Mining Guide Updates Blog

Black Sunder

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Cut out the upgrades and make it a separate guide. Then you can also talk about the various coolers, power plants, quantum drives, and shields too. Let me know what I can do to help out
I don't go over all the components, just the good one and maybe a couple alternates if they are close in performance. Prospector section for upgrades is done, Mole tomorrow.
 
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Black Sunder

Rock Raiders
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Psst, I heard you guys like previews.

I may just end up screenshotting these because they'll look better than pasting them here as tables and I have far more color options available in a proper spreadsheet.

Aside one piece of information I'm done with ship upgrades. It only took 2 google doc pages to write.

Prospector Upgrades Summary
Item SlotComponent Upgrade Location / PriceAlternative UpgradeLocation / Price
Quantum Drive (Size 1)VK-00(Mil. Grade A)GrimHex, Arc-L1: 43,300Siren(Mil. Grade B),
Colossus(Ind. Grade A)
Levski, CRU-L1, CRU-L5, HUR-L1, Area 18, Port Tressler: 48,537 - 52,271
Levski, Port Olisar, CRU-L1: 16,150
Power Plant(Size 2)Genoa(Ind. Grade A)Port Olisar, Erevus Harbor: 150,600
Shield(Size 1)Palisade(Ind. Grade A)CRU-L4, HUR-L3, HUR-L4, Baijini Point: 23,200FR-66(Mil. Grade A)Levski, Port Olisar, CRU-L1: 18,450
Cooler(Size 2)Snowpack(Ind. Grade A)CRU-L1, Area 18: 82,900
 
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Black Sunder

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What in the world is this?

Table of Contents

Introduction to Mining

Finding the Goods
List of SBM ore​
List of FPM Gems​
Ore Location Index - Coming Soon​

First Person Mining
Tools of the Trade​
Fracturing and Extraction of Hand Mineables​
The Multi-Tool interface. What does it mean?​
Fracturing the Rock​
Picking up the Pieces & Personal Inventory​
Selling Hand Mineables​
Miscellaneous​

Ship Based Mining
Ships of the Trade​
The General Scanner​
Mole Specific Scanning Attributes​
Fracturing & Extraction​
The Mining Interface: What does it Mean?​
Mining Heads​
Mining Heads in Contrast​
Mining Laser Power Factors​
Fracturing The Rock​
The X Factor: Instability​
Extraction & Selling​
Strategies for Hard to Crack Rocks​
Mole Crew Communication & Roles​
Other Tips & Tricks​

Miscellaneous
Upgrading Ship Components - The Final Frontier​

Final Thoughts
 
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Thalstan

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Thalstan
This looks really nice

A question I have for you on the last table for SBM... Would you recommend extracting a rock that was 100 percent quartz? (this may be guide 3.9 stuff)
What percentage of the "always mine" stuff would you put as a lower limit for extraction? 50 percent, 25 percent, 10 percent? (again, not mining, but after you've broken the chunks out and you are now extracting the highest values.

Personally, Laranite and higher will always be taken if it exceeds 10 percent. If the secondary rock is beryl or higher and makes up a good chunk (50-75 percent), I will take 5 percent. For Heph, I would do 25 percent minimum of an extractable rock

I don't have enough experience with Agricium, but I suspect I would toss it in with Laranite for percentages.
 
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Black Sunder

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This looks really nice

A question I have for you on the last table for SBM... Would you recommend extracting a rock that was 100 percent quartz? (this may be guide 3.9 stuff)
What percentage of the "always mine" stuff would you put as a lower limit for extraction? 50 percent, 25 percent, 10 percent? (again, not mining, but after you've broken the chunks out and you are now extracting the highest values.

Personally, Laranite and higher will always be taken if it exceeds 10 percent. If the secondary rock is beryl or higher and makes up a good chunk (50-75 percent), I will take 5 percent. For Heph, I would do 25 percent minimum of an extractable rock

I don't have enough experience with Agricium, but I suspect I would toss it in with Laranite for percentages.
The only time I'd recommend it is if your cargo hold is almost full anyway and its just not worth trying t find and break another rock. You might as well fill up 100%. Its better than inert materials.

'Always Mine' does not mean 'Always Extract". A 1% agricium in an 8K mass rock may break out into something really good, or may not. Last night I was mining some Bexalite, I think it was 1.x% and what ended up happening at the end was I got 5 small(100 mass) rocks with 1% in it. Sometimes you get lucky and it all stays clumped together, sometimes not. I left those rocks.
 
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Thalstan

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I've been experimenting with two boxing a MOLE, and I think that for the way this thing is setup, it works.

