www.xdatabse.de
Benutzerdefinierte Suche
back
close

Manuals

emptymobile mining


emptyMobile Mining Guide


Autor: Ammok


Mobile Mining Guide


Okay, before we start, let's define the difference between asteroids and rocks:
Asteroid - Asteroids appear on the sector map and are large enough to be factory mined
Rock - Smaller asteroids that do not appear on the sector map and may not have a factory mine placed on them

What is mobile mining?


Mobile mining is the process of using a ship to break up and collect mineral rich rocks.

What equipment do I need to mine mine?


You will need a ship that can transport silicon/ore/nividium i.e XL class cargo. TS ships are usually used for mobile mining. The ship must have an ore collector fitted and a weapon is required to break up rocks . Any weapon can be used to do this (mosquito missiles are also cost effective for this task). A mineral scanner is also useful but not a must. You will need special commands software if you want to access the "Collect Rocks" command.


Do I need a mobile drilling system to mobile mine?


No, rocks can be broken up with any weapon. Only asteroids required a mobile drilling system to break them up into rocks (a hornet missile could also be used for this purpose)

How much money can I make mobile mining?


A single ship can collect around 40,000 - 175,000 credits worth of minerals per hour.

Mining nividium can net around 3,000,000 credits per hour but this will require selling the ship containing it back to a shipyard (the market for nividium at factories is very small). Nividium is a rare mineral which is difficult to find.

How do I mobile mine?


1. Fly to a sector with lots of rocks
2. Pick a rock and fire on it to break it up
3. Look for collectible rocks (the smallest)
4. Fly up to the rock with speed 10m/s using the F2 external view and drop the shield using the O key
5. After picking up the rock the shield will come back up and the computer will say what has been collected
6. Move to the next collectible rock and repeat (strafe drive helps a lot)

Keep an eye on how full the cargo bay is with the f key. Trying to collect a rock with a full cargo bay will result in hull damage or death.

Can I collect any rock?


Only the smallest rocks can be collected. Larger rocks must be first broken down.

How can I tell if a rock is collectible?


The small collectible rocks have a brown/gold color. Non-collectible rocks are larger gray ones. It is also possible to tell if a rock is collectible by using a mineral scanner.
Simply target the rock and fly to within a few km and press I. The menu will list the mineral type, yield and if the rock is small enough to be collected. After some practice you will be able to visually judge if a rock is collectible without having to scan it.

Does the rock yield matter?


The rock yield determines the number of units of mineral you get for each fragment collected. The higher the yield, the more units per fragment. This amount has a slight random variation for each rock collected.
Collecting low yield rocks can sometimes result in no minerals being loaded. When this happens the ships computer will say "Cargo bay contains debris" and the ships shield will NOT be raised (Shields only come up after collecting some minerals).
Just move on to the next rock and try again. It makes little sense to mobile mine zero yield rocks as pretty much every fragment will just be useless debris.

What is the best weapon for breaking rocks?


IRE & PACs - Good
HEPT - Very good but are not compatible with TS ships
PSG - APSG is excellent at breaking up rocks without destroying too many collectible fragments. The BPSG is overkill and should only be used if you just want to destroy rocks as quickly as possible
Mass driver - Very good but uses ammo
Mobile drilling system - Excellent - Collectible rocks that are destroyed in the blast radius will reappear when reentering the sector

I want to clear a sector of rocks, how do I do this?


There are several ways to do this
1. Mobile mine it yourself - this is slow and would take a couple of months to clear a sector
2. Break up rocks and use a fleet of ships running the "Collect rocks" command - This method works but it will require a lot of attention form the player to keep it going.
The player would have to regularly visit the sector to break up rocks and also manage the rock collecting ships. A sector could be cleared in this way with a couple of weeks of
hard work (see points below about using the "Collect Rocks" command)
3. Attack the rocks with Beta PSGs - A couple of days of work can clear a sector, however it is really a waste of valuable minerals.
4. Use ships running mobile mining script:
Bonus Pack - "Collect Minerals in Sector"
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=191259

How do I use the "Collect Rocks" command?


This ship must have an ore collector and special commands software to use this command. A triplex scanner is a must as the ship will only collect rock in scanner range.
Do not install weapons in the ship as it will not use them. This command does not mobile mine, it only collects.
The best way to use the command is the following
1. Break up rocks for the ships and mark the position in the sector using a navigation satellite
2. Leave the sector
3. Move the ships to navigation satellite position
4. Start the "Collect Rocks" command
5. Remain out of sector for an couple of hours game time or until the ships are not seen to be collecting any more rocks (check freight bay)
6. Command the ships to a safe position in that sector
7. Return to the sector and repeat

Note. The ships will not use the nav-sats to find rocks only their scanners. Also the collect rocks command has no real search capability so you will have to command the ships to move ro new positions in the sector to find collectible rocks.

Some TS ships are called "miner", what is special about them?


The word miner simply indicates that the ship has an ore collector, special commands software and mineral scanner pre-installed.

Do asteroids respawn?


Yes, asteroids broken with a mobile drilling system or hornet missile will eventually respawn. This will take from a couple of days to several weeks of game time.
The asteroid will come back with the same mineral type and yield. The presence of debris from the previous asteroid will not prevent a respawn. It may also respawn in a slightly different position. Debris from a broken up asteroid is mobile mined like regular rocks.

How can I destroy an asteroid and prevent it respawning?


Build a mine on it and then destroy the mine. The asteroid will never come back.

Do rocks respawn?


No, if the player collects or destroys all rocks in a sector then they are gone forever. However, the player might see something that looks like rock respawning due
to rock reaggregation (see below). The only way to create more rocks is to break an asteroid.

What is rock reaggregation?


Breaking rocks up causes the number of fragments in a sector to rapidly increase. In order to improve graphics performance the game will sometimes removes several small rocks and replaces them with a larger one of similar mineral content (aggregate).

I need nividium, where can I get it?


This is a list of nividium rock clusters
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=186165

There are also a number of nividium asteroids in deep space that can be broken up for mining.


Check Merroc's asteroid list for locations
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=98258

Special notes on in sector mining


Make sure the game is patched to 2.02. Rock collisions are less dangerous and rock reaggregation has been improved (1.4 would collect several small gray rocks into one large one which would occasionally land on the player ship, 1.403 converts some of the gray rocks to collectible ones). When entering a sector or view ships on the other side of the sector there was a slight risk that collecting/mobile mining ships (other than the player ship) could get getting trapped in a large reaggregated rock. A trapped ship would beat itself to death trying to get out. This problem can be avoided by using the larger TS ships that are too big to fit completely in a rock and can break out of it. Not using area effect weapons like the APSG or mobile drilling system reduces the risk of reaggregation.

Rocks do not reaggregate out of sector.




[UPDATE 21-6-07]
I have not seen a ship get trapped in a large reaggregate rock since patching to 2.02. Also, ships will not suffer damage from in sector rock collisions if they are not viewed or near the player ship.

Frame rate in rocky sectors seems to have improved with 2.02.

There is also now some evidence of type 19 rocks (smallest non-collectible) getting converted to collectible fragments OOS - this needs to be confirmed.