Link to the thread: http://forum.egosoft.com/posting.php?mo ... &p=2949620
Last updated: 2009-06-29 for X3 Terran Conflict 2.1 version.
Last update notes: HERE
Table of contents:
1. Tools.
2. Place (here be dragons and spoilers).
3. Lore aka homework.
4. The plan.
5. Selling.
6. Scripts.
For the sake of simplicity in this guide I assume you want to mine Nividium. It will work for other minerals as well (Ice, Ore, Silicon) if you don't want to use custom commands Egosoft prepared for them.
This is about vanilla game, I know there are great scripts that make mining much easier. I also know there are mods out there that add Nividium Mines to the game. This here is for hardcore players who prefer to stay vanilla and yet want to acquire tons of valuable minerals very fast.
==========================================================
1. Tools:
==========================================================
- Large ship, preferably one of bigger TLs (Orca, Mammoth, Mobile Mining Base Ship), whatever you have at hand, must be big (makes collecting easier) and spacious. You can also use one of bigger M7s, M2s or M1s in the game. My favourite is Odin but Phoenix is pretty cool too. Don't load too many lasers onto this ship, you will need plenty of space for treasures.
- For civilian ships Mobile Drilling System (MDS) bought from one of many factories in the universe (see: http://eng.x3tc.ru/x3_tc_map/ware-list.php?s=drilling ). If you can't buy them anywhere either get a military ship or buy a factory of MDS from Paranid and produce them on your own.
- For military ships either Spectre or Hornet missiles which are the smallest missiles that are able to blow up a big asteroid into small pieces. Spectres for Terran ships, Hornets for Commonwealth ones.
- Lasers of any kind to crush medium-sized rocks into small collectable ones.
- Mineral Scanner, Explorer Command Software, Ore Collector, Triplex Scanner (and everything else).
- Fast M5 with Mineral Scanner and Explorer Command Software to scan asteroids in the sector very fast.
- If you have hangar bay Falcon Haulers in there can increase the amount of Nividium you can load onto your ship per trip. Each of them can load 353 units of cargo. Nividium is 4 units per rock so you can load almost 90 nividium on each. For Odin for example it's 44x 90 Nividium total. Is it worth it? In the long run it is, yes.
==========================================================
2. Place:
==========================================================
"How do I find a Nividium asteroid?" is one of very common questions in this forum and I can give you exact locations right away. Just uncover the spoiler text below.
If you don't want to be given exact location, I can give you hints:
- Nividium is very valuable so it was mined everywhere where it was safe enough to mine it.
- Lore teaches Khaak life cycle is tied with Nividium so a wise man would look where Khaak are currently present or... once were present but were driven away.
- Desperate miners can show a more thorough approach and send multiple scout ships in all directions to scan asteroids and debris clouds in hope of finding traces of Nividium.
- There are places only you can go. Places other miners don't have tools to reach so they couldn't have mined Nividium there. Think about unique tools you have at your disposal, tools noone else in the universe has and use them!
Uncover the Spoilers only if you give up!
THIS IS A MAJOR SPOILER. Do not uncover this info if you want to find Nividium on your own.
Spoiler
Show
- Perpetual Sin, a pretty safe Paranid sector with a single Nividium asteroid, where most of us started. Khaak were here once but Paranid drove them away.
- Unknown Sector North from Argon 148. You drive Khaak away from here during Operation Final Fury.
- Khaak sectors, most notably 841 and 931.
- Unknown Sector behind Xenon 534 and Xenon 534 itself or Xenon 695
- One of bright sectors on this mini-map (courtesy of Xadrian Complex Calculator):
http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/4206/niv.jpg
- If you have finished Goner Plot pretty much all Unknown sectors Unfocused Jump Drive takes you to. The best method in the long run since every time you make an unfocused jump such a sector is generated. This means there's unlimited amount of Nividium you can gain using this method. Also, one per four sectors (rough estimate) you UJD to will be completely safe so noone will mess with you when you collect your 100 million worth of treasures.
- Unknown Sector North from Argon 148. You drive Khaak away from here during Operation Final Fury.
- Khaak sectors, most notably 841 and 931.
- Unknown Sector behind Xenon 534 and Xenon 534 itself or Xenon 695
- One of bright sectors on this mini-map (courtesy of Xadrian Complex Calculator):
http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/4206/niv.jpg
- If you have finished Goner Plot pretty much all Unknown sectors Unfocused Jump Drive takes you to. The best method in the long run since every time you make an unfocused jump such a sector is generated. This means there's unlimited amount of Nividium you can gain using this method. Also, one per four sectors (rough estimate) you UJD to will be completely safe so noone will mess with you when you collect your 100 million worth of treasures.
