Mining

Rebel Galaxy

Some of the objects in Asteroid Belts and Ice Fields contain materials that can be extracted by mining. Mining isn't too popular, because it's fairly technical, takes quite a bit of time (especially with early laser equipment), and the value of the extracted materials is usually fairly low. Most players who engage in mining do so simply because they enjoy doing it, not for the financial rewards.

At a minimum, your ship needs to be outfitted with a beam turret weapon (usually a Mining Laser) to break apart the asteroids and ice chunks, and a Tractor Beam to collect the materials. A Fault Tracker subsystem (20,000 credits) can help extract everything from the occasional asteroid that contains more than one item, but it isn't a requirement. Some players might appreciate an Industrial Tractor Beam (48,000 credits in more advanced systems) to allow collection from longer distances, or a Nebula Mitigation subsystem (276,000 credits) to stabilize the minimap when mining within a nebula, but those aren't at all required.

Mineable materials

Asteroids typically contain Mineral Ore. A few contain Obtanium, and even fewer contain Gold Ingots. Rare ones can contain some extremely valuable materials.

In order to reduce the amount of time it takes them to find something valuable, experienced players learn to recognize the various asteroid types. The giant asteroids and crystalline asteroids are of particular interest to miners.

Ice chunks typically contain Pure Water, Tachyon Salt, or Meteoric Diamonds, all of which are quite valuable. As with asteroids, rare ones can contain some extremely valuable materials.

Overview of the mining process

1. Be sure you have space available in your hold.
2. Locate an asteroid belt or ice field to be mined. Some are already marked on your system map with small solid white diamonds, and others you'll stumble across as you fly around the system.
3. Use the Pulse to locate objects that can be mined. Those objects will be marked with a white diamond, both on the main display and the minimap. Those markings only last for about ten seconds for nearby objects, so expect to use Pulse repeatedly.
4. Approach the marked object(s).
5. Switch weapon control to the laser weapons. This will allow targeting the asteroid or ice chunk with your laser(s), but it makes controlling ship movements more difficult.
6. Activate the target Scanner. A useful side effect of the Scanner is that time is frozen, and if the white diamond markers are still active, they'll stay visible while using the Scanner.
7. Target and scan each object until you find one with something valuable in the Cargo field. If the white diamonds are still active, there's no need to scan objects that don't have a diamond.
8. Lock that target, or try to remember where it is and what it looks like.
9. Deactivate the target Scanner.
10. Move your ship until the target is in range of your laser(s). If controlling your ship is too difficult, you may need to switch weapon control back to broadsides, move your ship, switch weapon control back to lasers, and retarget.
11. Fire on the target until it shatters. This will take many cycles of firing until the weapon overheats, letting it cool down, and firing again. This process takes less time with higher-powered lasers and with multiple lasers.
12. Switch weapon control back to broadsides to make ship control easier.
13. Move toward the material and pull it in with the tractor beam.

Simplified mining

There is no particular need to use the Scanner on an object prior to mining it. It's possible to shoot at any object that Pulse has identified as containing something. This can work well in ice fields, where the contained materials are all quite valuable. With asteroids, though, most will produce only Mineral Ore and many miners prefer not to fill their holds with that low-value commodity. Blasting asteroids that contain only unwanted Mineral Ore will waste a lot of time, and the large amount of unwanted mineral ore floating in space can make it harder to locate desired materials to be tractored.

For that matter, there's no particular need to use Pulse. Shooting at all objects in the hope they contain something will eventually produce results, but it mostly produces a bunch of smaller objects that add to the clutter.

Precision mining with the Fault Tracker

The Fault Tracker is a specialized subsystem that, in conjunction with Mining Lasers, enables precision mining. Precision mining is claimed to be able to increase yield when mining certain asteroids that contain multiple items. Precision mining is unnecessary when mining an asteroid that contains, for example, "1 Obtanium." In practice, it also seems to be unnecessary on most asteroids that do contain multiple items.

