Industry Guide: Mining

[Obsydian]

Industry Guide: Mining

External Resources
CIG Design Document: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14522-Star-Citizen-Careers-Mining
Wiki page: http://starcitizen.wikia.com/wiki/Mining

Applicable Ships
Orion

Mining Roles
Pilot
Scan Operator
Beam Operator
Cargo Operator
Refinery Operator


Mining Specialists
The mining occupation supports a variety of dedicated specialists,  each of which has a critical role to play in the effort.  As previously  noted, one of the basic objectives in the design of the various  occupations is breaking down large, complicated endeavors into a number  of smaller jobs, each of which can test a dedicated player’s mettle in  unique and interesting ways.  This encourages but does not force players  to act in concert with one another to accomplish larger tasks, as  you’ll always have the option of simply doing it all yourself â€" however  inefficient that might be â€" or, more likely, simply hiring NPC  crew members to work alongside you.  There’s a lot of thought and  effort going into the hiring, evolution, simulation of motivations, and  evaluation of such NPC crew members, but that’s a topic best left for another discussion.

  Pilot
The pilot, of course, navigates the ship.  While this sounds  straightforward, in practice it is often challenging as impacting an  asteroid can seriously damage a player’s ship, and the asteroids with  the most attractive resource compositions are often deep within a  concentrated field.  Pilots make the final call as to which individual  asteroid warrants the most immediate attention, often choosing from an  array of possible targets identified via the scanning process.  They  also determine whether to remain in a fixed position around an asteroid  throughout the excavation process or to adopt a more active role,  gradually rotating around a selected asteroid and thus giving the beam  operator a better opportunity to find and extract valuable pockets of  buried ore.  Many asteroids are filled with dangerous materials that,  under the right conditions, can blow the asteroid to pieces, increasing  the value of a good pilot that can quickly navigate a ship to a safe  distance even when the warning time is minimal.

  Scan operator
The scan operator is responsible for injecting remote material analysis packages (RMAPs)  into nearby asteroids that, upon success, immediately begin sending  telemetry data back to the pilot and scan operator informing them as to  the asteroid’s precise material composition.  Depending upon the ship  and its associated hardware, anywhere from several dozen to hundreds of RMAP-equipped manually guided missiles may reside upon a mining vessel.
      Upon selection of an asteroid, the center of mass is automatically  calculated and the scan operator begins the process of gradually  scanning for a suitable RMAP insertion point.   This is a multi-faceted process involving a search for a section of  surface geometry oriented such that its perpendicular traverses the  center of mass or somewhere close to it.  The operator receives feedback  on the angular difference, but it’s ultimately their call as to whether  a given site is good enough or not.
      Once an insertion site has been selected, the location and optimal  injection orientation are displayed, and the scan operator may launch an  RMAP-equipped missile.  The missile’s thrust  and guidance system are manually controlled, with the objective being to  impact the asteroid at the precise point and with the exact orientation  dictated via the previous step.  The distance from the  computer-specified injection position, deviation from the optimal angle,  base material of the asteroid, and final impact velocity ultimately  determine whether an injection is successful or not.
      One interesting aspect of this particular effort is that the  confidence of the scan operator plays a significant role.  The more  optimal the initial insertion point selected â€" which typically takes  more time to achieve â€" the larger the error can be in the subsequent  missile guidance stage and still achieve a successful insertion.  More  skilled operators, therefore, will often be willing to accept even a  mediocre insertion site so that they may quickly proceed to the next  stage, confident in their ability to hit the precise location at the  specified speed and angle such that they’ll still be able to achieve  success.

