So today I finally had enough credits to rent a Prospector for a day!
I never really tried mining before, only for a few minutes on a very broken PTU build, so it was a new experience. and quiet annoying at that...
I had no idea where to look for rocks around Lorville, so I went to Arial to try some planetary surface mining. It took some time to find mineable rocks, but I soon understood how the power/instability mechanic worked. Fractured a few rocks with orange outlines, they fell apart, and some parts turned purple. I assumed I could start collecting them with the other mode of the mining laser, and it worked!
I took back my first haul to Lorville, landed, went to Admin office, and sold it.
1074 aUEC. That's all I got for a full load of rocks! It took me an hour! I could have done 2 very very lazy box deliveries in that time and made 12K aUEC! Holy shit this pays badly...
Then I realized my error of mining junk instead of something worthwile. Did some reading on the subject and found that I Heaphestiteitiusisuiusi or whatever it's called should pay a little better than the junk I had, so I went back for a second round of mining!
After scanning around for rocks worthy of mining, I finally found a field full of em! Great, all I need to do is break a few and I'll be in business!
Then the "it's an Alpha" hit the fan. Broke some rocks perfectly fine, and they disappeared through the ground.
Then I finally had a rock with purple outline with 24+% of the good stuff in it! The highest I've seen so far! So I switched to collecting and ... nothing happened! Tried mining other rocks, swithcing modes, spent like 10 minutes trying to collect it, but no joy. The system was broken, that rock was "dead". Fuck...
I went on and after more scanning, found another prospector hovering over a rock. I though I'll be nice and leave it alone, and instead started on another rock nearby. It had low concentration of some good stuff, but still seemed worthwile. So I tried breaking it.
It wouldn't budge! With 100% output, moving in close, trying different directions... nothing. 0.00% power in the rock. So again, I had to move on.
Found a new rock closer to the other Porspector, broke apart fine, but again, I had trouble with collecting the stuff. It just wouldn't work!
So the last rock left in the area was right next to the other miner. I hovered close, looked in the cockpit, nothing. It was empty, but it's laser was still on, hitting the rock with mimimum power.
Well if he crashed out of the game, I might as well take the rock, it was decent enough to be worth mining!
Cracked it safely, and tried collecting. Again, it wouldn't work!! Goddamit! I was soo angry, I've already spent an hour longer in-game then I intended to, I should've been sleeping instead!
(yes I'm so pissed off about this that I'm writing here instead of going to sleep. I just have to went first)
This is annoying to no end. Lets do something fun, what if I try to "mine" the other Prospector?
I aimed the laser in mining mode, and hit the on switch, on minimum power...
It's shield glistened in the sun for a second, then I turned the power up...
BOOOM!!
The prospector was no more! Holy shit that's the most effective weapon in the game! 2 seconds of sustained hits and it was gone!
But of course I got a crimestat. Aaaaaaaaaaarghh!
Well that was a stupid idea. I didn't think it would blow!
With my cargo hold full, I flew back to Lorville, tried to land but of course I was denied, so as some of you suggested some time ago, I made my way to Gate 04 (it took forever at 80m/s), landed outside, and ran to the gourds.
They shot me dead pretty fast, as I expected!
Woke up in bed, crim stat gone. Finally, something is working as intended lol
Spent another 10minutes or however long it took to get back to my ship. Even used my Greycat to make it faster. Btw, Greycats finally seem to have some of it's suspension working, it's not stanced to hell anymore lol. It's actually kinda usefull now as a mode of transport.
Got in ship, flight ready, lets land in a hangar and sell this crap!
I've landed with my ship facing the gate. Guess what happened after I took off in a hurry...
If you guessed that I aimed straight over the gate instead of gaining enough altitude to clear the red holographic wall of instant death, you guessed correctly!!!
FFffffaaaaaaaaaakkkkk!!
Yeah I checked, claimed and respawned the ship and there was no cargo anymore.
Overall, 2.5 hours wasted on gaining 1000 aUEC.
Of course, as things stand, i won't have enough time tomorrow to make up the losses before the rental ends, unless I can make like 15-20k+ in roughly 30 minute stints with mining lol
Tldr.:
Rented Prospector, went mining on planet, didn't know what I was doing, messed up even more by destroying a ship with mining laser, and made only 1000 credits in 2.5 hours.
My question is, in your experience, is it possible to make back the 47k aUEC it cost to rent the Prospector for one day, in less then 4-6 hours of gameplay? With mining obviously.