Miner

Template:RoleInfobox Mining in Elite Dangerous is a very manual process; the player must use a mining laser to chip off pieces of an asteroid, which are then scooped up or collected with a drone to be refined on-board. 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. Cargo Racks are important to store the refined minerals and metals. Drones are recommended to improve efficiency. A detailed guide of the process can be found below.

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

• Ship
  • A great choice for starting miners is the Cobra Mk. III, due to the size of its cargo hold, internal compartments, and its manoeuvrability. It can also fit the Class 2 mining laser.
• Mining Laser
  • Required to extract the ore fragments from an asteroid.
  • Higher quality lasers may extract ore fragments faster.
  • Multiple lasers may also be equipped, but will draw more power in total.
• Refinery
  • Required to process the collected ore.
  • Some refineries have multiple bins to process several types of ore simultaneously.
• Collector Drone
  • Automated collection massively improves profit per hour by collecting fragments automatically.
  • These require limpets to work (Purchase limpets at any munitions store)
• Prospector Drone
  • Prospecting allows miners to view the mineral content of an asteroid even from a distance.
  • These require limpets to work (Purchase limpets at any munitions store)

Locations

Mining is currently possible at asteroid belts or planetary rings which are not Icy, although it is the most profitable in a Pristine Metallic area. Asteroid belt points of interest can only be scanned at very close range (c.5ls). Asteroids in planetary rings can also be mined from - RES are common places for NPC miners to congregate in, but pirates will also spawn here.

You can fly to asteroids (either clusters or planetary rings) in supercruise, just like any destination within a system. When you have arrived, you will see a number (from a handful to many dozens) of asteroids, which you can then mine. A good starting spot for mining are systems with industrial economies.

Mining Locations change in both quality and quantity which when presented one through five, one being the highest and five being the least are currently;

1. Pristine
2. Major
3. Common
4. Low
5. Depleted

As stated in GalNet, players are currently unable to mine Icy asteroids for resources leaving the availability to Rocky, Metal Rich, and Metallic asteroids, metallic being the most optimal location.

Locations of planets with pristine metallic rings can be found here .

Guide

Mining involves three main steps:

1. Fragmenting
2. Collecting
3. Refining

It is important to note that these steps will generally be happening all at the same time. Technique involves managing all three steps at once to maximize efficiency.

Fragmenting

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 (being 500m) of the asteroid and blast away with the Mining Laser. You have to hold down the trigger for a while (depending on the quality of Mining Laser you have bought) before a fragment chips off.

Select the fragment of rock as a target. They are quite small and hard to detect visually but do show up as white contacts on your radar. When selected, you get details of the contents of the fragment, e.g. Bauxite (9.7%) Coltan (21.2%). Note that the mineral name which shows up first in the HUD doesn't necessarily represent the most valuable mineral! The mineral content is how much of a ton of cargo can be extracted from the fragment. E.g. if you scoop and process three 35% Indite shards you end up with 1 ton of Indite. Fragments range in mineral content from ~5% to ~65%. Asteroids contain 1 to 3 different minerals while fragments from the asteroids contain up to 2 of those minerals.

Collecting

Collecting fragments can be done with a cargo scoop or a collector limpet drone.

To collect with a cargo scoop, first 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.

Asteroid fragments are more difficult to scoop than regular cargo, as their movement is more complex (not to mention the fact that you want to avoid hitting an asteroid while you're focused on scooping!) For this reason, it's advisable to use very slow speeds of 15 m/s while scooping. What's more, fragments will "decay" over time, meaning they slowly lose integrity until they disappear.

To collect with a collector limpet controller you must purchase limpets ahead of time in any munitions store (the place you buy your ammo). Collector limpets have 2 modes: quick single-collection and autonomous area-collection. For mining, the area-collection mode is recommended. Limpets must bound to a fire group like a weapon.