I had an old HOTAS laying around from 10 or so years ago where only the throttle worked, and I've set up my 2nd box so that it uses minimal graphics. I then placed my alt in the primary mining chair. Once I've found a good rock, I start hovering and just mine on my second machine. Last night, I was attacked while mining and was able to instantly switch over to my pilot computer to start trying evasive maneuvers. While I did not manage to escape that time, I think with more experience, I will be able to in the future. If I was solo mining, I would probably have been destroyed before I could exit the mining seat.

Unfortunately, I think this is the ONLY ship where dual boxing...or even triple/quad boxing might be feasible. This is especially true if you have Hofstede or Helix mining heads on all your lasers. Since you only need to use the buffs...or on very rare occasions, provide a slight base power increase, this ship is uniquely set up for multi-boxing in the SC universe. Even if you 4 box, you only need the primary miner to have a good controller for the laser. The rest can just use mouse control as you won't be doing any fine control movements. That said, a full crew would be better.

Last note on the MOLE/Prospector. In the Prospector, I was getting 3...maybe 4k radius on my scans. On my MOLE, I was able to detect some deposits 13k away. This is a huge advantage for the MOLE. If nothing else, when you have a mining expedition, you might want to have a single person going out in a mole to act as a bird dog for deposits and sending the fleet of prospectors out in the right directions.
 

Trinarius

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If you'd care for any help with the guide, @Glumm and I have been spending a great deal of time mole mining over the holidays and might be able to provide some input.
 
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Black Sunder

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If you'd care for any help with the guide, @Glumm and I have been spending a great deal of time mole mining over the holidays and might be able to provide some input.
3.8 version is coming out this week. It just needs editing and then it'll be posted. If you still have suggestions after reading it, post em in the 3.8 Guide thread after its posted.
 
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Black Sunder

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Well its been a while since this got a post.

With the 3.9 PTU on the horizon here is what is slated to be added to the Mining Guide in some form or another:

Mining Consumables Stat Table + Descriptions, Recommendations, Keyboard shortcuts, Charges + How to Equip

Check Mining head stats & Update table if needed

Temperature Suits for FPS mining
Backpack capacities for FPS mining

Quantanium Mining
Quantanium Instability & Cargo Ejection

Where to find Quantanium

I'm hoping to have most of this done and edited before the first mid patch patch comes out.
 

Black Sunder

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Some notes so far:

Quantanium - upstable. Gets more unstable in greater concentrations with a smaller green zone

Always break ALL quantanium rocks up before extracting.

Prospector surface scan is ~3km at 1x. ~3.5km at 2x and so on up to ~5km at 32x Space Scan range ~10km at 1x ~15km at 2x

Mil Spec Drive needed for Quantanium

Storing Ship at landing zone stops Quantanium Decay

Outposts with landing pads can refuel/repair ships. - didn't know this before

Consumables from different lasers will interact with each other.
Consumables of the same head overwrite each other.

2 Optimum Consumables + Helix lasers will max out the Rock Energy Level to be completely green. With this combination ANY rock can be mined.

Optimal Charge Window Size - The percentage increase in the size of the Green Zone.
Heat Generation - The percentage the IR signature of the ship will increase or a time.
Signature Size - The precentage the ship's overall signature will increase for a time.
Resistance - The value by which a rock's resistance is lowered
Instability - The value by which a rock's instability is increased or lowered.
Charge Window Level - The percentage at which the Rock Energy Level is immediately increased or decreased.
Charge Window Rate - This modifies the rate at which the Fracture sensor fills up.
Shatter Damage - This modifier increases or decreases the damage caused by a fractured rock that has acquired energy in the Overcharge Sensor.
Catastrophic Charge Rate - This modifies how quickly the Overcharge Sensor fills up if the rock acquires any Overcharge.
Duration - The time in seconds which the consumable is active.
Charges - The maximum number of charges the consumable offers. Charges can not be refilled like ammunition at landing pads.
 

Black Sunder

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I have 2 consumables I really like atm. The first and best one is the Optimum because it increases that green zone by 100%. The 2nd one is the Surge which immediately increases your rock energy level 30%, even from 0 it'll jump it up to 30 on the bar. God for those large mass high resistance rocks. Working on finding a 3rd I like.
 
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Black Sunder

Rock Raiders
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Updated the introduction to the Guide by actually adding one. Made a point to say that the guide assumes the game and server are working correctly. :D FInished FPM stuff. Completely utterly done with that section aside the Ore Location Index. Update some pictures and made notes on a couple things that may or may not be discombobulating atm in the game. Or they may be completely intended. Who knows. But the notes are there and can be taken out or added in fully later just in case.

Added a small paragraph about food and drink. Made sure to put the new armors in and what they can handle for temperatures. So far off to a good start. Still more to go. But, The Guide Updates have begun.

 
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