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Guide to Mining: Difference between revisions
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[[Shaft Miner]] is a popular profession of choice for new and developing players. There's many reasons for this: You don't have to deal with the crap that goes on all over the station, you get to work at your own pace and learn the ropes of the game, and it's one of the most rewarding jobs in the game when you get good at it. Unfortunately, most of the skills you learn as a miner don't translate to the other jobs, but it is at the very least fun. | [[Shaft Miner]] is a popular profession of choice for new and developing players. There's many reasons for this: You don't have to deal with the crap that goes on all over the station, you get to work at your own pace and learn the ropes of the game, and it's one of the most rewarding jobs in the game when you get good at it. Unfortunately, most of the skills you learn as a miner don't translate to the other jobs, but it is at the very least fun. | ||
So if you get slotted in as a Shaft Miner at the start of the shift, you'll spawn in the mining portion of the cargo bay. You'll most likely be next to two or three or four other folks who won't say a word to you and will promptly go | So if you get slotted in as a Shaft Miner at the start of the shift, you'll spawn in the mining portion of the cargo bay. You'll most likely be next to two or three or four other folks who won't say a word to you and will promptly go to lavaland themselves because this is literally their first time playing the game. That's fine, that's normal. Leave their corpses for the Paramedics to find. If someone tries to talk to you, ignore them. You have more important things to focus on right now. Concentrate on getting your sea legs. | ||
=== The Hard Part === | === The Hard Part === | ||
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Now, you might have seen a few tiles of rock by now that have a bunch of grey things in them. These are iron deposits, and if you mine them, they drop three bits of iron ore. Iron is refined into metal in the furnace, and is, like sand, not very valuable. The station rarely if ever runs low on metal, and iron ore deposits are extremely common in the mining asteroid. You can mine a bunch of it if you want, but you won't earn many points doing so. | Now, you might have seen a few tiles of rock by now that have a bunch of grey things in them. These are iron deposits, and if you mine them, they drop three bits of iron ore. Iron is refined into metal in the furnace, and is, like sand, not very valuable. The station rarely if ever runs low on metal, and iron ore deposits are extremely common in the mining asteroid. You can mine a bunch of it if you want, but you won't earn many points doing so. | ||
Instead, what miners are really after are valuable and rare ore deposits. These are often hidden deep in the lavaland's bowels, and trying to find them by simply digging around aimlessly is simply not feasible. Instead, Nanotrassen has supplied its miners with a viable alternative: the mining scanner. Take the mining scanner out of your backpack and click on it while it's in your active hand. It will ping everything you can see on the screen for rare ores. If you are wearing an optical meson scanner, which you should be, and you are near anything valuable, you will be able to see flashes of green, gold, silver, purple, or tiny white specks deep in the rock around you. | Instead, what miners are really after are valuable and rare ore deposits. These are often hidden deep in the lavaland's bowels, and trying to find them by simply digging around aimlessly is simply not feasible. Instead, Nanotrassen has supplied its miners with a viable alternative: the mining scanner. Take the mining scanner out of your backpack and click on it while it's in your active hand, then you can safely store it in your backpack again. It will ping everything you can see on the screen for rare ores. If you are wearing an optical meson scanner, which you should be, and you are near anything valuable, you will be able to see flashes of green, gold, silver, purple, or tiny white specks deep in the rock around you. | ||
These are valuable ore deposits. In order from least to most valuable: silver, gold, uranium, diamond, plasma and bluespace mesh. Your goal is to dig to them, mine them, and recover the ores so that you can redeem them on the station for mucho points on your ID which you can use to purchase various rewards. The station always needs more of these for research and creation of new and advanced technologies. You won't always be able to find them by using the mining scanner - you usually have to dig into the asteroid for a little while, then use it, before finding some deposits. It's a game of patience, but it can be quite rewarding. | These are valuable ore deposits. In order from least to most valuable: silver, gold, uranium, diamond, plasma and bluespace mesh. Your goal is to dig to them, mine them, and recover the ores so that you can redeem them on the station for mucho points on your ID which you can use to purchase various rewards. The station always needs more of these for research and creation of new and advanced technologies. You won't always be able to find them by using the mining scanner - you usually have to dig into the asteroid for a little while, then use it, before finding some deposits. It's a game of patience, but it can be quite rewarding. | ||