To activate a limpet in area mode, be sure that no cargo or fragment is targeted. This is important as activating a limpet with a collectible item targeted will activate the limpet in single-collection mode. Once in area mode, the limpet will automatically collect any fragments a specific distance from you based on the class and rating of the controller. While this happens you can continue with other actions such as fragmenting, refining, and monitoring your surroundings.

Refining

Once a fragment enters your cargo hold, it will be deposited in the refinery. It can be accessed on the left panel of the cargo screen. The first bin is the depositing bin, where you will find your fragment. Select the minerals you want to refine. They will drop into the refinery bins below. Depending on class your refinery will have between 1 and 10 of these bins. You also have the option to "vent" the contents of your refinery. This is useful if you have a nearly-full refinery of bauxite and you find an asteroid with gold (or whatever else you prioritize).

Items that appear in the depositing bin will automatically "stack" into the refinery bins below if a refinery bin that already contains that mineral exists. This will happen until the bin reached 100% at which point it will be emptied, the leftover mineral will remain in the depositing bin, and 1 ton of cargo (one unit of whatever mineral you have collected) appears in your cargo hold. Once your cargo hold is full, you can return to a station and sell your goods.

Values

This is a very rough guide to which minerals and metals are most valuable to mine. These prices will be lower or higher depending on demand in the station you're selling to.

Minerals:	Average price per ton
Painite	33000*
Bertrandite	2700
Indite	2400
Gallite	2100
Coltan	1500
Uranite	1000
Lepidolite	700
Rutile	400
Bauxite	200

Metals:	Average price per ton
Platinum	18800*
Palladium	13500
Gold	9700
Beryllium	8500
Osmium	7000
Indium	6200
Gallium	5500
Silver	5000
Tantalum	4200
Uranium	2800
Lithium	1700
Titanium	1100
Cobalt	800
Copper	600
Aluminium	400

*Class 2 Mining laser's greatly increase chance to find these items

Selling

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 lower price compared to what you would get if you were to travel 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.

Pirates and other miners

Pirates can be a problem. They occasionally do a fly-by and scan you. They might even attack. You can prepare for this eventuality in several different ways:

• If you have brought some pew-pew of your own, a bounty or two never hurts to cash in when returning to the station. Of course, rigging your ship for combat might reduce your cargo space, so you would have to travel a lot more between your mining site and the station every time your cargo hold is full.

• You could always take the brave route and run like hell, though that might be kind of frustrating when you still have 10 of those 50% platinum fragments floating in front of you, ready to scoop. Nothing a few missiles mightn't take care of for you - with time left over for the scooping.

• Lastly, if you're in a system where the ruling faction is your ally, the security forces are prompt to respond, and will take care of your pirate problem for you. "Nothing to see here, be about your business commander and have a nice day". Gee, thanks, mr. policeman :)
• Additional tip - in a RES, fly 30 or more km away from the RES marker. You will not see any NPCs spawn again unless you go closer. It does not seem to make any difference to the quality of rocks you mine.

It's kind of a dirty trick, but if you see other NPC miners out there zapping away, it's usually worth it to mine the rock they're currently working on. They seem surprisingly good-natured about you grabbing their spot, even.

Tips

File:Elite Dangerous Mining Tips (Gamma 1.05)

File:Advanced Mining

• Asteroid fragments will display on the ship's radar as grey boxes.
• Use the System Map to find systems with asteroid belts or rings that have the description "Pristine Reserves" and "Metallic".
• Mining in planetary rings is more effective as there are always plenty of nearby asteroids to choose from (unlike belts).
• Focus on mining highly valued metals or minerals (like Platinum, Palladium or Gold).
• Use collector drones to speed up efficiency.
• If the asteroid's fragments have low concentration (below ±15%), don't waste your precious time and try different one.
• Even if your cargo is full, you can still fill up the refinery to 100% per slot. When you return to a starport to sell your cargo, this frees up space and each full refinery slot will go into your cargo hold. Treat it as extra cargo space.

Trivia

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

Gallery

• File:Advanced Mining
• A Mining Laser
  A Mining Laser