Painite is a pain
10 Sep 2020Aequfire
Hey Mom and Dad,It's been a busy week and I am dead tired but it has been a very good week. Remember when I said that I was thinking of giving mining a shot, well I gave it a shot. I bought a big expensive Type 9 heavy and strapped every bit of mining kit I could find to it and was ready to set off when I ran into a couple guys at the bar. They were coming back from a painite run about 100ly from Jameson Memorial. They were throwing around the credits so I figured this was a good opportunity to get some pointers. I mentioned that I was heading out in a Type-9 and they got a little quiet. The one guy pulled me aside a little later and said that if I was going to surface mine and didn't care what I collected that the Type-9 would work as it had the cargo and the module space to load up on refineries and collector limpet controllers but flying a brick through a asteroid field isn't always the best idea. He suggested that I focus in on painite and get something smaller and more maneuverable that wouldn't take me forever to fill. He said that a hold full of 50 tons of painite could net me 50mil credits at the right starport. And then he warned me about pirates. He suggested to just give them want they wanted unless I was planning on bringing some back-up. I hadn't even thought of pirates which is surprising considering how often we had to deal with them.
So I went back to the drawing board. I looked at my Type-9 credit sink and sighed as I clicked the confirm button on the Keelback purchase I just made. It was much smaller and required a little more finesse in equipping. I would be focusing on surface mining so surface lasers and abrasion cannons, a small refinery, some collector limpet controllers, a shield, and a fuel scoop. I considered loading some offensive weapons but there was no way I could strap on enough to even give myself a chance in the fight so I decided I would rely on being hard to detect, some good flying, or if all else failed dump some cargo. I checked the feeds to find a recent painite hotspot had been identified not too far away and there was a market offering nearly a million credits per ton. So with my course set and my ship kitted out, I once again set out into the dark.
This Keelback does lumber a bit more than my Krait but she actually flies pretty well and is quite maneuverable between tight asteroids. I think I only had one collision and the shields held so no harm no foul. It took a few hours to find enough rich painite rocks to fill my hold but I managed it and was only bothered once by pirates. I had a hold full of limpets at the time so he scanned and went on his way. I waited until he was out of range and then moved off 20-30 klicks hoping to stay far enough out of sight that if he came sniffing around later he wouldn't be able to find me. It seemed to work because I wasn't bothered while I worked and I have to say that I figured this would be boring and monotonous work but I found it quite cathartic actually . I through on a couple videos in the background and just floated around firing lasers at rocks and launching limpets whenever the previous ones expired.
My hold was full and my refinery bins were also full, ready to deposit a few more refined tons as soon as I sold off the current hold contents. Between hold and refinery I was able to secure 70 tons of painite which was a far cry from the 500 tons my Type-9 could carry but that lumbering brick would have taken me several more hours to fill, even if I wasn't being so picky. I might give the type 9 a try sometime but the thought of being interdicted in that brick with nothing but some mining lasers and seismic charges does not inspire confidence. At least this Keelback is maneuverable enough to give me a fighting chance to evade interdiction which I did have to test and yes I managed to avoid it. Anyways, I made it port and hit the commodities market and was able to secure just over 900,000cr per ton. It was a good day. I think I am going to name this Keelback the Svarog, an old Slavic god of fire and blacksmithing. I think it fits.
Well, I am headed off to the bar to buy a couple rounds and share my success with my new mining friends. Maybe I'll wing up with them sometime, I would even be okay with just flying overwatch for them. My fighter pilot would probably enjoy the chance to run an asteroid field.
I will talk to you later,
Jacob.