Now, ores all take up a single inventory space. This is pretty inconvenient for you since you have about four free spaces in your backpack, and you won't make many points at all for redeeming four ores. This is where ore boxes and mining satchels come in. You start off with a mining satchel in your backpack. | Now, ores all take up a single inventory space. This is pretty inconvenient for you since you have about four free spaces in your backpack, and you won't make many points at all for redeeming four ores. This is where ore boxes and mining satchels come in. You start off with a mining satchel in your backpack. With mining satchel in your pocket, you can walk to a tile with ores to instantly pick up all of it and store it in the satchel. Easy, right? Your satchel has a storage space limit of 50 ores. That's a decent amount. If you only mine rare and valuable minerals, you can earn around 1000 points from a single satchel. | ||
However, sometimes you just keep finding more and more ores, and what happens if you run out of space in your satchel? You can totally go back to the station, drop off the ores you have, and come back to finish the job, but it's not optimal. To be more efficient, you can take one of the ore boxes (boxes just outside the mining station that say 'ore' on them) with you. They have infinite space for ores. Press ctrl, then click on an ore box to begin pulling it behind you. You can drag it with you wherever you go and put the ores in it. To collect ores as quickly as possible, use your mining satchel to pick up all the ores in the area, then click on the ore box with it in your hand to put all the ores in the satchel into the box. Now you don't have to stop for anything! Just keep mining until you feel like you've gotten as much as you want and then head back. | However, sometimes you just keep finding more and more ores, and what happens if you run out of space in your satchel? You can totally go back to the station, drop off the ores you have, and come back to finish the job, but it's not optimal. To be more efficient, you can take one of the ore boxes (boxes just outside the mining station that say 'ore' on them) with you. They have infinite space for ores. Press ctrl, then click on an ore box to begin pulling it behind you. You can drag it with you wherever you go and put the ores in it. To collect ores as quickly as possible, use your mining satchel to pick up all the ores in the area, then click on the ore box with it in your hand to put all the ores in the satchel into the box. Now you don't have to stop for anything! Just keep mining until you feel like you've gotten as much as you want and then head back. | ||
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Now that you have a basic understanding of the mining part, there is only one more thing to learn - how to redeem your ores for points. First of all, return to the mining station and board the mining shuttle and go to the main station. Feel free to turn off your internals once you get indoors, it saves oxygen. Make sure you bring your ore box with you, too. Once you're back at the station, go back into the mining room and head north into the main cargo foyer. There's usually some loser sitting at the desk there doing paperwork. Ignore him because he's a loser and walk past him and head through the door just north of him. | Now that you have a basic understanding of the mining part, there is only one more thing to learn - how to redeem your ores for points. First of all, return to the mining station and board the mining shuttle and go to the main station. Feel free to turn off your internals once you get indoors, it saves oxygen. Make sure you bring your ore box with you, too. Once you're back at the station, go back into the mining room and head north into the main cargo foyer. There's usually some loser sitting at the desk there doing paperwork. Ignore him because he's a loser and walk past him and head through the door just north of him. | ||
This is the disposals room. You will see a | This is the disposals room. You will see a ORM in the bottom right corner. Push the ore box into the dotted square behind it and let it sit there for a while until you click on the box and see that it is empty. All the ores have been loaded into the machine. If you have ores in a satchel as well, click the satchel while standing in the dotted square to dump all the ores out and watch them all get sucked up by the machine. | ||
