Pretender said:
watch my words! i bet there is gonna be an 50k or higher one before the end of the year!
anyway, im still hoping for my rich/gigantic
Im still searching for something over 160peds (my largest since VU)
There is one major difference between a skilled level miner and a noob miner maybe some are overlooking....the way the mine/look for things. I have a friend that has been mining longer than I and she has never yet even found a spaceship?!? Ive found around 12-15, though I havent found one in about a months worth mining (quite a few thousand bombs/probes).
For lack of a better word, I think "experience" is what is hurting higher level miners...experience has taught them to mine in certian ways. Also, while they havent pulled many ATH's since the event, I assume they havent been losing $ either. Im referring mostly about Strakken and Silver and MB and the others that have been around for quite some time.
Mining to su$tain yourself and get skills is quite a different technique than mining to find a spaceship or a large hof (fortuneseekers). Excluding the luck factor...the two goals are found in different locations.
To losely classify there are ~ 3 groups...Miners (those with at least 1 unlocked mining skill, and/or those who just mine exclusively), Hobyists (those like myself who mine and hunt w/average mining skills), and as Strakken mentioned Fortuneseekers. Before the event you could ask a miner for a particular material and they could go out and mine it for you..from experience. On a smaller scale I assume they still can since the event, assuming the area hasnt been totally blanketed with belkar,typo,blau,etc.... (also assuming MA still allowed it to exist). But either way, they still know how to mine, and once they adjusted to the new distribution distances/densities/tools then all was fine (please correct me if Im incorrect
)
Key difference is, "noobs" dont know how to mine...so they will drop a bomb "anywhere" (when was last time a real Miner was seen dropping a probe anywhere near a TP or within a city). If a Miner hasnt hit a deposit in an area within their X amount limit, they will move onto one of their other mining areas. A Noob, as as quoted by one of the ath holders, will even mine purposely in an area that has little to no deposits in it.
The best thing about this VU for myself is dramatically increased skill gains in the base mining skills (pros/geo/serv)...and as most everything that happens in PE, it isnt an accident...as there has even ben an official announcement that skills do/will matter in locating certian types of deposits.
So basically just skill up while ya can, cause those 3 skills are what it takes to find the deposits once the event is over, though is also strong probability that MA will release a few the alien ores while the event continues (also curious if skill gain experiences are same for high lvl miners).
My advice to high level Miners is to start visiting the areas these uber hofs have been found...as per client loader these are like this because of the way the alien ore in those areas has effected them. But agian, until MA releases them they wont be found anyway. Jus a lil something to ponder while out mining. as for us mid lvl/ hobby miners I can suggest to not moveout of a non-producing area quite so quickly. Just an example...imagine there is an alien ore in a spot that has drawn all the belkar in a 4000m radius into one deposit some meters above it...two major problems with exploring that theory...gonna have to drop lot$ of bomb$ to carpet the area, and worse, is always the chance someone else already found it.
Will be interesting to see just what itmes these new rare ores/matters will be used to craft...I hope for the sake of the PE eco-system that they are highly useful and desired items, and very worthy of the high premiums charged for their materials, therefore rewarding and justifying the existance of the veteran Miners as well as the Crafters that are able to make them.
k, Im done now
time to drop a few bombs...
edit...couldnt resist...which will come first the BP or the Ore ?
Still being news people at heart and away for two weeks they dropped us a lil report before they went back out to mine 
