[X3] Mobile Mining Guide

Anoik · Post by **Anoik** » Thu, 14. Sep 06, 22:32

Thanks

purza · Post by **purza** » Thu, 24. May 07, 05:05

Am I the only one who cannot target rocks? Once the have been broken up I cannot target them to see if they are collectable..

they don't show up on the sector map either, and [next target] goes right round all the targets in the sector without targeting them..

What is going on here?

Bunny · Post by **Bunny** » Thu, 24. May 07, 10:15

That is odd. Normally pressing t and pointing the ship at them will get a lock.

Carlo the Curious · Post by **Carlo the Curious** » Thu, 24. May 07, 10:46

purza wrote:Am I the only one who cannot target rocks? Once the have been broken up I cannot target them to see if they are collectable..

they don't show up on the sector map either, and [next target] goes right round all the targets in the sector without targeting them..

What is going on here?

Rocks won't show up on the sector map or next target - in vanilla I think the only way is to hit 't' while your ship is pointed at them.

iirc there are a couple of 'target next rock' scripts around though.

Axon_parker · Post by **Axon_parker** » Tue, 10. Jul 07, 07:33

Okay. I did the Bala Gi mission to get the player headquarters, and in the process mined a couple hundred units of Nvidium. I've been looking everywhere for a place to sell it, and can't find any buyers. Who buys this stuff???

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Tue, 10. Jul 07, 07:37

Virtually nobody, and those places that DO buy it only take 2 units at a time. If you really want to get rid of it your best bet is to buy a cheap freighter, load the Nividium into its hold, and then sell it again--you'll get a reasonable fraction (between half and three-quarters) of the value of all the goods aboard, and with Nividium being the price it is, this is well worth the effort.

Painman · Post by **Painman** » Tue, 10. Jul 07, 08:01

You might have some luck and cap a KM3/KM4 along with a few Kyon guns - if you want to repair or RE/build these ships, you'll need a few units of Nividium. Not a bad idea to keep a bit handy.

Paranoid66 · Post by **Paranoid66** » Tue, 10. Jul 07, 09:45

Noticed using collect rocks and seti to speed collection up - yawn - can result in a good few collisions. While this is one way to break up larger rocks - it is a bit risky - so good shields seem to be a must here.

Visually telling roids from rocks is not easy in x3. At least with the coloured wash of the lighting in some sectors. I didn't even realise their was a colour difference.

Bunny · Post by **Bunny** » Tue, 10. Jul 07, 15:36

To Egosoft's credit they have been making tweaks with the rock management code with each game patch.

If you are in sector but not near the collecting ships then collisions *almost* never happen. The risk does drastically increase if a collecting ship or something near it is viewed (either F3 or the monitor).

There has also been some work done on how rocks reaggregate - I have not seen a large rock appear on top of a TS since patch 1.4. In addition to this, rocks do not need to be as heavily broken up as before. The game code appears to now covert the smallest non-collectible rocks to collectible ones when the existing collectable rocks have been (ahem) collected***.

This represents a considerable reduction in the number of rocks that need to be broken for collection. It also solves the problem of large fields of small non-collectible rocks being left behind by ships running "collect rocks in sector".

***Which in scripting terms is expressed as - a type 18 debris object converts to a type 19 when the two collectable rocks have been removed. This type 19 is then spontaneously "decays" to a type 20 (three collectable fragments) when not being directly viewed by the player/or is OOS.

Paranoid66 · Post by **Paranoid66** » Tue, 10. Jul 07, 16:14

All sounds very complicated I kind of miss the old simplistic X2 method, mining used to be a reasonably relaxed affair even if it wasn't so realistic.

I would like to see all collectables in range being beamed in with a transporter or dragged into your hold with a tractor beam. Then you could just concentrate on finding good roids and breaking these up. As it is the collection precess is a bit long winded and tiresome if you are doing it hands on.

However ES seem to like making you scoop stuff up the hard way. At least the rocks are big enough that you don't have to be too particular as to their placement.

Discovered picking up crates in my Demeter Miner suffers from the usual imprecisions of target reticule having nothing to do with required cargo placement. It would be nice if this moved when you open your cargo bay to reflect the necessary placement for pick ups for the ship you are in.

Bront · Post by **Bront** » Sun, 26. Aug 07, 21:15

Will mining scripts break up rocks for you or do you have to do that yourself?

