There and back, or Tale from a salt mine

[jlehtone]

I had a dream.
I was playing X2 and I had a dream.
Dream to mobile mine Nividium. In Unknown Enemy Sector.
But it was just a thought.
Then I moved to X3, but I still had that dream.
Until the day when that dream was the "what fun next".
Oh boy, that would have been hard, mining the vanilla way.
But I saw the mobile mining scripts entering the vanilla.
Suddenly, I had a plan.

A simple plan:
1. Tell the Kha'ak to be ready.
2. Assemble a mining fleet.
3. Practice mining in safe location.
4. Do the "real thing".

So, on 06:02 of day 10 of month 12 I bought a lottery ticket. That is the last log entry before jump into the Kha'ak space. I had given Goners a large pile of credits for a "license to preach", and I made good use of that license out there. Kha'ak are a keen audience, if you know the right words, and nothing speaks with more holy authority than an Odysseus.

But while out there, I realised that leaving my flock for a practice session would force me to recite the word again. Impatience took over, and I decided to skip that part of the plan. What fun is there in not doing a novel thing right on first try?

So the fleet was assembled during my absence. And called in. Original plan called for eight FAA platforms like a vertices of a cube around the asteroid. Idea was that any spawning Kha'ak would pick on them (and die). Being impatient, three FAA vessels had to do.

At 12:00 of day 10 of month 12, I remotely guided a Centaur to break the target Asteroid, a yield 12 Nividium rock. Of the initial nine Caiman Miners, four were soon dead. The rest received Fighter Drones, the elementary defence of any TS. A desperate call for fighter cover was sent out, and in some hours, about 100 fighters were in their positions. All available heavier vessels were called in as well, to provide some more distraction to the enemy. Ten additional Falcon Haulers entered the are to collect the precious mineral.

At 23:00 first Mammoth had been filled with 14,903 units of Nividium and jumped out. The rate of collection felt slow, so on advice from Bun Nyak Mining Corporation, satellites were placed around the site. Kha'ak love satellites. Dead satellites.

My MORTs found some Lasertowers and made a fence around the mining camp. Kha'ak love to attack towers too, but at least towers can fight a bit back.

So, on 11:00 of day 11 of month 12, the second Mammoth was full. The routine had pretty much formed. Kha'ak attack wave after wave, and my MORT drops in more satellites and towers. Myself I was still spreading the word to the Kha'ak in sector, but far away.

About 18:00 of day 11 there probably was enough Nividium to fill a third Mammoth, but it was still in those collecting ships. The Mammoth left the sector at 21:30, 33 and half hours after the start of the mineral collection.

Around this time three Caiman Miners were detached to other duties.

At 00:18 of day 12 of month 12 a first message from the collecting fleet indicated that all Nividium had been collected. Fleet support ships received orders to collect Lasertowers and remaining satellites at 00:35.

The entire fleet was at home by 02:00 and my jump to regular space occurred at 02:04. That was a 44 hour long tour in hostile space. For religious reasons I always eject from my Oddy before I check the validity of Goner salvage insurance. There is no way I would lurk within a Destroyer to make a save; a walk in suit is a must.

53,776 units of Nividium in 36 hours and 20 minutes. That is about 1,480 units per hour. At no point there were more than 15 collecting ships, so they did collect about 100 units per hour each (or more), while coping with in sector collision avoidance.

Losses:
* 4 Caiman Miners to impatience
* 1 Centaur (in remote control) to impatience
* 4 Xenon L (poor ships were unarmed by mistake)
* 1 Xenon M
* 1 Falcon Hauler
* couple dozen satellites and lasertowers
* 1 Mamba Raider to Asteroid

Yes, about 120 small ships fighting and collecting among rocks for 37 hours, and only one dies due collision with Asteroid.

While scouting the sector beforehand there were many asteroids:
[ external image ]

The mining camp:
[ external image ]

They have definitely heard the "good news" by this time:
[ external image ]

Ready to leave:
[ external image ]
(Note that eight asteroids are missing and that there are rock clusters. The miners must have accidentally shot more big ones than intended. So the 53k Nividium are not from one asteroids, and the remaining rocks are not Nividium.)

"In space nobody can hear you." Not quite. In Kha'ak space you will not receive incoming messages. They wait for your return.
[ external image ]

Some Nividium barges at the Shipyard:
[ external image ]


A sidenote: single Caiman Miner collects about 100 units of Nividium, Ore, or Silicon per hour OOS too. Some variation though, probably due to yield value of those rocks.

[LV]

proffittsssss ?

[jlehtone]

Approximately 300 mil for all that effort, if one works on the selling part.

[esd]

4 Xenon L (poor ships were unarmed by mistake)

Poor sods!

How much of this involved SETA? Also, how long was each gaming session?