Now that that is done, take out your PDA, click on it to open the PDA menu, click on your underlined ID to pull it into your other hand, select the hand holding the ID, and click on the | Now that that is done, take out your PDA, click on it to open the PDA menu, click on your underlined ID to pull it into your other hand, select the hand holding the ID, and click on the ORM to insert the ID. A new menu will pop up showing all the ores in the machine. Click on redeem points to add all the points you've earned to your ID. You can also select the ores in the menu to dump them out, but you should usually just leave them alone - someone else will get them sooner or later. | ||
REMEMBER TO CLICK 'EJECT ID' BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE | REMEMBER TO CLICK 'EJECT ID' BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE ORM AND PUT IT BACK INTO YOUR PDA. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE YOUR ID OR PDA ON, YOU WILL BE SEEN AS UNKNOWN BY OTHERS AND NONE OF THE DOORS WILL OPEN FOR YOU BECAUSE THEY CAN'T RECOGNIZE YOUR CARGO ACCESS. | ||
Now that you have a bunch of points, go back to the mining station and go to a vendor machine. Click on one with your ID in hand to insert your ID and open a menu of things you can purchase with your points. There is no particularly useful or valuable reward there, so you can mess around and buy things you think might be cool. The alien toy is a favorite of most miners - just take it back to the main station and throw it at someone and run away. | Now that you have a bunch of points, go back to the mining station and go to a vendor machine. Click on one with your ID in hand to insert your ID and open a menu of things you can purchase with your points. There is no particularly useful or valuable reward there, so you can mess around and buy things you think might be cool. The alien toy is a favorite of most miners - just take it back to the main station and throw it at someone and run away. | ||
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The most important trait of any miner is their efficiency, or rather, how quickly they can complete their job at a minimum of loss of health and potential scores. There are a number of methods you can use to increase your efficiency, and while I will not list all of them, I will offer a few suggestions that any miner could benefit from, assuming they don't already use them. | The most important trait of any miner is their efficiency, or rather, how quickly they can complete their job at a minimum of loss of health and potential scores. There are a number of methods you can use to increase your efficiency, and while I will not list all of them, I will offer a few suggestions that any miner could benefit from, assuming they don't already use them. | ||
=== Health === | === Health === | ||
On many occasions you may find yourself at brown or worse health and no | On many occasions you may find yourself at brown or worse health and no legions in sight. At this point your movement speed has decreased dramatically. This would be the time to call for a mining medic, or if you are a mining medic, to patch yourself up. Sometimes there are no mining medics, however, or they're all dead and they wouldn't have been of any use anyways. In these situations, there are a few options you may take to recover your health and not have to go all the way back to medbay for a doctor to spend five minutes trying to patch you up. | ||
First, you can steal the medikit in Cargo or in the mining station infirmary. Or steal both. You have enough space in your pack for them. Sure, it's not very helpful to anyone and everyone might call you a selfish prick, but at least you can heal yourself on the go. If there are very few miners around, it's more palatable to do so. It is up to you ultimately, as other miners do rely on the medkit in these places to patch themselves up on the way back from a long haul. And if someone else takes it before you, be sure to call them a total scumbag asshole jerkwad chode, or some other colorful combination of curses. Unfortunately it is not allowed to kill people for stealing medical supplies, so you'll have to wait for him to get torn to shreds by a goliath before you can loot the medkit off of his corpse. | First, you can steal the medikit in Cargo or in the mining station infirmary. Or steal both. You have enough space in your pack for them. Sure, it's not very helpful to anyone and everyone might call you a selfish prick, but at least you can heal yourself on the go. If there are very few miners around, it's more palatable to do so. It is up to you ultimately, as other miners do rely on the medkit in these places to patch themselves up on the way back from a long haul. And if someone else takes it before you, be sure to call them a total scumbag asshole jerkwad chode, or some other colorful combination of curses. Unfortunately it is not allowed to kill people for stealing medical supplies, so you'll have to wait for him to get torn to shreds by a goliath before you can loot the medkit off of his corpse. | ||
