Mobile Mining Nividium for dummies - The HOWTO

[arcana75]

delray, I'll get the coords of the nvidium roid in M148 if it's relevant to u.

An opinion, I think there should be a differentiation between personal mobile mining and remote mobile mining. For example u advise completely disregarding the collect rocks in sector command, principally from what I can tell due to poor AI. No arguments there, I've seen how a Prospector IS kills itself trying to move in the rock cloud.

However, from my usage of 9 max level TS Prospectors and 4 TLs doing collect rocks in sector OOS, I found their collection rates nearly identical.

Also possibly not really in the essense of the HOWTO due to verbose info in the script thread, nevertheless the Prospector script can break station-class roids OOS, which is a mighty feature most might not realise.

[someone else]

just a thought for you delray:

the TL ramming method is best applied using Atmosferic Lifters for obvious reasons

ramming speed NO MORE than 8, speed to 8 and seta on... you can ram all the Asteroid Belt and your shields will still be at 90% no matter the ship.
(due to low collision damage)
Using strafe can waste your shields very fast, going too fast can kill you because you cannot slow down in time. ( I died in a Ray a couple of times...)

player produced MDS sell like microchips (at least in my game)

[zazie]

player produced MDS

? What does 'MDS' mean ?

Excellent guide, thanks. From my point of view you should mention that Nividium Asteroids do NOT respawn (different from ore/silicon; don't know about ice). Could be valuable info for beginners.

[Freggel.Doe]

? What does 'MDS' mean ?

Mobile Drilling System

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

From my point of view you should mention that Nividium Asteroids do NOT respawn (different from ore/silicon; don't know about ice). Could be valuable info for beginners.

They do respawn.

[delray]

Thanks guys, I will look into it.

Before I mention if Niv. roids respawn I have to see the one I blasted (in Paranid sector) respawn. I would like to see if it respawns in the same place and with the same yield just to be sure.

Another thing I have to look into is the 50 yield asteroid spawned for one of new plots. They say it has unlimited amount of Nividium in it but I think 50 yield is just so much of it that people simply will be harvesting it for another two game weeks.

[zazie]

They do respawn.

Sure ? I have blasted the Asteroid in US close to M148 on day 7 or 8. I am now at day 27 . The roid has not respawned (unlike some Silicon roids I have depleted around day 22/23 !). And I have searched the entire sector more than once, manually and in 3D - just to be sure.

Oh, and thanks for the MDS-explanation

[KennethX3Freak]

basically your saying disregard the mobile mining commands, and just run over broken up nividium roids with your bigship?

i broke up an asterid with a friehgts that had a MDS on it, then i took my boreas and, well i went against my insticts and i rammed every rock out there. got nearly 600 nividium from half an asteroid

[Alan Phipps]

@ delray: Great thread but you might be up against it trying to cover both vanilla and scripts in one issue. I'll explain the problem which applies to all minerals including Nividum.

It almost does not matter now whether map asteroids respawn or not - and I suspect that plot-generated ones do not. Once the roid is broken into outcrops of rocks then if you break and then collect every rock in that outcrop in vanilla 2.1, another outcrop of the same mineral and yield will respawn nearby. I don't know if it is infinite, or if the number of times is linked to yield, but it happens a lot of times anyway. If you shoot any rocks to destruction then they are gone for good as their respawn is cancelled.

I have tested this carefully. I cleared all rocks from a sector apart from just one outcrop comprising a total of 4 collectable rocks and 2 rocks that would each split into 3 collectables. I split the bigger rocks and then collected all 10 resultant collectable rocks. Each time I did this, another outcrop, either the same as the start outcrop or of 10 collectables, spawned nearby immediately on the collection of the last rock. This happened IS but also explains why people are getting silly yields from debris or broken asteroids by mobile mining when OOS. Note that OOS collect rocks' cannot break rocks and so cannot trigger the respawn unless someone else does 100% of the outcrop breaking first.

If people use a script such as Prospector and which uses its own collection routines then the respawn may not happen at all (which is good or bad depending on point of view). Mobile mining in vanilla may now not clear debris fields for fps improvement for this reason.

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

Sure ?

Completely.

[muadiib]

Another excellent guide! i like your style of writing. please dont feel the need to restrain yourself on writing any other guides. i might have book marked your other guide

[mystikmind2005]

I started Nividium mining in X3R for the first time.....

Continued on in Rolks Fate after what i started for the Bala Gi missions.

I finished breaking up the first Asteroid and left my newly built Hyperion there to pick up the pieces. Now i am wondering if it will be finished before the second Hyperion gets built???? Why is it soooooo slow collecting Nividium? If the process is really this slow, then i don't think i will bother with the idea anymore?

[delray]

If you don't do it yourself, it is bound to be painfully slow. Not only GOD merges rocks into bigger ones leaving only handful of them for your ships to collect but also your ships collect using autopilot which means rock by rock by rock method.

So do it my way, get a HUGE ship and fly around a Nividium rocks cloud yourself collecting hundreds per minute. I recently tried using one of my Atmo Lifters and their parachute-like shape makes them collect at rate unmatched by other ships... and their cargo bays of 80k can hold rocks from two 10 yield nividium asteroids.

I have to rethink my Odin preference here.

[mystikmind2005]

If you don't do it yourself, it is bound to be painfully slow. Not only GOD merges rocks into bigger ones leaving only handful of them for your ships to collect but also your ships collect using autopilot which means rock by rock by rock method.

So do it my way, get a HUGE ship and fly around a Nividium rocks cloud yourself collecting hundreds per minute. I recently tried using one of my Atmo Lifters and their parachute-like shape makes them collect at rate unmatched by other ships... and their cargo bays of 80k can hold rocks from two 10 yield nividium asteroids.

I have to rethink my Odin preference here.

Sorry, i probably should not have posted here, since this is for TC. I don't think i can use that method in X3R?

[delray]

In Reunion if I recall correctly you had to drop shields down before you could collect ("O" button IIRC) and when you had no shields crushing objects with your ship would kill it...

So... I'm sorry, this guide is for TC.

[mystikmind2005]

In Reunion if I recall correctly you had to drop shields down before you could collect ("O" button IIRC) and when you had no shields crushing objects with your ship would kill it...

So... I'm sorry, this guide is for TC.

Understood, thanks.

Yep, i think i will just give mobile mining a miss in X3R.

[mystikmind2005]

In Reunion if I recall correctly you had to drop shields down before you could collect ("O" button IIRC) and when you had no shields crushing objects with your ship would kill it...

So... I'm sorry, this guide is for TC.

Understood, thanks.

Yep, i think i will just give mobile mining a miss in X3R.

[Jeraal]

In Reunion if I recall correctly you had to drop shields down before you could collect ("O" button IIRC) and when you had no shields crushing objects with your ship would kill it...

So... I'm sorry, this guide is for TC.

Understood, thanks.

Yep, i think i will just give mobile mining a miss in X3R.

This script was very nice for me in Reunion. If you don't mind scripts that is.

[Freggel.Doe]

This script was very nice for me in Reunion. If you don't mind scripts that is.

that script seems to be included in the latest x3 reunion bonus package. no need to go 'modified'.

[Chris0132]

basically your saying disregard the mobile mining commands, and just run over broken up nividium roids with your bigship?

That's exactly how I did it when I got bored in one of the final fury missions, just jumped in my mobile mining ship, got it to blast one of the niv rocks with the drill, jumped it out again, then used the PPCs to crunch a few big rocks and the boreas's huge round nose to do the rest, and now I have 400 nividium sitting in the boreas because I got bored doing it but at least I can finish plots easily.