Mining Fundamentals #1: Basic Overview

Mining has, and will always remain, a proud tradition of Humanity. For over eight centuries United Resource Workers guild has been protecting miners’ rights, ensuring that they have the tools, protection, and knowledge they need to build our future. And while the technology available today has certainly made mining more efficient, the individual skills and instincts of a miner have never been more important.

In this guide, we’ll be covering the ‘Fundamentals of Mining’, breaking it down into the three core elements of modern-day ship mining: SCANNING, FRACTURING, and EXTRACTION.

Let’s get started -

SCANNING The first thing any miner will need to do is find a deposit that can be mined, and most importantly, one worth mining. Ships equipped with a scanner can send out a local pulse that detects all the nearby minable rocks but be careful: this also makes nearby ships aware of you too.

Once you’ve found a deposit, enter your ship’s Mining Mode and aim your reticle at the rock to learn some key information including:

Composition - the breakdown of what elements are inside the deposit.

Resistance - how much energy it will take to fracture the rock.

Instability - how much energy fluctuation will occur while mining.

You’ll also be able to see the difficulty of mining the deposit based on your current equipment. We advised beginners to stick with easy rocks, but no matter your skill, an impossible rock isn’t worth attempting.

Once you find a deposit with readings you like, it’s time to enter the next stage.

FRACTURING This is where the miner’s skills and instincts become especially important. The aim of fracturing is to use a mining laser to break apart large rocks into smaller ones so the valuable materials inside can be safely harvested.

Switch your ship into Fracture Mode and you’ll see some new meters appear on your Heads Up Display (HUD).

Activate your mining laser and slowly increase the Laser Intensity until you enter the green Optimal Zone. Once you get the Charge Level inside the Optimal Zone, continue making small adjustments to keep it from dropping out of the sweet spot, or overshooting it and entering the red Overcharge Zone. Keep this up until the Optimal Zone fills completely and the deposit breaks into a few smaller pieces.

Most of these pieces should be highlighted in purple and ready for the next stage, Extraction, but some pieces may need to be fractured again.

EXTRACTION Activate Extraction Mode and move your beam over the fractured fragments to collect them. Continue gathering the materials until they’ve been completely collected, or until your Cargo Capacity is full.

What’s next? Time to reap the rewards. Some miners may be inclined to sell their ore as is, but to maximize profit or to complete a specific workorder, you’ll want to take your ship’s cargo to a refinery and get them processed. Refineries can be found at major spaceports and stations.

Miners looking to sell a large variety of refined goods are recommended to head to a major population center and use the trading terminals there. Those looking for the best prices for each specific material should look to smaller space stations or outposts.

Now that you’ve got everything you need to start ship mining, get out there and give it a go. Once you’ve mastered the basics, there’s plenty more skills to unearth such as: Modules, Gadgets, Lasers, Ground Vehicles, and Personal Mining.

So, what are you waiting for? There’s a whole ‘verse of mining waiting for you to discover.