  Beam operator
The beam operator is typically the second-in-command of a mining  expedition.  They are responsible for wielding the multi-megawatt mining  beam generators affixed to one or more robotic arms near the front of  the ship that fracture asteroids into digestible chunks.  The beam  operator has direct control over the output wattage, and is thus able to  precisely control how much energy to dispense into a given area of an  asteroid.  This is critically important, as the injection of surplus  energy into a volatile material can cause an explosive chain reaction to  occur, with the total destructive force ultimately determined by the  type and amount of reacting material.  The beam equivalent of a  sledgehammer, therefore, can be used to quickly excavate large  quantities of inert materials, but a lower-wattage scalpel will be  necessary when attempting to safely extricate those that may react  violently in the presence of sufficient energy.
  The Exothermic Reaction Detector is a status display on the beam  operator’s control panel that detects the production of excess energy  indicative of the fact that the mining beam is causing a chain reaction  in some portion of the materials in close proximity to the beam.  This  information is presented to the operator in the form of a vertical bar  graph plotted over time showing the probability per second of such a  reaction growing out of control and consuming â€" often in a powerful  burst of energy that can send huge, dangerous shards of the asteroid  flying towards the player’s ship â€" all of the material in the nearby  area.

  Exothermic Reaction Detector

Mining UI: Exothermic Reaction Detector      Every minable material has its own unique set of parameters  dictating how much energy a given quantity can absorb, how quickly it  can dissipate energy, how easily it can transfer excess energy to  surrounding materials, its probability of fragmentation as energy levels  reach critical levels, and numerous other things.
      The average size of the fragments carved from an asteroid as the  result of a mining beam being utilized, then, depend upon the amount of  wattage the beam is injecting into the body, as well as the type of  materials into which the energy is being directed.
      As fragments are torn asunder from the parent body, they generate  seismic tremors that resonate throughout the asteroid and only gradually  dissipate.  Some volatile materials are sensitive to such vibrations,  and as such minimizing the magnitude of any such tremors is often of  considerable concern.  This is complicated, however, by the fact that  such tremors are modeled independently of one another, with the sum  total displacement caused by the superposition of the waves constantly  being applied against the various materials within the asteroid.  Thus,  even a series of small tremors can present a serious threat depending  upon how the waves interfere with one another.

  Laser Seismometer

Mining UI: Laser Seismometer  The Laser Seismometer shows each individual tremor within an  asteroid, as well as the superposition of the various waves.  It also  shows the vibrational thresholds for any seismically sensitive materials  contained within the asteroid, assuming that an RMAP  has been successfully injected.  Explosions that occur as the result of  a seismic event are often considerably more dangerous than chain  reactions that consume a quantity of material in a localized area  because they will cause all such material within the entire asteroid to  detonate, with the end result often being the complete destruction of  the asteroid, and a pronounced danger to any mining ship unfortunate  enough to be in close proximity at the time.  Fortunately, such events  are often telegraphed in advance via seismic activity growing  progressively more erratic and tiny pockets of material prematurely  detonating and causing the ejection of small sections of the asteroid  into space.
        Highly compressed pockets of gas buried within an asteroid present  another distinct danger to a mining operation.  Exposure of even a small  portion of a gas pocket to the vacuum of space results in an immediate  explosive decompression that can splinter nearby sections of the  asteroid, send astronauts hurtling through space, and generate  considerable seismic turbulence.

    Analytical Materials Processor

Mining UI: Analytical Materials Processor      The mining beam is equipped with a high-energy scanning probe called  the Analytical Materials Processor that provides constant feedback as  to what type of materials lie beneath the surface â€" within range of the  probe â€" in the specified direction.  Each material identified is  presented on a horizontal bar graph replete with information regarding  the depth at which it can be found and the approximate quantity.