The second, less powerful, less time-efficient, but more team-oriented option is to drag yourself back to the | The second, less powerful, less time-efficient, but more team-oriented option is to drag yourself back to the mining outpost and eat something. Mining outpost is equipped with food items. Donk pockets are available in the outpost. Eating, especially if you are hungry (which is indicated by a burger icon on the right end of the screen and a yellow or brown tab above it), heals you a bit because of the small amount of nutriment in food. It will not fully heal you by any means, but it can turn your health from brown to a pale green, or from red to a darker yellow. This option does not cut into the medical supplies of the other miners, too, so team players will prefer to do this. | ||
Remember to put a donk pocket in the microwave and heat it up to increase the healing value | Remember to put a donk pocket in the microwave and heat it up to increase the healing value. | ||
And, lastly, of course, you can simply keep digging in the hopes of finding a | And, lastly, of course, you can simply keep digging in the hopes of finding a legion that you can murder and eat its core out. This will fully replenish your health and hunger, but it is risky as you could run into many other kinds of monsters instead. Do note that you cannot kill a legion and carry its core in your inventory for just when you need it - the core will expire and go bad quickly, leaving you with nothing. It is better to use it as soon as you can. | ||
=== Inventory Management === | === Inventory Management === | ||
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=== Resonator === | === Resonator === | ||
These things are fairly simple melee weapons that can also be used to mine. They can mine multiple tiles of rock at the same time, but in exchange, they cannot instantly break a tile of rock and the cooldown between hits is shorter than the time it takes for a pickaxe to break through rock. I've seen many miners eschew pickaxes entirely in favor of these and just dig one tile wide tunnels through the asteroid. You do move faster than digging three tile wide tunnels with a pickaxe that way, but you are endangering yourself by doing so as you do not leave an avenue for escaping or fighting goliaths. This is an absolutely shitty practice and anyone who does it should feel bad because you are not following the dwarven way. Loser. | |||
Resonators do create little energy bubbles when you swing them, and said bubbles last for a few seconds before popping. When they pop, they deal a little bit of damage. It is possible to kill goliaths by luring them into the bubbles, but it is a feat of timing and patience that I do not personally care for as the bubbles last far too long to be practical in battle. | |||
Resonators do create little energy bubbles when you swing them, and said bubbles last for a few seconds before popping. When they pop, they deal a little bit of damage. It is possible to kill goliaths by luring them into the bubbles, but it is a feat of timing and patience that I do not personally care for as the bubbles last far too long to be practical in battle | |||
=== Proto-Kinetic Accelerator === | === Proto-Kinetic Accelerator === | ||
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My rifle is human, even as I am human, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strengths, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel... We will become part of each other." - excerpt from the Rifleman's Creed | My rifle is human, even as I am human, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strengths, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel... We will become part of each other." - excerpt from the Rifleman's Creed | ||
This, this is how you kill Goliaths solo and without taking damage. It has a range of two tiles in any direction, and it can destroy tiles of rock just like the resonator can, but it is much slower at doing so. It deals heavy damage per hit, but it takes around eight to bring down a goliath. It does not deal much damage at all in an area with an atmosphere, it is only practical in the vacuum of space. It does not have a limited amount of ammunition, the only limitation is that you must cock it each time you fire. If you master this weapon, you will be able to bring down ten or more goliaths in a single shift without healing. I have done so (record is ten goliaths in a row without heals, with an eleventh goliath killed after healing). To fire it at things adjacent to you, you must click past the thing you're trying to hit, or else it won't fire. It is less efficient in a fight against | This, this is how you kill Goliaths solo and without taking damage. It has a range of two tiles in any direction, and it can destroy tiles of rock just like the resonator can, but