mining power, flight deck to replace drones, high amount of cargo, medium missile for long range support and enough ramour to help out in a pinch, while also having a comparitively low supply cost. A recent update has cut it's burn down to 8, so it can't keep up with frigates, but it's still a mean machine. However, where it's REALLY at for Metellson is their fighter wings. The Obex Fighter wing is, I believe, one of THE most efficient and strong mining anythings you can get in the game. The Grudiver Mining Pod is a straight upgrade to the standard mining pod, turn them into (essentially) shielded wasps on the battlefield, while also granting superior mining power off the field. The Golgata is both a brilliant fighter on the field, and a brilliant miner off the field. And all these wings are burn 10, making them perfect for high burn fleets. The Negl...isn't anywhere near as impressive as the other three wings mining wise, but it's an alright fighter on it's own, I suppose.
What hullmods can I add to my ship to make it better at the whole 'Digging Rocks Thing'?The Hullmod that is a must is cargo expansion. Crew expansion is useful in some circumstances when you're just starting out, but once you get big enough and gain increasing levels or additional crew space it's not worth it. For absolutely dedicated mining vessels that you don't think will enter combat, Skeleton Crew is an absolute must. Stick that on a Telchine and congratulations you have broken the game. DON'T use the vanilla hullmod that reduces supply usage - it cuts CR, and that's no good. Armour hullmods don't prevent damage or CR loss. Auto repair is kind of useful, as it repairs you quicker, but overall zero difference, as armour doesn't affect your mining power - CR does. And repairing the same amount of CR quicker still uses the same supplies. Install Augmented Drive Field where possible - extra burn speed will enable you to escape your foes and make supply runs much, much more money efficient. Unstable Injectors in the early game is also a must for escaping the hell out of there when you need to. Or, if you are a sneeky Breeky, go for insulated engine assembly and stay away from civilian-grade hulls, so you can go around and snipe derelicts and debris fields without getting mobbed by Cabal Frigate Hunter Packs.
I've got a good ship, loaded it with miners, machinery and hullmods, and I know how to mine, now what?The next thing to realize when mining is
location matters. Specifically, how far away are you mining from a market, and how suitable is that market for selling ore / volatiles? When small, you'll want to start out in places where a viable market is close by a good mining source. If you mine a planet, then have to go across a system to sell the stuff and resupply, you'll see significantly lower profits than if you were mining a series of asteroids within a stone's throw of a station.
Additionally, you'll want either a large market with good stability, or a market that has a facility that 'eats' those supplies. To determine this, go to the planet, and enter the crew and cargo purchase screen. At the top left is stability - the higher it is, the more money you get from selling, and the more expensive things are to buy in general. Consequently if you sell your stuff here, you'll get top dollar. Downside, you'll spend more money buying supplies, heavy machinery and crew. In the top right hand corner of the screen are little tidbits about the market, like whether it's got a criminal underworld or it's an outpost or something. These things will have an effect on what the market 'eats' so to speak, and then what it produces. If you are mining ores and rare ores, you'll want to find a market with the 'metal smelter' icon. These eat ores and machinery and spits out metals. Antimatter facilities eat volatiles and machinery, and spit out fuel.
Selling ores at smelters and volatiles at antimatter facilities gives much, much more money than selling to a market that doesn't have these features. Also worth pointing out is that at these places, you'll get money with repeated selling of ores or volatiles; if you sell your ores to a high stability market without a smelter or antimatter reactor, you'll quickly quench whatever demand there was for the ore, and when you go to sell there next time you'll get pretty much no money for your hard earned resources. You should already know this if you're a scavanger, and you continously seel metals to the same market - eventually you'll end up getting 0 credits for selling 1000 metals, as you've quenched demand. Smelters will always pay top dosh regardless of how many times you go to one. On the flip side, avoid selling ores to 'ore processes' and volatiles to 'volatile storage complexes', as they already have loads of ores and volatiles and will give you less money for selling there.
Sometimes. Economy works weirdly - they both make and demand these things, so sometimes you CAN get a buck there. Just don't EXPECT to make one.
Good mining places that come to mind are Nortia in Sindria (With the recent update, this is THE place to mine), Sindria (Occassionally, when the stars align, mining the asteroid belt near Sindria can be weirdly profitable), New Maxios in Magec, Stillness in the Gigas system (Shadowyards), the planet Gan beneath Shanghai in the Shanxi system (Tiangdong), the moon above Illkhana (Mayorate, although please note - due to a coding issue, rare metals in Illkhana cost nothing. So don't sell them there - bus over to Sindral and sell them there), the planets in Ursalo and the moon above the Syndicate's capital (ASP Syndicate), the moon above the Shadowyards Capital, along with Cinderbox (Shadowyards), the Aegis System (NGO), and Hadrian in Thracia (Imperium). Rock (Metellson), Outer Terminus (Diable), Australis (Neutrino), and Tartarus (Scy) systems are somewhat alrightish places to mine, but I suggest you leave those for when everything else is dry or too dangerous, as there's not very good markets in those areas to exploit selling stuff to. Another thing to keep in mind with these areas is to pay attention to where the markets are in orbit; sometimes the minable planets will be on the far end of the system, in which case just come back much later when they are 'aligned', so to speak. Stillness comes to mind - sometimes the planet itself will enter the asteroid belt, reducing offloading times ridiculously.
Little known fact - if you get up to 25 positive relationship with a faction, they'll give low grade access to their military markets. At military markets, you can sell illegal commodities to that faction without rep loss. It's usually better to do this if you plan on mining there for a while, as selling stuff illegally increases their suspicion of you (and makes it more likely they'll investigate you for illegal things or having too many supplies and fine you for it) as well as decreasing market stability and lowering profits. It may be profitable long term to buy a few agents and raise relations early on, so you can legitimately earn more dough. Or you can risk it and sell at a pirate stronghold somewhere - but keep in mind a dedicated mining fleet won't stand up to a pirate patrol, and fighting said patrols will prevent you from using pirate markets due to everyone saying how much of a fool you are for killing sweet, honourable pirates that just want to kill and enslave you.
I think that covers the bulk of it. Many thanks to Histidine for his help, and other mining veterans can probably give better answers than given here. Anyway -
get out there Elvis, and grind your way to victory!