    Cargo operator
The cargo operator utilizes a console on the bridge of the ship that  allows them to monitor a camera mounted within the forward-facing input  port.  From that vantage point the cargo operator can view the impact  area of the mining beam, as well as the various asteroid fragments that  are broken apart from the parent body and ejected out into space.  The  input port contains a powerful crusher that quickly reduces any incoming  asteroid fragments to rubble and stores them in attached cargo modules  for transport or, on ships with an integrated refinery, subsequent  processing into their purified elemental forms.
  The cargo operator directs a targeting cursor towards fragments of  interest, with an integrated Fragment Scanner â€" similar to the  Analytical Materials Processor utilized by the beam operator â€" providing  immediate feedback in regard to the fragment’s precise composition.  In  this manner, the operator is able to get a quick sense as to the  relative value of the fragment, and whether it is worth attempting to  guide it into the input port, or whether it contains so little of value  that it’s best avoided so as to preserve precious cargo space or  time-consuming refining effort. The Fragment Scanner also displays the  object’s mass, trajectory, and velocity.
      The cargo operator controls attractor and repulsor beam generators  typically mounted just within or outside the input port, and the  magnitude of the force generated by each can be precisely controlled so  as to allow for intricate modification and control of a fragment’s  trajectory.  The cargo operator’s display allows for a variable  magnification zoom, which is necessary since attractive and repulsive  forces are applied at the precise location denoted by the target cursor.   Application of force to a fragment’s extremity, then, will typically  result in generating a rotation on the object rather than any  significant change in its direction.  Thus, considerable skill â€"  including the ability to quickly estimate an object’s approximate center  of mass â€" is required in order to efficiently apply forces and guide  fragments along the desired path.

  Refinery operator
The position of refinery operator only exists on mining ships that  contain an integrated refinery.  Refineries allow raw ore to be  gradually converted into their purified component forms, with the  undesirable elements being ejected back out into space in the form of  dust.  Purified materials consume a small fraction of the storage space  of their unrefined counterparts, which is of particular concern when  dealing with low quality asteroid fields that possess valuable elements  only in a highly diffused form, or when attempting to minimize the  number of return trips back to a trading or storage facility.  The  refinery operator controls the routing of ore to a variety of  specialized processing units, each of which has a different role to play  in the separation of one material from another.  Operator errors in the  refinement process can cause sensitive equipment to fail, stalling the  conversion process and costing valuable time until the affected item is  replaced, typically with a surplus part stored in the ship’s inventory.
       All of the aforementioned specialist positions may be helmed by either a player or an NPC, with more experienced NPCs performing their duties in superior fashion, but usually at the expense of demanding a higher monthly salary.


  Selling Your Cargo
The final step in the mining process is converting your meticulously  collected ore or refined materials into payment for your efforts.
      If you accepted a job, you’ll want to return to the agent that hired  you and complete the transaction, resulting in your account being  credited for the promised amount and a bump in your reputation for  successfully completing the task.  The agent will only purchase the  specific type and quantity of materials that you promised to deliver,  though, so you’ll likely want to head to the local TDD to convert any surplus materials into credits.
      For players that elected to operate as freelance miners, the path is often a bit less clear.  Different TDDs  at different landing zones may offer dramatically different prices, so  you’ll often want to do a bit of due diligence and ensure that you’re  not leaving any money on the table by quickly accepting whatever’s being  offered at the closest landing zone.  The really significant scores,  though, are often made by extracting a common material of limited value  in one star system, and then transporting it to another where it’s in  shortly supply and the prices are much higher.  It’s your choice as to  whether you want to operate exclusively as a miner, or do double duty as  a transport freighter by lugging your own valuable cargo across the  galaxy, and whether the risks you’ll face in that endeavor â€" as you get  ever closer to an area where your material is highly valued, you’ll  become a much more tempting target â€" are justified by the richer  potential payday.
      One last option that some miners might wish to undertake is related  to speculation.  If you’re inclined to gamble, some landing zones will  offer storage facilities that you can purchase on a monthly basis.   Rather than selling your cargo immediately, you might wish to hold on to  it, with the hope or expectation that â€" perhaps as a result of actions  you’re planning to initiate with the aid of your organization â€" prices  might rise significantly in the near future.

[TeaLeaf]

I'm loving the idea of your asteroid potentially blowing up and taking you out!

[Obsydian]

I'm loving the idea of your asteroid potentially blowing up and taking you out!

It defnitely adds a level of concentration to the process - EVE Online this is not!