[X3AP/TC] OOS mining speed

[Old Drullo321]

Simple question:

Is OOS mining speed affected by any ship characteristics, e.g. speed, steering, installed lasers?

Command that will be used is "Mine minerals", not "Collect rocks"

Can any ship mine 100 ore or silicon faster than any other starting from the same spot, assuming minerals are close together

[Honved]

Speed will affect how quickly the ship can reach the coordinates of the next closest deposit, but steering should have no effect on the ability to actually collect it OOS. IS is another story, where a few points in steering can outweigh the effect of engine tunings for a miner.

Lasers should have little or no effect on speed of collection, other than to reduce the amount of ore collected in some cases, which might or might not necessitate flying to another bunch of rocks to continue the process. The difference between a mining laser and an IRE is probably trivial, but adding heavier guns might be counter-productive (more material destroyed, rather than broken up).

[Old Drullo321]

Speed will affect how quickly the ship can reach the coordinates of the next closest deposit

I'm not talking about moving through a whole sector. When I assign 5 Mistral SF to mine minerals they all mine on the same spot for hours and even return after selling their stuff to the exact same location. I'm talking exclusively X3AP/OOS, where ships deplete minerals even OOS.
So moving from one piece to another means just crossing 5-10m. And here is exactly my question. Will a Springblossom mine significantly faster then a TS+ on the same spot, considering only the minimum cargo space of both ships (~2000).

between a mining laser and an IRE is probably trivial, but adding heavier guns might be counter-productive (more material destroyed, rather than broken up)

I agree with you when I'm doing mining manually but is this really a scripted feature or are you only hypothesise?

[Nanook]

I've never observed any difference between laser types when mining OOS. I think the only relevant part is that the ship have a laser of some sort that breaks rocks. And I don't think rocks get destroyed at all when OOS. Pretty much everything is broken down and collected, from what I can tell. So in that vein, use the cheapest laser the ship will mount.

[ancienthighway]

Unless you are breaking up asteroids, or running Prospector, there's no reason to put an MDS on a collector/miner over an IRE. Why sink more cash into a ship that really has no reason for the upgraded feature? Why put more than Navigation software, Special Command Software, Mineral Scanner, Ore Collector, IRE, and Shields on the ship? Maybe Mine and Trade requires Trading Softer Mk II.

So will the size of the laser make a difference. No. MDS or a Hornet missile to break up an asteroid when you are in sector doing the busting up. PAC vs IRE no difference. Bigger gun vs IRE, well with more ore vaporized you can clear the sector faster, but get less ore in the process. Individual rock collection? Probably slower with the bigger gun because of increased travel time between rocks.

I've never zoomed in and stared at an mobile mining operation before so I don't know if the little ships are running around in circles to line up for their next collection, but if they are, steering would be a bigger factor than speed. The collecting takes place at a low speed anyway, so being having a top speed of 130 m/s instead of a top speed of 49 m/s doesn't much matter other than acceleration.

I doubt seriously if the speed, acceleration, and steering play a significant factor in the process.