[X3TC] Remote Mining Questions

[cjoshuav]

I put a couple mobile drilling lasers and an ore collector on a Mistral Super-Freighter, and sent it to Perpetual Sin with an M6 to protect it.

I saw the command under "Special Commands" to have it mine, but I don't see an option for Nividium - just Ore, Silicon, and Ice. Am I missing something?

Also, if I don't give it a home base, will it simply hoard materials?

Thirdly, will it destroy the asteroids that are suitable for placing an ore base?

And finally, is there anything else I need to know about OOC mining?

Thanks, as always, for your patience with my newbishness.

[Nanook]

I put a couple mobile drilling lasers and an ore collector on a Mistral Super-Freighter, and sent it to Perpetual Sin with an M6 to protect it.

I saw the command under "Special Commands" to have it mine, but I don't see an option for Nividium - just Ore, Silicon, and Ice. Am I missing something?

Only that nividium can't be mobile mined. The only automatic way to collect it is to manually break up the nividium rocks yourself into collectible chunks, then set the miner to 'Collect Rocks'. It won't break up the rocks itself. That was a deliberate design decision by the devs to keep players from exploiting the very high value of nividium as compared to silicon and ore.

Also, if I don't give it a home base, will it simply hoard materials?

If you enable the 'notify me when task is complete' flag in the miner's command console, it will let you know when it's full. Otherwise, it will just sit in space after it gets full.

Thirdly, will it destroy the asteroids that are suitable for placing an ore base?

No.

And finally, is there anything else I need to know about OOC mining?

Check in the ultimate guides sticky near the top of this forum for a number of mobile mining guides. Most of what you need to know is there. Good profitsssss to you.

[brownthomasw]

i don't mine lot so i could let someone more knowledgable have a go...

There is no nividium command, from what i hear you can place a nav sat nearby and he'll go for that. I don't think it requires a mod or anything but there's some way to name him with nividium or ore when you press m to name them and that will assign him to that. There may be qualifications and such and it may be on the bonus pack which is common enough. He may need some certain equipment for that to work, you'd have to look at the specific stuff.

he will simply fill up and sit there, with a home base he will go dump it and get more. He can't dump nividium anywhere though except the hub or your own eq dock/ trade station and even then only small amounts. He can supply a crystal fab or supplement a mine for ore or silicon.

It won't attack asteroids that can have bases, only smaller floating roids that don't show up on the map or have a yield value when you can them. That being said if you want those nividium roids in perpetual sin you will have to destroy them yourself so the mobile miner can collect the stuff. The drill or a hornet will do it. But then it can't have a mine but you can't have nivium mines anyway. He'll also collect it slowly and i'm not sure but free floating debri seems to dissappear over time so he can get less and take time doing it. for nividium it's precius enough for you to go out there, hate it and make sure you pick up every piece in a timely fashion. Or let it go and let him colect what he can.

What else to know- crashing into asteroids damages your shields in sector. Some are too big to pick up and need to be broken down with simple ire's or pac or whatever. Crashing into them breaks them up but hurts you. Running into things you can pick up obviously doesn't hurt but hard to tell which are ok. Having guns on front, only available in a caiman, allows you to shoot as you go. in a mistral you have to switch to a turret. OOS the auto miner doesn't care but is a pain for you. Also you don't need to lower shields now to pick stuff up, you used to and it was a pain.

There was a time in x3r, you could fly a tl through a cloud of rocks and pick them up wholesale like the majestic humpback whales of the deep Maybe you still can, hitting the too big ones may hurt a bit but it breaks them up for you. shields get to low stop ramming stuff in your hercules.

check the bonus pack script instruction for mobile minig naming the ts by the type of ore if you use the bonus pack and if thats in it for tc or x3r.

Edit: Never mind you can't name them with nividium thats was x3r. My bad

[Infekted]

As long as the debris is not a full asteroid, I.E. visible on the map, no breaking is needed. Ensure the miner has a laser and just collect rocks near it and it will happily break up and collect the debris itself.

[cjoshuav]

Thanks all. I can't seem to master the trick of manually picking up the rocks. (I can't figure out when they're the right size ).

I'll keep working on it.

[AgamemnonArgon]

When attempting to mine Nividium :

Scan and locate the nividium.

Leave one or two navsats as maker buoys for future use.

Break up the nividium asteroid, and then again, and then a third time.

Equip a Mistral Superfrieghter with everything including an ore collector.

Leave that Sector, and never return.....

Send the Mistral to the navsats you left earlier and tell it to collect rocks.

It will then collect nividium.

Send as many TS as you need to.

Send the TS to a shipyard.

Buy any cheap freighter.

Transfer the nividium and sell the ore.

My average is that. mistral superfreighter will fill two and a half larger ts class.

I have forty or so mining for me.

Guard the gate entrance, and protect the area.

[Infekted]

Ok my version now

225 miners. Don't have to be big, I usually go with whatever cheap TS that I can get with the required equipment, that is nearest to the dig site.

15 SFs with cargo messengers. Each set to unload 15 miners.

One cargo messenger TL set to unload the 15 SF unloaders. Another SF helping.

Several SFs transfering the niv to five TLs parked in the local shipyard. One remaining cap ship docking slot to buy another TL, fill it then sell it.
Check shipyard every 15 or so minutes and sell off a TL or fives worth. Orcas sell for 115million full of niv.

[Aragosnat]

Also make sure never to return to your OOS mobile mining operations too. As your ships have a tendency to go splat against the rocks and each other.

[cjoshuav]

Ah! Thanks so much guys!