Mobile Mining Drill question

[Wickan]

Hello all,

I started the game as a Humble Merchant, i still have the default Mercury ship given to you at the start. I am at an equipment dock and want to buy the Mobile Mining Drill but it wont let me.

The item is listed in white, i have over 200,000k credits (it only cost 77,000) and still i cant purchase the device.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Thanks!

Oh and my cargo bay is not full, not even close. only using 100 units of 3000

[dminor]

Might be your rank with the race in question.

[Nanook]

Are there any actually in stock?

[dminor]

We need more facts

[Wickan]

Ah you were right, there are none in stock thank you for mentioning that!

[johnny859577]

i hate when something a small as that can wreck your brain...never had much use for mobile drilling but each player is different i suppose.

[Nanook]

BTW, you don't need the MDS to do mobile mining. It's really only useful for breaking up the big map asteroids, the ones you see in the sector map. All the other rock debris, and there's sectors loaded with it, can be broken and collected with almost any other laser. The PAC, Particle Accelerator Cannon, available at Argon equipment docks, does a good job, and is cheap.

[user225]

Does the Moble Drilling rig work on Mercury's? It was my understanding that you have to have at lest a class 6 ship for it. X3 reunion

[Nanook]

The MDS will work on any TS-class ship that can mount it. It's what it was designed for.

[Wickan]

Ah, the list says that the drill can be used on the Mercury, but I'm not going to worry much about it now that i know i can use another weapon.

When drilling, are the firing commands the same as when attacking another ship? I imagine they would be.

[Nanook]

'Driling' consists of shooting the rock into smaller pieces. So yes, it's the same as when firing other weapons. But unless you're using the mobile mining commands on another ship that you're not flying, you need to fire the weapon manually. Your turrets won't automatically fire on asteroids/rocks.

[Wickan]

Ah makes perfect sense. Thank you all so much this game has a fairly large learning curve even with guides

[Nanook]

And since you seem to be someone not averse to deep, complex games, it should keep you entertained for years to come. At least, until TNBT™ arrives.

TNBT - The Next Big Thing from Egosoft. Coming Soon™, we all hope.

[user225]

I purchased a factories entire stock of MSDs and tried to mount one on my Merury SF. Would not even show as a selectable item to load. Only the Alpha PAC was available. It does on a Centaur. This is in the x3r 2.5 gold edition as installed from the disc.

[palenaka]

Look at the Advanced->Encyclopedia

It's way at the top under your Personal menu. Same one you use to view your missions and other things

If you select the MDS it will show you an article specific to your game and tell you where you can buy them, and it will also list what ships can equip it. If a ship is not on the list, you cannot equip it on that ship.

[pjknibbs]

I purchased a factories entire stock of MSDs and tried to mount one on my Merury SF.

That's because the Mercury can't mount a Mobile Drilling System. Check the list of compatible lasers in the ship's properties (you might need to Page Down to see it--it's not on the first page of information).

[user225]

Which means that some TS ship of different races will mount a MDS but not my Beloved Argons. This expands my understanding of the game some. It is said that there are no dumb questions; However, I have seen some questionalble anwers.