mobile mining in X3:AP. possible to mine out all available?

[Deathtoll666]

seems i read somewhere that mobile mining in X3:AP could end up mining out all the available silicon and ore. i was wondering if it was true. i'd like to set up some mobile mining crews but i'm worried that if i do, i could end up (eventually) mining out all the available silicon and ore. is it preferable to set up mines in AP or is mobile mining still viable?

[Berserkenstein]

There are a bunch of asteroids that are already broken up that you can mine.

You know those clouds of small rocks? Those are debris fields.

If you get a scout ship and equip it with explorer command software and a mineral scanner you can go into the navigation menu and select scan asteroids, then you pick the 'scan debris field' option. When it is done scanning all the rocks, you will get the minerals in the area.

Just set up a few miners to collect the minerals.

[Deathtoll666]

There are a bunch of asteroids that are already broken up that you can mine.

You know those clouds of small rocks? Those are debris fields.

If you get a scout ship and equip it with explorer command software and a mineral scanner you can go into the navigation menu and select scan asteroids, then you pick the 'scan debris field' option. When it is done scanning all the rocks, you will get the minerals in the area.

Just set up a few miners to collect the minerals.

i never noticed the "scan debris field" option. thanks for the heads up!

EDIT: i'm still wondering about mobile mining. there are 3 nividium asteroids in perpetual sin that i want to mine. if i break them up, will they eventually respawn? i already know i can't put mines on them since nividium mining stations don't exist. to my knowledge, there is also no way to set a crew of mobile miners to break them up and collect them. i already tried that approach.

[Alan Phipps]

In X3AP you can exhaust all the broken rocks in a sector. However, if you break a full-sized asteroid (one that shows on the sector map and that could have a mine built on it) then that will respawn in the same area several game days later. So in practice the Universe is unlikely to run out of mineral sources unless you put mines on every asteroid first.

Then there are always the endless UFJD sectors ...

You can remote mine Nividium. You break up a few big rocks yourself down to collectable size and then put one or more ships close to the rock field and tell them to collect rocks. Stick a Nav Sat near the field as a marker for when you are OOS. When that lot is used up, go and break down a few more big rocks. Don't do too much breaking all at once as fps in sector can suffer and strange (and bad) things may happen with your ship IS.

[ajax34i]

I've mined Nividium in X3AP.

You shoot the big rock with a Hornet or with a Mobile Drilling System, once, and it blows up. Then you shoot all the resulting biggish rocks and they blow up in one shot. Then you get medium dark grey rocks, and small shiny golden rocks. Break the medium rocks into smallest golden rocks (they come in groups of 3).

You can set your miners to collect rocks in sector once you have a few of the small golden rocks, but it's a good idea to break up the roid into the smallest bits as much as you can. Thing is, there are just too many pieces so the game will recombine some of them when you fly away or turn your back, but that's ok.

When you have a decently sized field of pebbles, get out of the sector and let the miners do their thing. Come back a bit later, when the miners sit around Idle, and re-break all the medium rocks into smallest, and they'll go back to work until there's nothing left.

If you're mobile mining Nividium, how much you get depends on the physical size of the asteroid, rather than its yield.

[Deathtoll666]

I've mined Nividium in X3AP.

You shoot the big rock with a Hornet or with a Mobile Drilling System, once, and it blows up. Then you shoot all the resulting biggish rocks and they blow up in one shot. Then you get medium dark grey rocks, and small shiny golden rocks. Break the medium rocks into smallest golden rocks (they come in groups of 3).

You can set your miners to collect rocks in sector once you have a few of the small golden rocks, but it's a good idea to break up the roid into the smallest bits as much as you can. Thing is, there are just too many pieces so the game will recombine some of them when you fly away or turn your back, but that's ok.

When you have a decently sized field of pebbles, get out of the sector and let the miners do their thing. Come back a bit later, when the miners sit around Idle, and re-break all the medium rocks into smallest, and they'll go back to work until there's nothing left.

If you're mobile mining Nividium, how much you get depends on the physical size of the asteroid, rather than its yield.

i did not know that the size of the roid determines how much you get out of it. thanks for the heads up. i'm still wondering if they ever respawn though. once you break them up, are they gone forever?

[Alan Phipps]

The answer to that is 3 posts up.

While you get the same appropriate number of rocks from the various sizes of larger rocks in the game regardless of original source asteroid yield, the yield does make a difference. The lower the original yield, the more individual small rocks collected will be classed as debris rather than mineral and will not give any increase in the mineral in your cargohold when collected. With X3TC such debris just wasted time in collecting them (as rocks respawned), while with X3AP they reduce the final mineral tally as there is no rock respawn (just full asteroid respawn - unless a mine is built).

[Deathtoll666]

The answer to that is 3 posts up.

While you get the same appropriate number of rocks from the various sizes of larger rocks in the game regardless of original source asteroid yield, the yield does make a difference. The lower the original yield, the more individual small rocks collected will be classed as debris rather than mineral and will not give any increase in the mineral in your cargohold when collected. With X3TC such debris just wasted time in collecting them (as rocks respawned), while with X3AP they reduce the final mineral tally as there is no rock respawn (just full asteroid respawn - unless a mine is built).

ahh ok. thanks, alan. THAT answers my question. as long as the asteroid respawns, there is no problem. hmmm, just wondering. how long does it take for an asteroid to respawn?

[Alan Phipps]

That was in my first post in the thread too. Typically 'several game days' but not as much as a game week. The RNG plays a hand of course so there could be extremes in short and long times taken. The respawn is usually in the same place as the original and always with the same mineral and approx yield. You can get the new asteroid still surrounded by bits of its predecessor, some bits even embedded in the new one. Note that there are a few instances in the vanilla Universe where two identical asteroids occupy the exact same volume.

[Deathtoll666]

thanks for the info.