TD's Guide to the World of Mobile Mining! -Updated-

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ched
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Post by ched » Wed, 10. Mar 04, 14:02

great work, it's mining all the way for me now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-TD-13-
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Post by -TD-13- » Wed, 10. Mar 04, 22:12

michael edwards wrote:great work, it's mining all the way for me now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cool! Glad it helped.

I'll look into hornets today.... the only thing I was worried about was that hornet missiles destroyed some of the yeild along with the asteriod.
I doubt it's true though.


Anyway, after checking it out a little more, all add a Hornet missile section to the guide.


Strikes me kinda odd though.... why spend all of this money on a ship with a fancy laser if you can just blow the thing up with a cheap missile?
I mean.... whats the point of the ship and laser then? :gruebel:
(well, I guess it will save you some money in the very long run...)

EverythingXen
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Post by EverythingXen » Thu, 11. Mar 04, 08:14

Easy. Once paid for you always have the mobile mining laser. There's less finding a juicy 26 yield sillicon asteroid and hitting L to hear "Hornet missile... not installed."

The mobile laser costs something like 160,000.... which is 16 Hornet missiles (if you don't capture some, which eats into mining time). 16 asteroids? Depending on the yield that probably wouldn't even fill my Herc.

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Post by The_Abyss » Thu, 11. Mar 04, 08:52

TD005013 wrote:I'll look into hornets today.... the only thing I was worried about was that hornet missiles destroyed some of the yeild along with the asteriod.
I doubt it's true though.
AFAIK this is true - a hornet mining method will yield less from the 'roid than the mining laser.
Strung out on Britain's high, hitting an all time low

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Post by Guest » Thu, 11. Mar 04, 10:15

I only asked this cause i want to get rid of some asteroids, not for making much profit.
Of course if you want to do professional mobile mining it's much better to use the mining laser but if you only want to remove some asteroids it seems to be better to use some hornets if your ship can carry them...

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Post by Mcitchy » Thu, 11. Mar 04, 11:03

EverythingXen wrote:
The mobile laser costs something like 160,000.... which is 16 Hornet missiles (if you don't capture some, which eats into mining time). 16 asteroids? Depending on the yield that probably wouldn't even fill my Herc.
hehe Moving into position to fire the laser also eats into mining time :)

By my reckoning the hornet method is more of a way to get you earning quicker in the early game when all you have is a ship capable of captures and a few captures is enough to finance this venture, if your lucky you can get the bits to piece together a fully functioning orinocco and enough starter cash from sales to buy a couple of Manta's with Ore Collectors & Spec. Command software installed. It takes a while to get tha first 17+ million credits for a TL :)

For people like me who can't be doing with the time it takes to move into position / fly a slow mover to an asteroid / move into position (TS's aren't exactly nippy ya know :)) hornets are the strip mining alternative to "normal" mining operations.

Fly to sector > Scan the asteroids, 1 nuke for each high yield silicon asteroid you find (I usually hit the 18+ ones) > send in the Manta's on collect wares duty > wait for manta's to fill up > give the Manta's somewhere to sell there wares > wash > rinse > repeat. Meanwhile you are free to protect your investment from your handy m3 and may well get some more captures while the AI does the scarpering about cleaning up the mess :)

Each Manta can hold 200 silicon which translates into 100k credits per trip making for a 90k clear profit per trip if you pay for the hornet rather than capturing it, which may just get you the TL that bit quicker. Add to that the inexpensive cost of the Manta's and before long you can have the money flowing in no time. With the added bonus of your combat rank and cash increasing from the used ship market.

It is quite feasible to goto somewhere like ore belt and destroy all the asteroids and leave the manta's collecting while you get on with the plot or do whatever you have to do,with the added advantage of giving you something to monitor while your out doing triskale/factory inspection missions or whatever takes you fancy.