[jlehtone]

Poor indeed, there were 20 of them, and I wondered why they were reluctant to fight. But 20% losses over couple hours (that it took to notice the cause) is not that bad.

0 SETA. Would you dare SETA with your ships in sector collecting rocks?

Hour or occasionally a bit more.

[Poobah]

Over how many irl days did you carry out this operation?

[Tripi123]

Wow Excellant work. Looks like a worthy challange.

[pjknibbs]

0 SETA. Would you dare SETA with your ships in sector collecting rocks?

Yes, if they had decent shielding--one or two collisions with smaller rocks won't kill 'em.

[Snowship]

My hats off to you good sir

[supakillaii]

.....wow.......

[TBV]

Most impressive. Congratulations.

Will you repeat the exercise for another 300 million?
Is it as good a way as any to make profitsss?

[XanII]

Wow. How do you get the time and patience to do all this?

Today i felt overwhelmed just when trying to re-organize my faltering sector patrols. not to mention such a long stay in hostile space. Khaak sectors ARE good for dying as it states in the manual.

But then on the otherhand jlehtonens posts lately show that he has clearly found some kind of Zen-path to nirvana in X3.

One can only ask: whats next? x-treme ranks came and went, now nividium mining in khaak space? any dreams left?

[jlehtone]

any dreams left?

At least 2.5

[Lokum]

My god. If you did that, then I cant believe we're still in Iraq.

[Lyth]

Quick question if you don't mind me asking, I notice you have taken the hulls down on all the KM2's. I use the same tactic with a large group of M2's in Xenon sectors but have been unable to do the same in K sectors as even 2x10 groups of M2's take casulaties when attempting it and notice you have no serious losses on your casualty sheet.

How did you manage this without losses or are they just not present for the purposes of the mining info?

Just hung back and used missiles or am I missing something?

[TBV]

You only need one M2 in Kha'ak sectors.

Oddy is best.

Just mix a single GPSG in each PPC turret, particularly the left and right.

The side turrets then take on any pursuing KM2s while the PSGs simultaneously keep the fighters and scouts at bay.

When the KM2 hull is down enough, just turn the turret off until that ship is out
of range. Then re-engage the next pursuing KM2. Keep doing it until they
all crawl around at a snails pace

[Carlo the Curious]

If your trying to damage them rather than destroy them I think it's much easier to do it solo (using an M2, missiles, or whatever).

Slower, obviously, but then you need patience for a mining operation!

[Lyth]

Indeed, I just thought that as it was only 6hours from entering K space to having the mining operation under way, doing it solo would have taken longer and left them trailing abit more.

I have no doubt its possible to set them up solo but I'm not that patient, I'm still a few days away from my major attempt and just gathering intel on alternative methods.

[jlehtone]

@Lokum: Bumping several months old threads without concrete contribution is not considered polite.

Indeed, I just thought that as it was only 6hours from entering K space to having the mining operation under way, doing it solo would have taken longer and left them trailing abit more.

To be exact, the tale does not state whether this particular raid was or was not the first entry to said sector. It was not.

As TBV already said, single M2 does the deed. Or M1. The description of "Elephant trick" has probably been seen by you by now in context of "Kha'ak Invasions". A (fast) ship with a (back or side) turret, and a (BPPC or GPPC) guns in that turret that effectively outrange the Kha'ak GKyons. Running away from enemy may seem cowardly, but requires no skill, is perfectly safe, and gets the job done. The only difficult part is to count the shots and stop firing in time, if the intention is to leave the target alive. I did fail on that frustratingly often.

If or when your shields start fall, jump out. It does not really matter if you wait an hour for their recharge (doing something else) or jump into ship with fresh shields, for the Kha'ak ain't going anywhere.

Before this mining raid, I had used Odysseus, Python, Raptor, Zeus, and Xenon K in rotation. As said, Odysseus with its GPSG has great staying power, but being a bit slower than many KM2, it is not ideal at the beginning. Zeus, while less shielded, has plenty of speed and some GPSG too.

Unless one is surrounded by KM2 at jump in, the real attrition is from fighters. Using no other control than throttle, the Odysseus can stay out there forever, unless there are KM2 left that can catch it.

If the the tailing KM2 are falling behind in long line, you can always fly a large circle around them to collect them in one spot, like a dog herds sheep.

[Lyth]

Kewl, Cheers.

I've got 2 EQ docks with 7 M1/2's for personal use now and noticed you had switched out.

Really not a big fan of the Oddy and as I use support I can't use GPSG's but understand the method.

I only have 1 sector that is a death after jump job, I'm struggling to get my head around that at the moment which I'll probably leave and just do the other 4 at the same time then deal with all the K in the last sector after. Want to do all 5 at the same time but not sure if it's possible logistically or even desirable but then 50-60 KM2's in 1 sector isn't very desirable either.