[JTL] Cha's Space Mining Guide

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Cha’s Detailed Guide to Space Mining with a Starfighter

What you need:

Software

SWG: An Empire Divided+Jump to Light Speed expansion+Rage of the Wookiees expansion or

SWG Starter Kit+Rage of the Wookiees expansion or

SWG Total Experience or

SWG Complete Online Adventures

Required Equipment (Purchased in game, crafted, or mission reward. For the very best equipment possible, talk to your favorite local Shipwright and have them custom-craft your parts)

Starship (above starter level) with an engine, reactor, shields, and weapons capacitor, at the bare minimum.

Mining Laser

Mark I Mining Laser

Mark II Mining Laser

Mark III Mining Laser

Cargo Hold

Small Cargo Hold (Level 1 part)

Medium Cargo Hold (Level 5 part)

Large Cargo Hold (Level 7 part)

Huge Cargo Hold (Level 7 part)

Optional equipment (Purchased in game or crafted. For the very best equipment possible, talk to your favorite local Shipwright and have them custom-craft your parts)

Tractor Beam (for ships with two weapon slots)

OR

2nd Mining Laser and Tractor Beam (for ships with three weapon slots)

OR

Mining Laser, Tractor Beam, and a Standard Weapon (for ships with three weapon slots)

Equipment hint: Use the highest level equipment your piloting skills allow. It saves oodles of time and frustration.

How to Start

-Load the Mining Laser(s) into your weapon(s) slot(s) from the Manage screen at the Starship Terminal in a Space Port. If you are using a tractor beam it will take up one weapon slot.

-Load the Cargo Hold into your ship from the manage screen.

-Launch your ship into space.

-Once in space: Assign/Group your Mining Laser(s), Tractor Beam and or Weapon. Do this by pressing the G key.

-If you’re running two Mining Lasers, group them together in the #1 slot.

-If you’re using 1 Mining Laser and a Tractor Beam, put the laser in the #1 slot. You don’t need to assign a group to the Tractor beam. This will be toggled on and off.

-If you have a Mining Laser and a Standard Weapon, assign the Mining Laser to the #1 slot and the Standard Weapon in another slot, either linked with the Mining Laser or alone depending on how much reactor power and capacitor energy you have. A Standard Weapon does NO GOOD against Asteroids. The only thing it will do is drain your cap more quickly. However, a Mining Laser WILL do damage to other ships, just like a Standard Weapon.

Tractor Beam Toggle ON/OFF

Bring up your OPTIONS screen. Go to KEYMAP. Click on the Starship section and find the Toggle Tractor Beam button. The default is the 6 key.

Where to Mine

-Each system has 1 or more different kinds of Asteroids that can be mined. (Check Red Dwarf’s Post about mining to get a list of the types of Asteroids that each system has.)

-Hyperdrive to the system that has the type of Asteroid you want to mine.

-Once you arrive in the system where the Asteroids you want to mine are present, bring up your Navigation Screen (press the N key on your keyboard). The Asteroids are listed there. Right click on the type of Asteroid you’d like to mine to set a waypoint to it.

Hint: It’s best to set a waypoint to easily relocate the Asteroid you’ve been working on after you’ve chased down flying chunks or been set upon by Asteriod Bandits.

-Fly to the Asteroid.

-Target the Asteroid.

-300m is the effective distance limit of a beginning Mining Laser. Either come to a dead stop at a bit less than 300m from the Asteroid or set your Starship speed to the lowest possible setting.

-Fire your Mining Laser at the great big Asteroid until a smaller chunk breaks off.

-How many shots you need to fire at the great big Asteroid is determined by the level of the Mining Laser you have. Mining Lasers, just like standard weapons, dole out different damage amounts. A Mark I Mining Laser will take more shots to break off a small chunk than a Mark III Mining Laser will.

Hint: USE YOUR RADAR to determine if a chunk has broken off. The great big Asteroid will show up as a GREEN DOT on your radar. The smaller chunks will be a grayish-white. As soon as you see a greyish white dot appear, increase your speed a bit, get it in visual range, target it, and match speed with it. Yes, the chunk is moving and you’ll have to chase it. If it gets too far out of range, it will eventually disappear. Don’t stress too much over "the one’s that get away." There’s always more to get.

-Higher level Mining Lasers allow you a bit more range. What I do is set my speed to a bit above 300 and approach the great big asteroid. At about 600m distance, I start firing. Sometimes I get lucky and a chunk breaks off. I almost always get a chunk within 500m. This makes it MUCH easier to see the chunks that break off and to chase them.

