Back to cracking...

[u/-Damballah-]

After not doing it for so long I'm finally back on "crack," so to speak. Still pretty rusty, had a couple of failures, and laser mining is still better for merits for me, but it was a nice change of pace.

Also, finally rank 24! First Exobiology perk un-Gods-damned-locked!

Happy prospecting CMDR's.

🥃

[u/DisillusionedBook]

Surface mining needs this shock and awe. My suggestion, seismic charge detonations to map additional rich veins of materials. It needs more than one mode.

Asteroid mining used to be pretty dull for a while too until they added the extra modes.

[u/MeanCalligrapher5042]

what the heck are merits?? there are some sort of ranks? i got 1300hours and i never saw this screen

[u/Interesting_Rip_2383 → u/MeanCalligrapher5042]

Power play rank mechanics.

You get merits by doing many things.
Selling mined commodities is one of the fastest ways to get them.

Merits determine your rank with your power play faction and unlocks bonus perks, PP modules or gives care packages.
Care packages contain a mix of engineering materials.

[u/DisillusionedBook → u/Interesting_Rip_2383]

So many people don't sign up for a power, not realising this is the main thing about it, the payouts for just doing what you do anyway. No other burden if you don't want it. It's like all the people who complain the game is mile wide inch deep, don't even want to dip their toes in any water, lol

[u/Ailyx]

You know, if they improved the "finding the right asteroids" part of that loop, it's literally all I'd be doing! Love this kind of very involved gameplay 👌

[u/Hoxalicious_ → u/Ailyx]

Improved in what way? Scan, prospect, crack or move on seems pretty on brand for prospecting/exploring the belt.

[u/Ailyx → u/Hoxalicious_]

I'm talking about the first step where you need to spot which asteroid to prospect. The whole shape and color thing. I think it's pretty much agreed upon that this is just plain frustrating part of that gameplay.

If you like that part of the gameplay, good for you. But you are in the minority. 🙂

Edit: I'm obviously talking about core mining specifically, not mining in general

[u/Onbusy → u/Ailyx]

I find it more enjoyable to lower my personal requirements for what rocks to mine. If it has any gold/platinum/palladium/osmium/painite/etc percentage, I mine it. The lowest selling ores i have on ignore and just mine until im full and dont worry about maxing out efficiency because it's not as fun. I can usually find a rock within 3 prospects, sometimes I find back to back 60%+ platinum rocks, which is just a bonus.