Mining (is a pain in the @$$)
18 Nov 2017Nightsta1ker
Need to gain access to a certain engineer who does hull and armor upgrades. Of course, there is always a catch, and when I contacted said engineer she told me she "only works with miners". So I put one of my multi-cannons in storage and fitted a mining laser, and kitted the rest of my ship out with refinery and limpet controllers, et all. Before I go any further in this story, let me just say that I have never tried my hand at mining before. It's never really interested me, and I didn't think I would enjoy it. Boy was I right! Not only do I not like it... I pretty much hate it. Even in a "pristine" ring, it seems like the valuable stuff is extremely hard to come by, and when you find it, collecting it is slow and time consuming. I have been burning through limpets like nobody's business because apparently I just can't make good decisions about when and how I use them. Any new career is going to have a learning curve, and I learned a few lessons here, for sure. Like how not to lock onto fragments or your limpets will self destruct upon return to the ship. If you want them to keep heading out for new material, you have to look at your contact list on the nav panel to see what's what out in front of you, which is irritating. Also, and there doesn't seem to be much I can do about this, these limpets seem to be suicidal, as they routinely plow themselves into the asteroids.
But as much as I have developed a disdain for limpets, the alternative is far more time consuming and frustrating, as it requires you to chase down each fragment (which are going all over the place as you blast away with your laser), and scoop it up the old fashioned way.
So after several mind numbing and frustrating days, I have accumulated a 5th of the material I need to prove to *someone* that I am a gen-you-wine miner.
Other than that, I can't really see why anyone picks this as a career. It's a pittance compared to what I make on bounty hunting contracts. Even exploration seemed to have a bigger payout for the time involved. Or maybe I am still just missing something...