-Target the chunk that has come off the great big Asteroid. Fly to within 150m of the chunk. /follow it. Toggle on your Tractor Beam, if you have one. Fire at the chunk until it breaks into 1 to 5 small chunks. If you have lined up correctly, most, if not all, of the chunks will be sucked up immediately, greatly increasing your mining efficiency.

-Chase down any remaining little chunks.

-You can leave your Tractor Beam on or toggle it off until ready to blow up another large chunk.

Using the Tractor Beam to harvest a straggler small chunk:

-Toggle on the Tractor Beam. Get the small chunk in your cross hairs (remember that the targeting reticule "leads" the target a bit and is less successful in predicting the rather eccentric movement of small chunks of Asteroid). If you’re within effective distance, the beam will lock onto the small chunk and draw it directly into your Cargo Hold. This is not always as simple at it would seem. The Tractor Beam does have some limitations and drawbacks. Because of the odd shapes and movement of the small chunk it may not be drawn directly toward you and you may have to "dive" to "catch" it. Sometimes you may just hit the edge of the chunk; it will sparkle a bit, but won’t be drawn toward you.

-Once you have destroyed the small chunk or "caught" the small chunk with your Tractor Beam THE RESOURCE IS AUTOMATICALLY LOADED INTO YOUR CARGO HOLD. A message will appear on screen by the icon for the cargo hold (the bottom icon on the right of your screen) to tell you what percentage of the cargo hold’s capacity is used for the resource that you’ve harvested. EG: 2%.

-To determine how much resource that really is use this formula:

Total Cargo Capacity X % Shown = Resource Harvested

EG: 950 X .02 = 19

-Repeat this process until all the small chunks are gone.

-Using the waypoint that you’ve set, return to the great big Asteroid and repeat the process until your cargo hold is full or you have the resources that you want.

-You may sell your collected resource to a Mining Station in Space. I’ve never done this as I’m a Master Shipwright and I use everything I mine, but I mention it as an option. Of course you may also sell it on the Bazaar or in a vendor. (See Red Dwarf’s Post on Space Mining for the prices that Mining Stations pay per unit.)

YOU MUST LAND TO EMPTY YOUR CARGO HOLD.

To Empty Your Cargo Hold

-Land.

-Bring up your Datapad.

-Look in Data.

-Find your ship’s Icon.

-Right click on it to bring up the radial menu.

-You will see an option to "Empty Cargo".

-Click on "Empty Cargo" and your resource will be transferred to your inventory.

Yes, there’s MORE.....

At some point, the great big Asteroid will be depleted of chunks. If you’re using a low level Mining Laser, you may have to pound on the sucker for 5 to 10 minutes to destroy the great big Asteroid and have it respawn. With a Mark III Mining Laser, it takes hardly any time at all. Once it respawns, it’s ready to mine again.

Multiple Chunk Spawn

If you’ve used weapon overload or pound on the great big asteroid too long, you may get multiple chunks. This is not necessarily a good thing. More like as not, by the time you get rid of the first one, any others will be a fairly long distance away, and you may or may not be able to catch them before they disappear. It’s more efficient to pound in moderation and do 1 chunk at a time.

OMG! PIRATES!!!!

-You’re happily mining away and suddenly the combat music begins and you see ominous RED DOTS on your radar screen. Mining randomly spawns Asteroid Bandits who will attack you and generally make pests of themselves. Perhaps you’re thinking "I’ve got no weapons! I’m SCREWED". Nay, nay. Not so...but FAR otherwise.

Your Mining Laser CAN BE USED AS A WEAPON.

The Mining Lasers’s stats against armor and shields are low, but you can indeed kill the pests that are attacking you with it. If you’re a Tier 3 Pilot, have beefy shields, and are being attacked by Tier 1 Bandits, you can probably just ignore them, but breaking off to kill them, rather messily I might add, breaks the monotony of the mining process.

Some Asteroids have groups of constantly respawning NPC’s: Droid Junk Guardians, Generic Pirates, Rebels. These guys make mining a real pain. My advice? Go to another Asteroid. There’s usually one Asteroid in system that DOESN’T have these pests present. Then you only have to deal with random spawn Asteroid Bandits.

Best Wishes!

Cha

Message edited by NarfBlinko on 03/24/2008 12:35:46.