it is much slower at doing so. It deals heavy damage per hit, but it takes around eight to bring down a goliath. It does not deal much damage at all in an area with an atmosphere, it is only practical in the vacuum of space. It does not have a limited amount of ammunition, the only limitation is that you must cock it each time you fire. If you master this weapon, you will be able to bring down ten or more goliaths in a single shift without healing. I have done so (record is ten goliaths in a row without heals, with an eleventh goliath killed after healing). To fire it at things adjacent to you, you must click past the thing you're trying to hit, or else it won't fire. It is less efficient in a fight against legions and wathers than melee weaponry. Keep your pickaxe near, it will suffice for those. | ||
Each shot from one of these in a vacuum deals 30 damage. | Each shot from one of these in a vacuum deals 30 damage. | ||
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Quite useful, when active it does a constant and perpetual scan of your surroundings, lighting up all ores in the vicinity. Only works with mesons, but you should already have those on. I wouldn't use my ticket on it, but it's a good thing to have, to stop you from striking Gibtonite unprepared, or letting you mine right to the plasma. | Quite useful, when active it does a constant and perpetual scan of your surroundings, lighting up all ores in the vicinity. Only works with mesons, but you should already have those on. I wouldn't use my ticket on it, but it's a good thing to have, to stop you from striking Gibtonite unprepared, or letting you mine right to the plasma. | ||
=== Mining | === Mining bot === | ||
It's shit. Don't waste your time with it. You have to pull it behind you, which means you can't use an ore box (double satchels method is fine, but it sucks for other reasons too). It has two settings, ore collection and wildlife combat. If you set it to ore collection it will go around collecting ores on the ground for you, but unlike an ore box it does not have infinite space inside it. If you set it to combat mode, it will engage the nearest monster with its kinetic accelerator and mining drill. Unfortunately, it will shoot you in the fucking back with its gun because it has no sense of friendly fire. Which hurts. A lot. | It's shit. Don't waste your time with it. You have to pull it behind you, which means you can't use an ore box (double satchels method is fine, but it sucks for other reasons too). It has two settings, ore collection and wildlife combat. If you set it to ore collection it will go around collecting ores on the ground for you, but unlike an ore box it does not have infinite space inside it. If you set it to combat mode, it will engage the nearest monster with its kinetic accelerator and mining drill. Unfortunately, it will shoot you in the fucking back with its gun because it has no sense of friendly fire. Which hurts. A lot. | ||
You can kill a goliath by working together with this thing, but you will still take huge amounts of damage and this thing will almost certainly be destroyed, leaving you with nothing. Avoid this pile of junk like the plague. It's not that it doesn't have uses, but rather that the other two options are far superior to it. You can repair any damage caused to a mining drone by clicking on it with a welder in your active hand with the help intent, but if it's destroyed, you cannot fix it. | You can kill a goliath by working together with this thing, but you will still take huge amounts of damage and this thing will almost certainly be destroyed, leaving you with nothing. Avoid this pile of junk like the plague. It's not that it doesn't have uses, but rather that the other two options are far superior to it. You can repair any damage caused to a mining drone by clicking on it with a welder in your active hand with the help intent, but if it's destroyed, you cannot fix it. | ||
Everything changes of course, when you apply AI upgrade to it, then it becomes controlled by a player and will help you fight even the megafaunas. | |||
=== Optical Meson Scanners === | === Optical Meson Scanners === | ||
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=== Mining Drill, Sonic Jackhammer, and Diamond Mining Drill === | === Mining Drill, Sonic Jackhammer, and Diamond Mining Drill === | ||
