What to mine at the beginning?

[mastertigra]

Greetings,

First things first, I'd like to thank everyone, who provided me with some cool tips & advises regarding my previous noob topics.

I have started my mining journey, read some articles about basic things. I would like to ask some:

1) People say, that I can implant prospecting and surveying (about 2200 to both skills), skip TT finder leveling and become able to mine almost all popular ores with F-105. Is it good strategy or it is better to do some tests in different locations, mine some here and there in order to collect some stats for my future runs?

2) I have F-101 right now, but one drop costs 20 probes and its a bit costly for me atm. Will I find more PEDs of ores/enmatter if I spend more peds for drop?

3) A lot of ores available at start have 101-105% MU, should I gather them, collect huge stacks and sell or I need to find some good sports with, for example, Belkar nodes with bigger MU?
Thus, I assume it is a mining specific, that good MU ores have lower % of finding.

4) Should I mine on LA with mining tax? I do not have any stats from LA runs, but just for curioisty: Do Land Areas have better % for some rare resources or its just a promo trick from LA owners?

5) Do I need to specialize on ores or enm only?

6) I have no exp with enhancers and do not even exactly know, how do they work (what do I need for enhancer set up or where to buy them and how often they break)

7) Mining amps. Which one I should choose: L or UL? Do I need to check amp efficiency and MU before buying?

8) Is it ok to refine all materials or I should leave them in unrefined condition?

9) Do better extractors have only better extracting speed and nothing else in their stats? Same question regarding refiners and their key stats.

10) I am using LBML and when I find an ore, should I make my next drop just next to discovered claim or the whole drop circle? (please refer to the screenshot link attached)

https://imgur.com/wcW8Z2z

Cheers.

 

[Iceman2003]

1) Run around and map minerals in different locations. Most of common ore/enm you can find using max f-105 finder. You need to have 1k m depth to find redulite/vesperdite and i think few others. Ignisium (130%+), Adomasite(150%+), Garcen(155%), Putty(250%) do not require anything more than F-105 depth finder.

2) There is rookie finder from trade terminal which is taking 2 probes only and there is nothing between 2 and 20 drops if we are talking about ore mining, for enm mining is half of that so rookie 1 probe and f-101 is 10 probes. For unamped mining and if you know what you are doing you need to have at least 1k peds bankroll in my opinion, but only if you know what you are doing, if not then I would double that amount.

3) Mu is floating constantly, depend on the demand and amount of ppl mining it, it can change 20-50% up down in short period of time( mayhem times when more people is shooting using L guns which need some ore/enm to craft and less are mining overall). Its always better to sell in bigger stacks like 50-500p depent on the resource. If you dont have bankroll you are forced to sell yours minerals to ressellers who will give you 2-10% less than current market price.

4) If avg mu on LA minus tax is bigger than yours avg mu on yours best area you mine ( example, avg mu on LA is 120%-4% tax=116% vs best area avg mu outside LA is 114% ) then yes. If not then not mine there.

5) No, you can mine both at the same time, double drop or you can mine ore/enm/tres on arkadia, triple drop.

6) depth enh, gives you more avg depth that yours finder can go, range enh, gives you bit more range on finder, standard range is 55m and you can go like 57,5m with range enh.

7) do not use amps if you dont have enough cash on pedcard, minimum requirement for level 5 amp daily mining is 20k ped, if lower do not even start.

8) some need to be refine and some not to be used in craft, ares head is used for craft in both form, check auction history for unref and refined to deduct.

9) better exctractors has also betted pull mineral cost, they are cheaper to use per click.

10) no you dont need to, claims are not in the ground anymore so if you run and drop probes every 110m(double the range of finer(55m)) you are good. If you stand still and drop the probes you will be just wasting yours peds. Cover area as you yours example and you are good.

 

[mastertigra]

1) Run around and map minerals in different locations. Most of common ore/enm you can find using max f-105 finder. You need to have 1k m depth to find redulite/vesperdite and i think few others. Ignisium (130%+), Adomasite(150%+), Garcen(155%), Putty(250%) do not require anything more than F-105 depth finder.

2) There is rookie finder from trade terminal which is taking 2 probes only and there is nothing between 2 and 20 drops if we are talking about ore mining, for enm mining is half of that so rookie 1 probe and f-101 is 10 probes. For unamped mining and if you know what you are doing you need to have at least 1k peds bankroll in my opinion, but only if you know what you are doing, if not then I would double that amount.

3) Mu is floating constantly, depend on the demand and amount of ppl mining it, it can change 20-50% up down in short period of time( mayhem times when more people is shooting using L guns which need some ore/enm to craft and less are mining overall). Its always better to sell in bigger stacks like 50-500p depent on the resource. If you dont have bankroll you are forced to sell yours minerals to ressellers who will give you 2-10% less than current market price.

4) If avg mu on LA minus tax is bigger than yours avg mu on yours best area you mine ( example, avg mu on LA is 120%-4% tax=116% vs best area avg mu outside LA is 114% ) then yes. If not then not mine there.

5) No, you can mine both at the same time, double drop or you can mine ore/enm/tres on arkadia, triple drop.

6) depth enh, gives you more avg depth that yours finder can go, range enh, gives you bit more range on finder, standard range is 55m and you can go like 57,5m with range enh.

7) do not use amps if you dont have enough cash on pedcard, minimum requirement for level 5 amp daily mining is 20k ped, if lower do not even start.