When a Fault Tracker is installed, the Pulse will cause certain asteroids to exhibit one or more circles of dull red triangles on their surface. Those circles mark fault points. With Mining Lasers selected as the active weapon, activate Precision Aim to target one of the circles before firing. Only Mining Lasers offer Precision Aim; other lasers can be used for general mining but not for precision mining.

The circles that mark the fault points tend to disappear after a short time and don't reappear even if another Pulse is performed. Once the fault markers disappear, ordinary mining seems to work fine. Consequently, there's some question as to how valuable precision mining actually is.

Range information

• The Pulse can detect mineable objects out to approximately 100 sm.
• Laser targeting (unlocked) works within approximately 8.3 sm.
• The target Scanner can scan objects out to approximately 6.5 sm.
• The Mining Laser has a range of approximately 2.6 sm for Mk.1 to 4.2 sm for Mk.6.

The relatively long range of the Pulse allows it to detect nearby object fields even if they aren't yet mapped.

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw

How to start

Mining is an easy and safe way to make credits in the game.

Asteroid with resources detected.

To be able to mine and scoop resources from asteroids you need to acquire 3 ship components: the Mining Laser, the Mining Scanner and the Tractor Beam. You can also buy the Mining Turret if it is available for your ship.

In order to mine you need to fly to an Asteroid Belt and activate your Mining Scanner. For a short time it will highlight the asteroid(s) containing mineable Resources. Pick an asteroid and make your way there.

Once you reach the asteroid cut the engines at approximately 1,00 K. The asteroid will spin and you'll search on it for a spot with a yellow dot and grid pattern. Aim your Mining Laser and fire (set power management to weapons to be able to fire the mining laser longer). Resources will drop in space so be sure to collect them with the Tractor Beam.

When the asteroid's resources are exhausted a message will appear to inform you about this (also the yellow mesh will disappear as its resource marker in the mini-map). It is possible to exhaust all of the asteroids in a system, but once you jump out and back into that system they will respawn. If you cannot collect all the resources, they will remain if you leave the asteroid field as long as you do not leave the system. So you can jump to an in-system station and sell resources, then return to collect the remaining items. It also allows you to drop valuable items to make room for resources to quickly sell, then return and collect them.

Drop table

Following Resources can be harvested from asteroids:

• Iron ore
• Pure water
• Gold ore
• Alien artifact
• Alien fossil
• Alien specimen
• Anomalies
• Obtanium ore

Tips

Rare asteroid with high rare resources drop.

There are at several types of asteroids. Large/medium stone ones and small/medium gold-and-green ones are the typical ones you'll find, but there are also (particularly in the Colorado system) Ice-based asteroids. You'll want to mine the small gold-and-green asteroids because they contain much more valuable resources. When you activate the "Scan Area" function, the metallic gold-and-green asteroids will have a larger diamond marker on the mini-map.

Gold-and-green asteroid don't seem to drop Iron ore. Ice-based asteroids are particularly likely to contain Pure Water.

Search for asteroid belts that are not shown on the map. They usually have more of the gold-and-green asteroids. This may also be the only way to find Ice-based asteroids. You manually search for these by zooming into the system map (best about 3-5 levels short of maximum zoom in) and looking for the clouds of red or blue gas. The clouds become visible when you are almost directly above them when viewing the map. When you move the view off to the side the clouds disappear from the map. The blue clouds are the only ones that can contain ice-asteroids, but often just have rock asteroids. Once you have found a cloud, zoom into one level short of maximum zoom in and you will be able to see small asteroid fields if they are inside the cloud. Not all clouds have these, but most do. Once you have found the asteroid field you can zoom all the way in to see the field almost as if you were there. Place a marker and you can autopilot right to the field.

Sometimes asteroids are surrounded by mine fields. Better to clean the area (or location) to avoid damage and repair cost.