I restarted for 1.3 last night on extreme, and i'm currently trying to fund the initial outlay, I've got a "borrowed" barracuda waiting to be kitted out - captured with a 25mw shield intact, 3 orinoco's waiting to be sold and have the express from mission 2 waiting with the boron onboard so i can attempt capture of one of the super orinoco's that come at you on the way to HoL. After that i'll setup a SPP in KE for some constant cashflow.

Personally I cant wait to see just how fast this setup will bring in the credits using a fast TL with Jump as a base of operations.

In the game I quit I had 13mill banked and my initial "test" miners in opertion.

Re Yield: Regardless of any wastage all mining operations are pure profit once the infrastructure is in place. This method of mining may be more suited to the Mercenary type players than those more into trading.

This is all just my opinion on the matter, if it doesn't work for you or fit with your style of play then what the hay, Personally i like to keep an open mind. :)

peace.

P.S. Well done on the guide. 8)

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3iff
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Post by 3iff » Thu, 11. Mar 04, 13:44

An asteroid respawns in 2-3 hours??? Not in my experience. More like 2-3 days (or longer).

You might also mention the script "ore collect V2" which allows team mantas to operate from a TL, auto collect fragments and return to base. You just break the rocks and the team does the collecting for you.

Nicely put together though...

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3iff
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Post by 3iff » Thu, 11. Mar 04, 13:48

You also forgot to mention about those HUGE asteroids with tunnels that you can't break up with normal mining...

...fly inside a tunnel, then shoot.

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Kryten
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Post by Kryten » Thu, 11. Mar 04, 14:05

Great guide TD, gave it a go and felt like I was getting my hands dirty, strange to feel like I was doing some honest work for a change. :D

This is definately one of the top ways to get credits although I feel that the hard work would have me going back to automated trading later on, now hopefully they'l put a mining script in and everything will be peachy :wink:
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Momaw
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Post by Momaw » Thu, 11. Mar 04, 20:34

Brianetta wrote:It's also going to go south to join Mobile Mining 101, as all good posts do.
Might as well just get rid of my guide, this one makes it obsolete. *crawls away sadly*
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Whitepaw
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Post by Whitepaw » Fri, 12. Mar 04, 23:02

I've been playing as a miner pretty much since I restarted my game a week or so ago, and last night I started using the hornet missles to bust up the asteroids. I switched my dolphins to mantas for ore recovery, for the higher speed, and I seem to be making more money. My main question is, do asteroids respawn normally when using hornet missiles?

If they do, I think I'll keep using this method, and maybe place a personal hornet factory. :P It's alot faster, my Hercules fills in no time, and if the Khaak show up, I'm already in one of my fighters to bust a cluster. :)

Mcitchy
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Post by Mcitchy » Sat, 13. Mar 04, 17:49

Whitepaw: aye good isn't it :)
Spoiler
Show
I find having the pirate base in ore belt keeps me well supplied with Hornets after knocking down a few pirate ships.
Thanks for touching on the hornet method was starting to think i was unique in my views ;)

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Post by -TD-13- » Sun, 14. Mar 04, 18:19

UPDATE :idea:
3/14/04

Updated the guide with your ideas, quotes and suggestions.
More on the way in a little bit. :D
Enjoy!

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Post by -TD-13- » Sun, 11. Apr 04, 05:27

BUMP
(To celebrate my 1101 post :) )

I also think I forgot to mention that I added more stuff that the 1.3 patch changed/or made possible. Now you can use the jumpdrive on other ships, allowing mobile minning to be more profitable than ever. :D

As for myself, I've been working on my 2 stock mine factories. (2 or 3 is all I can really handle : P )

My first is in Red Light, which makes about 300k-400k an hour, while my other one in Antigone memorial makes around 200-300k an hour. I really didn't expect it to be this profitable. :o

Anyone who hasn't given this a shot yet, should definatly give it a go. It may be a little more work than your average factory, but in the end, you won't regret it. :)

Shanjaq
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Mining!

Post by Shanjaq » Sun, 11. Apr 04, 08:05

Just read through the whole thing, this is highly educational! Thanks for putting this together, it has certainly helped in planning future investments!