8) some need to be refine and some not to be used in craft, ares head is used for craft in both form, check auction history for unref and refined to deduct.

9) better exctractors has also betted pull mineral cost, they are cheaper to use per click.

10) no you dont need to, claims are not in the ground anymore so if you run and drop probes every 110m(double the range of finer(55m)) you are good. If you stand still and drop the probes you will be just wasting yours peds. Cover area as you yours example and you are good.

Brilliant!

Just one little question remains (5th): I mean, whether it reasonable to focus only on one type of material? or i need to mine both of them and it will bring me more returns? or I just need to rely on my intuition regarding ore/enm MU and luck, when I make double drops in the certain area?

 

[Iceman2003]

Brilliant!

Just one little question remains (5th): I mean, whether it reasonable to focus only on one type of material? or i need to mine both of them and it will bring me more returns? or I just need to rely on my intuition regarding ore/enm MU and luck, when I make double drops in the certain area?

From my knolwedge there are not many areas where you have both ore and enm avg mu high so in my opinion outside those area you should focus only on ore or enm with yours current bankroll. If you will have 2-3k peds then you can think about double drops, that will get you lower overall avg mu across ore/enm but you will cycle more peds.

 

[mastertigra]

From my knolwedge there are not many areas where you have both ore and enm avg mu high so in my opinion outside those area you should focus only on ore or enm with yours current bankroll. If you will have 2-3k peds then you can think about double drops, that will get you lower overall avg mu across ore/enm but you will cycle more peds.

got it. my current strategy is to drop some probes and, if i have no result after ~10 drops, i change my location.

 

[Ivo Jahrumble]

- Use the path to max f-105 to map the planets and get a feel for how mining works. When maxed f-105 look at the map you built and draw some conclusions. It wont take long to get there.

- Do only enmatters if low on ped. You will accumulate more resources of one type quickly to sell and cycle. If ores and enmatter you need double the amount of peds to have a strategy going on.

- I personally dont do runs less than 150 drops minimum. It a good number to allow the game to adjust loot return and already takes 1h or 2hrs to complete.

-LBML: You can use the outside ring of a claim to not overlap if you want to be picky. Try to overlap drops as less as possible. Again personal taste here. I usually drop around the ring of the claim to try and find the "path" of claims.

Only thing I can add. Iceman nailed it!

 

[Alina]

F105 is good at start , L30 is the goal

 

[kingofaces]

Bits I’ll add:

1. Do not use depth enhancers. L finders are always going to be cheaper (at least around 120% MU and below) compared to an equivalent F-105 or 106 with enhancers. That also lets you take advantage of learning periods since you aren’t penalized in terms of TT returns. The only thing is depth will decrease temporarily as you jump to a higher level finder (unless you wait until partway through the learning period), but at a point, that doesn’t matter so much.

2. Use LBML to make sure you don’t overlap. Claims are functionally “in the ground” on an x y 2D plane before you ever drop anything, so you will see more misses/NRF if you overlap with yourself or other miners. Depth only affects what resource you find after getting a claim, not hit rate (i.e., different “veins” of claims at different depths). If you find a resource in your drop radius at say 400m, you have an extremely reduced chance of finding anything at say 200 or 900m in that exact same radius to the claim. Basically once you find a claim in that circle, the area within is essentially depleted for a time until something respawns there, regardless of depth.

3. On amps, ignore “efficiency”. It has nothing to do with returns like in hunting. Instead, it’s an indirect measure of drop cost. Just use actual drop cost on the wiki instead. If you go with an amp (or finder) that increases overall drop cost by 2x, then your claim sizes will be about 2x larger. If you do amp, stick with low MU L amps. To actually save enough using an UL amp in terms of return on investment compared to L takes a massive amount of drops right now. Plus, L means you can quickly change to bigger or smaller amps instead of being locked into one. I used to use a Terra 1 Gold Rush, but ended up outgrowing it for this reason.

There’s more public testing threads in my signature, but most of the higher level knowledge on mining mechanics people will keep to themselves. Part of the fun of mining is doing your own testing and mapping, so that’s why I only share about this much at most.

 

[mastertigra]

I have one additional question regarding LBML:

should i use my already existing drop circles for future runs or when I come to the same spot next time, I need to draw a new path and use my existing map just for analysis what kind of materials I can find here?

 

[kingofaces]

You can ignore your drop circles in the next run. Some people set theirs to disappear after a day or only a few hours.

 

[Nanashana]

Id avoid rebombing an area more recently than 8 hours since the last run.

My only advice is that now, while you're building up your own maps of where resources can be found, avoid any temptation to 'amp up' and increase your cycle.

Aside from some resources that can only be found with small drop sizes, nothing changes except cycle cost between unamped an DClas/Amp7. When you can reliably breakeven or profit through markup in your areas, then think about scaling up. But remember you'll need 5-10x the bankroll to sustain D-class over unamped.

And finally remember that finder decay, refiner and extractor decay adds up. Research the tools available, paying 0.3% and 1% of your tt spend as extra decay is a very different situation.

 

[kingofaces]

And finally remember that finder decay, refiner and extractor decay adds up.

FYI, finder decay is returned (or mostly returned) in claims. The TT decay of a finder is basically part of the drop cost, so it's no different than how amps work.

That said, MU can add up really quickly if you have both high decay and high MU on a finder. I'll still use L TM6 and TM7's, but TM8's can be just a bit over the line depending on how much MU you get one for. Refiner and excavator decay are indeed basically like paying extra MU though and is not returned directly in claim size.