These are straight upgrades of the pickaxe, greatly reducing the time it takes to dig through a single tile of rock in order from most time to least time spent digging. Mining drills and diamond drills require rare ores, so it is in your interests to deliver them to science so that they'll have the materials to make such things. Sonic Jackhammers can be purchased from mining vendor machines for 500 points and they are superior to standard mining drills but still inferior to diamond drills in terms of how quickly they dig. All of these deal the same amount of damage as a pickaxe. With a diamond drill, digging is almost instantaneous. You have a chance of finding sonic jackhammers and diamond drills laying in randomized rooms on the | These are straight upgrades of the pickaxe, greatly reducing the time it takes to dig through a single tile of rock in order from most time to least time spent digging. Mining drills and diamond drills require rare ores, so it is in your interests to deliver them to science so that they'll have the materials to make such things. Sonic Jackhammers can be purchased from mining vendor machines for 500 points and they are superior to standard mining drills but still inferior to diamond drills in terms of how quickly they dig. All of these deal the same amount of damage as a pickaxe. With a diamond drill, digging is almost instantaneous. You have a chance of finding sonic jackhammers and diamond drills laying in randomized rooms on the lavaland by a corpse, usually with an oxygen tank nearby as well to prove that they were once miners. There will be more on artifacts later. | ||
=== Plasma Cutter === | === Plasma Cutter === | ||
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=== Revel in Your Victory === | === Revel in Your Victory === | ||
Now that you've killed a goliath, you can take their hide plates and put them on your armor. This increases your brute damage reduction by 10% each time and your helmet and your hardsuit can each be upgraded | Now that you've killed a goliath, you can take their hide plates and put them on your armor. This increases your brute damage reduction by 10% each time and your helmet and your hardsuit can each be upgraded three times. | ||
Goliaths and all mining monsters only attack your torso and limbs, so upgrading your hardsuit before you upgrade your helmet is advisable. With just three hardsuit upgrades the goliaths will hit you for way less damage than before! That means being stunned is not as big of a deal. With five hardsuit upgrades, you're nearly a tank - each hit will only deal 7.5 damage! You can literally just stand there and beat up on goliaths with your pickaxe until they die, though you'll still hurt quite a bit from it. | Goliaths and all mining monsters only attack your torso and limbs, so upgrading your hardsuit before you upgrade your helmet is advisable. With just three hardsuit upgrades the goliaths will hit you for way less damage than before! That means being stunned is not as big of a deal. With five hardsuit upgrades, you're nearly a tank - each hit will only deal 7.5 damage! You can literally just stand there and beat up on goliaths with your pickaxe until they die, though you'll still hurt quite a bit from it. | ||
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Well, that's about all the advice I can dispense that I can think of. If you follow my instructions, you should become quite the robust miner. If you get good enough, the title of "Honorary Space Dwarf" may be bestowed upon you for your valor and efficiency, reminiscent of the space dwarves. Or at least, that's what should happen. Unfortunately miners are a pretty undervalued profession and you rarely, if ever, get noticed by the heads for being good at your job. Still, there is a certain amount of fun to be had in collecting goliath hide plates and just being competent in general. | Well, that's about all the advice I can dispense that I can think of. If you follow my instructions, you should become quite the robust miner. If you get good enough, the title of "Honorary Space Dwarf" may be bestowed upon you for your valor and efficiency, reminiscent of the space dwarves. Or at least, that's what should happen. Unfortunately miners are a pretty undervalued profession and you rarely, if ever, get noticed by the heads for being good at your job. Still, there is a certain amount of fun to be had in collecting goliath hide plates and just being competent in general. | ||
The profession is somewhat limited by the quality of its earnings with mining points and the time limit on shifts. Some shifts don't even last thirty minutes, not even enough time to fill up a single mining satchel (~1000 points). | The profession is somewhat limited by the quality of its earnings with mining points and the time limit on shifts. Some shifts don't even last thirty minutes, not even enough time to fill up a single mining satchel (~1000 points). Clock cult shifts in particular are egregious for this. It's not bad, but it's not as good as it could be. | ||
Well, that's about all I have to say. I hope this helps someone, anyone. There's still some secrets to the mining gig that I've left out, like artifacts, and the location of bananium, but I won't spoil the fun of discovering things. Go forth, and may your pickaxes be sharp. | Well, that's about all I have to say. I hope this helps someone, anyone. There's still some secrets to the mining gig that I've left out, like artifacts, and the location of bananium, but I won't spoil the fun of discovering things. Go forth, and may your pickaxes be sharp. | ||