Miner

Risk	Medium (collisions)
Reward	High
Time Investment	Large
Suggested Ship	Sidewinder Hauler Cobra
Suggested Upgrades	Mining Laser Refinery Cargo Racks

Mining in Elite Dangerous is very manual as the player must use a mining laser to chip off pieces of an asteroid to then scoop up to be refined onboard. As time consuming as it can be, a miner with the right technique can make just as much money as they would in other professions.

To mine the player must have a ship equipped with a Mining Laser and a Refinery. The player will need to use the mining laser on an asteroid until a chip breaks off at which point the player will need to fly close enough to the chip that they can guide it into their cargo scoop which will then allow them to refine the chip by using the Refinery module which can be accessed through the ship's right control panel. It is recommended that players obtain system data from the Universal Cartographics in order to determine what asteroids are mineral rich and as close to "pristine" as possible which will ensure that the player gets the most 'bang for their buck'.

Equipment

• A ship - A Cobra Mk. III is recommended due to the size of its cargo hold and its maneuverability.
• Mining Laser - To extract the ore from the asteroid.
• Refinery - To process the collected ore.

Locations

Asteroids can be found in some systems. By using to the Targets menu on the left side of your cockpit you can find targets with names similar to this: [PLACEHOLDER] (Only works if you have information about the system, either bought it from the Cartographers service or scanned the system yourself). Lock on to it and enter hyperspace just like you would when going to another station or a planet. When you have dropped out of hyperspace you will most likely be staring at a massive, bright star. Ignore that. Scattered with varying (asteroid ring to asteroid ring) density you should be able to find mineable asteroids there. A good starting spot for mining are systems with industrial economies.

Process

Make sure to bind a Mining Laser (preferably in its own firing group) just like you would do with any other weapon in game. Fly within range of the asteroid and blast away with the Mining Lasers. You have to hold down the trigger for a while (depending on the quality of Mining Laser you have bought) before a piece of rock chips off. It is recommended to wait until you have mined several rocks off of the asteroid before collecting them as it will save you a lot of time.

Having chipped off a piece of rock you now have to scoop it up with your cargo scoop. To do so you have to engage your scoop (just like you would with your landing gear or hardpoints), then fly slowly towards the target. Upon engaging the Cargo Scoop you will find that a blue box will have appeared on the lower left of you HUD. On there you should, if pointing at the rock, see an icon in the crosshairs (the box). Continue to fly slowly towards the rock while holding the rock in the middle of the cargo scoop's crosshairs until you have successfully acquired it.

Now that you have the rock in your hold you will find that, if going to the right hand menu under the tab Cargo, you have some names of minerals in there. Press the minerals you want to refine. Maybe you have picked up 15% gold and 10% Indium. Then you can press the gold and the Indium so that when you next time pick up some Indium and Gold they will "stack" on top of what you have already. The % stands for the amount of percent it is of a full "stack". One full "stack" gives you 1 ton of cargo (one unit of whatever mineral you have collected).

Selling

It is now the extra cargo hold of a Cobra Mk. III comes in over something like an Eagle Mk II or a Sidewinder Mk. I. You have to go to a station to sell whatever minerals you have collected. This is easier said than done. Most systems and stations do not want minerals and your best shot is therefore to look for systems that are "Refinery economies" because they are interested in materials they can refine and sell at a higher price. Styx is an example of such a system.

The value of a mineral is scaled to the supply/demand meaning that selling minerals where there are tons of other players selling the same mineral is a bad idea. Systems that are both refinery economies and have an asteroid field will tend to give you a worse price compared to what you get if you travel to somewhere more distant to the source (source being asteroid fields).

Styx is an excellent example of where we see a massive drop in prices. It has both mining equipment for sale, is very close to the spawn point for new players, have mineable asteroid fields and is a refinery economy (means it will have a constant demand for minerals to refine), it is therefore going to be very popular to sell minerals there, which is going to lead to a price drop due to a saturated market.

Tips

File:Elite Dangerous Mining Tips (Gamma 1.05)

• Use the System Map to find systems with asteroid belts that have the description "Pristine Reserves" and "Metallic".
• Asteroid fragments will display on the ship's radar as grey boxes.

Bugs

• Gamma 1 - Logging out and back in will replenish the asteroid.

Trivia

• Added in the Beta 3 Update which went live on October 28th, 2014.

Gallery

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  A Mining Laser