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Brianetta
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Post by Brianetta » Sun, 11. Apr 04, 12:13

For posterity, this is up on the Argonopedia along with Momaw's excellent guides.

http://argonopedia.ppcis.org/tech.php?tech=29
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Brianetta
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Post by Brianetta » Sun, 11. Apr 04, 13:24

Some notes regarding the original guide:

Several times TD mentions using Mantas - at one point, simply to expand the storage capacity of a mine (and he even recommends no shields or gadgets). It's probably wiser to use TS class ships for storage expansion.

Additionally, just a point on micromanagement of upgrades - you do not, ever, need to install trading extensions or best selling price locators on any ship which you do not intend to fly.
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FanaticChiken
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Post by FanaticChiken » Mon, 19. Apr 04, 15:45

There is more usefull equipment to get a quick buck. Try using the following setup:

Split Caiman - for the player (said equipment + jump drive & transporter)
2/3 Dolphins - (said equipment + jump drive & transporter)

Why the transporters???

Did anyone noticed that when collecting rocks your cargo bay never fill up completely and you start to wander away from the ore? The transporters allow you to fill up a dolphin to the notch (3000). I use this to harvest together with a Dolphin and when my rater small (1300) Caiman is nearly full, I beam it over to the Dolphin, untill at max capacity. Then I order it to jump and get the next dolphin in. All this time I collect ore without ever changing my ships orders.

Why is this useful:

1. You finaly use capacity to the max, requirering less jumps. This effect is of course bigger when using Mantas that only have 1000 cargo space.

2. You have an easyer time, collecting from high yield asteroids (50+). A silicon asteroid of value 64 will fill up 2 dolphins and your Caiman in no time and with still some ore to harvest. Some chuncks of silicon are so big, that only three will fill up your poor Caiman completely, the 4th chunck problably won't be taken or is clipped (resulting in precious silicon being destroyed).

3. Bigger cargo is less/simpler managing, equals speed. And still you have only 2 ships harvesting at a time and thus no collections.

Of course if you blow up multiple asteroids, one or two dolphins can start harvesting nearby, while you and a 3rd eat a high yield asteroid.

One question remains to be answered: Why use transporter equipment on the Dolphins to?

The transporting interface is a bit sensitive to human error, resulting to a 'beam me up scotty' effect. Essentialy putting you inside the trgeted Dolphin...now how to correct this mistake?

Get my drift?

-- Fanatic out --

madned
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TL selection and stock mines

Post by madned » Tue, 20. Apr 04, 04:58

Wouldn't it be more cost effective to buy a cheap TL like the paranid Hercules and some cargo maxed dolphins.

consider hercules at 17M and dolphins at 1M?
vs. the orca (26M) 17K cargo vs. 13K+9*3K cargo.
although it may just be cheaper to buy stock dolphins @ 170K credits
for 18*1.5K and save 540K credits

also doesn't it make sense to stock the stock mines with energy buyers?
if nothing else they can serve as fuel depots for the jump engines.
on low yield asteroids the return won't be very good, but it's a minimal investment 160K or so, and will continue to return money, even when you neglect it and and don't stock it for a while. it sucks having a ton of minerals and no where to dump it.

using a dolphin as a storage cache works in favor of the hercules too since you could carry a bunch of them store your take in em, then exchange when stocking mines.

I've found a dolphin (~2600 cargo free) will last about 2+ restocks before it runs dry.

with an active economy Ianamus Zura seems to be a pretty hot spot for silicon. but it seems to need nostrop oil to get the high tech stuff there going.
an Ore mine in Reservoir of Tranquility seems to do pretty well.
got another silicon mine in Preachers Refuge which does ok.
I'd hazard one in or around Lucky Planets would do well, due to the crystal fabs in the surrounding sectors and the chip and computer plants in Lightwater. which may be part of why the Preacher's Refuge mine does so well.

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Post by Flaco » Thu, 22. Apr 04, 12:04

Superb work on this guide. Thanks. :thumb_up:

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