Mining.
08 Aug 2016NickTheGrey
I've considered mining a couple of times in the past but to be honest it never really got past the "Wow, that looks dull" phase. That said, waiting out here at Jaques for the Build a New Base Community Goal to wrap up has given me plenty of time, opportunity and reason to try it out. The latest Goal calls for mined Osmium which according to one of the other commanders currently berthed here can only be found in metallic rings.Here are the things I've learned about mining thus far:
- You need mining lasers. Sounds obvious but regular lasers will not work.
- You need a refinery - preferably a big one with as many bins as you can find. When you mine you can end up with all different kinds of resources and the more bins you have, the more different resources you can mine concurrently.
- While I'm sure they're useful, prospecting limpets take up a module slot and Cargo Bay space. I was driving an Asp and didn't have much in the way of free space so in the end they were ripped out and additional cargo space was put in.
- Not really a mining tip as such but way out here at Jaques Station I had the option of selling off my 64T fuel tank to make room for more mining equipment. Luckily I checked the Fuel Tanks on offer for the return trip. The biggest available seemed to be 8T and I didn't want to count on being able to buy back old equipment so the 64T Fuel Tank stayed.
- It's an enjoyable enough way to spend an hour or so and a decent income if you're prepared to put in the time.
- Different ring systems contain different resources. In the rings around the gas giant next to Jaques there are two distinct belts - one metallic and the other something else (memory escapes me right now). Checking the info on the system map will tell you which rings are available. In the case there are multiple rings in the same system, look for the information regarding distance from the parent.
- Don't go in to resource extraction sites unarmed. Pirates tend to congregate in them a lot. I was lucky enough in the ring system next to Jaques in that the first set of rings I tried (ironically, those without Osmium) had a lot of pirates in them. The second rings I tried - the metallic rings - had trace amounts of osmium and not another soul around in the entire time I was there.