Carlo the Curious · Post by **Carlo the Curious** » Sun, 26. Aug 07, 22:30

Read the threads for the scripts in question and you should find out.

Bunny's does.

Incubi · Post by **Incubi** » Sun, 9. Sep 07, 02:07

I strongly suggest dropping an Advanced satelite at large rock cluster areas. Particularly if your mining Nvidium in a dark or nebulae sector.
Going into the Sector map ( when you are in sector, so have those ai contolled ore collecting ships on standby

) Press k and zoom to location.
This gives an idea of what you have missed, and is an easy way to tell when the rocks are clustering up again thus being time to leave sector and let the ore collectors clean up a bit. The advanced sat also makes sending oos ore collectors to postiion. Just choose move to position or jump and move to postioin and select teh advanced sat rather than manualy sending them to the exact coordinates for each and every ship.
When done just scoop up the adv sat and place on your next mining objective

Bunny · Post by **Bunny** » Mon, 10. Sep 07, 13:19

Yeap, that is a very good tactic for keeping track of which rocks are being worked

.

Incubi · Post by **Incubi** » Tue, 11. Sep 07, 02:33

Just discovered something else that really helps when breaking up nvidium ( not cost efficient to do with ore or silicon )
Mosquito Missles. It will bust up any rock in one hit. Advantage when busting up Nvidium is the range you can do this at. This helps save fps, and thus less rocks cluster back up on you

When doing large clusters it is going to take multiple times of busting the roids up before they are all gone. So on the first visit, just break up all the rocks with mosquito missles ( or other looong range attack with no aoe ) untill all you have left are collectable rocks and the rocks that are one stage away from being collectible. ( plus possible clustering back up due to system performance ) This will fill up 10 mercuries with 400 plus ore each.

When those mercuries are done by either a full cargo or no more collectible rocks to pick up, go back in and use either apsg or a mobile mining laser. With all the rocks left being just one step away from being collectible you can safely bust them up with the psg, and its best to use mobile miner to bust up what ever rocks clustered back up again.
Doing it this way really seems to be the least time consuming/ least waste. Spent the last week doing nothing but mobile mining and started 5 new games ( experimenting.. I think I am gonna move on now before I start dreaming of asteroids

) Getting consistant results in each case.

So yeah Mosquito missles are a definite plus when dealing with large clusters of nvidium.

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Wed, 12. Sep 07, 12:30

Only asteroids required a mobile drilling system to break them up into rocks (a hornet missile could also be used for this purpose)

Back in X2 it was said that the use of Hornet reduced the number of fragments you got from an asteroid (compared to MDS). Does that assumption hold in the X3 model too?

----
Anonymous

Miner

Bunny · Post by **Bunny** » Wed, 12. Sep 07, 19:29

An interesting question to which I do not yet know the answer

.

I'll get back on this at the weekend.

Bunny · Post by **Bunny** » Sun, 16. Sep 07, 20:12

Thanks for waiting.

I have found no difference between shooting a map asteroid with a hornet missile or mobile drilling rig.

In both cases the asteroid breaks up to form 3 type zero rock clusters.

The test was done using a type zero map asteroid. The vast majority of asteroids in X3 are of this type.

(3 type zero clusters yield a total of 34596 collectable fragments. The number of minerals obtained per fragment depends on asteroid yield.)

@Incubi - Good point, mosquito missiles are really useful at the beginning of the game when manual mobile mining. They fit is pretty much every TS, are cheap, plentiful and fast. Just the thing because IREs are in short supply in Argon Prime

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Sun, 16. Sep 07, 21:10

Bunny wrote:I have found no difference between shooting a map asteroid with a hornet missile or mobile drilling rig.

In both cases the asteroid breaks up to form 3 type zero rock clusters.

Nice. The scenario that I have in mind is a Nividium Asteroid. Obviously, I have to be in sector for either MDS or Hornet. But I might be forced to fly away from the rock, even beyond the Hornet range. And the sector is foggy, so after blowing up that asteroid, there is nothing on the map to navigate by. "Drop Satellite?" Satellites are soft and tend to break if fired at.

So. Group Management System - Group Hotkeys. The "Launch Missile" hotkey. Never tried that for this purpose, but in principle it should make a ship fire its missile (Hornet) at my target (the Asteroid).

Had the Hornet been "lossy" I would have had to re-think my plan. Not that it really matters, for 35,000 fragments mean awfully many cargo units of that Mineral.

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[X3] Mobile Mining Guide