Mining is one of the less common ways of life in the FFE world, mainly because it isnt very profitable. But profit isnt always what you play FFE for.
These are the tools needed for mining.
NOTE: The Tractor beam Cargo Scoop and Cargo Scoop Conversion do identical things, it is just one is much cheaper and the other is smaller.
Although you dont need all these things at once to do each type of mining but if you want to be a complete miner these are all the possible components.
There are three types of mining you can do and I will list the techniques that you need to complete each type from easiest to hardest.
Although not strictly mining I feel it falls into this
catagory. Fuel Scooping is done by skimming the surface of a gas
planet or sun and scooping up the hydrogen. Fuel Scooping is not
usually done for profit but there is no reason why it cannot be.
The tools needed are basic only consisting of a ship with a fuel
scoop mounting and an actual fuel scoop.
The procedure that I use for scooping fuel is
1: Locate a gas giant or sun and lock on with autopilot
2: Set time to highest and head straght towards the sun/planet
3: Once about 2-3-4 AU Away take off autopilot and reduce speed to about 1000kps
4: Manually aim towards the edge of the sun/planet once in range the scoop will start working
5: Click on the third time acceleration to speed up scooping.
6: If done correctly you should pass the planet/sun and come out on the other side with more fuel
7: If you find yourself getting caught in the gravity of the planet/sun try facing straight out and applying full thrust.
8: If this does not work or you are traveling too fast towards the planet/sun try hyperspacing away before you go below 12000 feet.
WARNING: In large ships it is possible to be sucked into the planets/suns gravitational pull. Be wary
There you have it you should have a full hold of hydrogen. Very handy for deep space traveling.
Planet mining can be done on most rocky planets that are usually between -100 and 200 degrees Celcius. It is wise to go out to the outer rim of inhabited systems as in many systems mining is illegal. Planet mining is much harder then it sounds but can be fun if you want to try. The only tool needed for planet mining is a MB4 mining machine found at most higher tech level starports. This is the procedure for mining planets.
1: Buy a MB4 and find a good system for mining preferably the inner rocky planets of reasonable temperature.
2: Land on the planet and deploy the MB4, you will get a
summary of mining conditions. If this is unsuitable
(ie minerals,barren) try taking the machine back and redeploying
it again, often the result is totally different.
3: Repeat with as many machines as you have. Once you have found a suitable substance to mine. Take off and leave.
4: Do somthing else for about 6-months to a year game time * .
5: Come back to your system and lock on to the mining machine (in the mining screen) Autopilot off towards the planet.
6: Now comes the hard part. Land on the planet less then 1.5 km from the machine (harder then it sounds) and take back in.
7: Fly back home with your booty. (all 10t per machine ohhhh!)
* Warning make sure you service your drive in this time. It is inadvisable to sit on the planet and wait as your drive will most likely fail and you will be stuck. (this happened to me :-(
This is one of the least common forms of mining, as asteroids are so hard to find. It seems that there is a chance that asteriods will be in a system and the computer randomly selects wether or not they will be in when you hyperspace. There is also another part to asteroid mining - realising that asteroids are is the system you are in. To mine asteriods you need a
30mw Mining laser
Cargo scoop (of some sort)
FINDING ASTEROIDS: To know that you have been lucky enough to jump into a system with asteroids. The easist way it to look when your flying towards a local starport. It looks as if there is much more space bodies then usual. It looks as if there are a lot of planets and stars very far away but they come towards you much quicker. If you stop and select one of these distant objects and head toward it you will find an asteriod. You can turn off space dust and stars but this makes the game less fun for me.
There are about 5 different shaped asteroids but there shape does not matter they randomly give off different substances. (eg two identical asteroids can give of different stuff). The only substances I have ever seen that come off asteroids are:
Minerals
Metal Alloys
Rubbish
Precious metals
Gems (Unconfirmed)
Procedures for Mining Asteroids
1: Asteroids dont go away so if you are lucky enough to be in a good system go to the nearest starport and trade your massive drive for a interplanetary drive (WOW A USE FOR THE INTERPLANETARY DRIVE) you will now have tons more room. Sadly is seems the best systems for mining are far from civilisation.
2: Find a good mineral or metal bearing asteroid and fire your mining laser. Depending on the type of asteroid you may get between 2 and 4 tons of metal/minerals floating off in space.
3: Scoop the cargo up *
4: Repeat as many times as you want. NOTE: Asteroids dont give forever so you might need to change asteroids now and then.
5: Go home with your booty.
* It is wise to only scoop up the cargo after firing the laser once, because if you produce too much it is hard to get it all and it leads to wastage.
If you want to try your hand at mining asteroids but cant find them try this Savegame