3. Lore aka homework:
==========================================================
Each rock of Nividium takes up to 4 units of space in your cargo hold. So to check how much you can mine take your ships max cargo bay, deduct amount of space you've spent on equipment and divide by 4. The result of this math should be higher than 2000-3000. When you get a good Nividium asteroid, it's hard to leave tons of it behind because you don't have space to take it with you.
There are four levels of rocks in the game.
- Huge Asteroids, those you can see on your sector map and can scan using mineral scanner.
- Big Rocks, when you blow up a Huge Asteroid it cracks into half a dozen of those. You can attack them with your lasers and crush them into Medium Rocks.
- Medium Rocks. Those are pretty small and are the final level you need to crush before you get to Collectable ones.
- Collectable Rocks. Tiny tiny pieces you can fly through in your ship to collect them.
Sometimes the game refuses to generate too many Collectable Rocks. When you notice your Medium Rocks upon hit with your laser don't fall apart into Collectable ones but disappear in a ray of light it means you have generated too many Collectable ones already for your game to handle and you have to collect some before you can proceed.
If you leave a sector you mined in, most of smaller rocks will be assembled back together into Big Rocks to save resources. You will have to break them up again upon your return.
==========================================================
4. The plan:
==========================================================
- Get to the sector you want to mine in and clean it up from enemies. If you will be mining in an Unfocused JD sector, you can keep jumping until you get a safe one (one per four).
- Find a Huge Asteroid with Nividium, that's what you have that fast M5 for. Go to "Navigation -> Scan Asteroids -> Scan All Asteroids in Sector" and choose the sector you're in. Ship will fly between asteroids and scan them all eventually.
- Make sure it indeed is a Nividium asteroid and smash it to pieces with MDS or a missile
- Use lasers, missiles or ram with your ship the Big Rocks that are left from the Huge Asteroid.
- Repeat for Medium Rocks to split debris into Collectable pieces.
- Slowly fly around debris strafing and spinning collecting Collectable rocks by dozens at once. Speed depends on your shield, the lower they are the slower you can fly around the debris cloud collecting since damage will be bigger. That's why I like Odin, I can collect at 15-20 speed.
- When your shields go down below 20% eject one of your shields and pick it up. It will restore them to 100% and allow you to resume mining.
- When you notice your ship flies through rocks isntead of collecting them press F1 and return to your cockpit. You can't mine using external view, ask Egosoft why.
- When your ship is full fill the Falcons in the hangar to mine some more and proceed to selling your treasure.
The easiest method of collecting is to disregard lasers completely and just rely on your shields while flying frantically around the debris field crushing and collecting rocks all at once. This is the method pro players use to shorten the amount of effort required to get Nividium.
You have to completely disregard "Collect rocks in sector" commands that may seem to be meant for mining Nividium. They are based on autopilot which isn't the strongest part of this game and it takes considerably more time and effort to mine using them. So if you value your time you should just jump into your big ship and do it easier way.
Also bear in mind that you get lowest damage to your shields when you crush rocks with turning and spinning moves so if they are low simply reduce your main speed and also the amount of strafing you do.
Be careful to not use Transporter Device to transfer yourself between ships. When you do that, game will redraw the debris field around you removing small rocks and aggregating them back into bigger ones.
==========================================================
5. Selling:
==========================================================
- Fast method. Dock in a Shipyard, buy Freighters, load Nividium onto them and sell. This way you will get 75% of Nividium average value but you sell it all right away.
- Slow method. Sell to NMMC Headquarters in PTNI HQ sector, wait till they use it all and then sell again. They don't buy much so it will take lots of time but at least you will get fair price for it. I never do that.
- Medium method. Put it in the Hub, set price at Average-1 and wait for NPC traders to come and buy it. When they buy all 38 units, transfer more from your ship... and repeat until all is sold. Gives more cash than fast method, less cash than slow method and takes a lot of time.
- Campaign method. There are various plots that require you to deliver Nividium. It's good to have a few hundred of it stashed somewhere just in case such a mission pops up.
- Player Headquarters method. You can put tons of Nividium in your PHQ and sell it at price Average-1 to NPC traders just like you do at the Hub. Probably the best method but requires finishing almost all the plots in Terran Conflict before it can be applied.
My advice: unless you have PHQ, you should go to Kingdom End Shipyard, buy Dolphin Haulers, fill them with Nividium and sell for 16 million each. This is what I do with my Nividium.
==========================================================
6. Scripts:
==========================================================
Q: Unmodified game way of mobile mining Nividium drives me mad. Is there any other method?
A: You can try excellent Prospector Script by Lucike. See script's thread for details.
). I looked at the guide as a whole and I don't think anything else can be hurtful for people who don't want the surprise spoiled.
