Mining Question

[mastercool]

in X3TC iam having to mine for vididium. so i have a miner ship and it is a TS and has special command andweapons and ore collecter and mobile drilling system and triplex scanner. i did read the how to mine lesson that i was told to read. my question is that i have found an asteroid of vididium and when i get close to it and use special command to start mining it does not list vididium so how can i mine the asteroid? also i have missiles and they wont fire at the asteroid. thanks so much foe your help already and for any more help you can give.

[Coreblimey]

You have to mine nividium youself. That is you must pilot the ship and use the mining laser yourself on the nividium 'roid. Once you have broken up the asteroid into sufficiently small pieces you can then collect them.

[jkjklkl]

Throw a big missile at the asteroid. I think the smallest that will work is the Hornet. Use regular lasers to break up the debris into smaller chunks and plant a satellite in the middle of it all. After that, buy some "Miner" ships and tell them to move to the position of the satellite. You don't need to buy any software for them, as everything you need is preinstalled. In the meantime, leave the sector. Once they arrive, tell them to "Collect rocks" and they should start filling up with Nividium

[ajax34i]

Yup, the Collect Rocks command is what you need, but the asteroid must be broken up beforehand. You'll need a mining drill to break it up, or one of the missiles or regular lasers that actually can break up a big roid (IRE's for example can't).

Then all the Collect Rocks ships will need a weapon installed so they can continue to break up the smaller rocks to collect them. One IRE will suffice, but you must be careful which type of TS ship you use for the job because not all of them can install weapons (or mining drills).

[Alan Phipps]

ajax34i wrote ".. or regular lasers that actually can break up a big roid (IRE's for example can't).."

In X3TC at least, no 'regular laser' can break a full-size asteroid apart from the MDS. Use that or a high-yield missile. Any damage laser can (eventually) break any rock below full asteroid size, including IREs.

ajax34i wrote ".. all the Collect Rocks ships will need a weapon installed so they can continue to break up the smaller rocks to collect them."

The collect rocks command does not need a laser as it does not further break any rocks; the ship only collects the smallest size of rocks. Mobile mining and mine and trade commands use a laser to break rocks (not full-size asteroids though, even with MDS fitted) but you cannot use any of those commands to collect Nividium.

[ajax34i]

Thanks.