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Mining on the Asteroid
So you've signed up to mine the caverns of the Nanotrasen Claimed Asteroid eh? Well the rewards could be great or few depending on your skill and luck. There are four types of hostile alien life roaming the loosely held together rock that no doubt want nothing more than to bathe in your blood forevermore. Eight types of minerals that can be mined (and one type of explosive) and lastly nineteen toys, edibles, medicals, and equipment that can be dispensed from the mining vendor. First let's get familiar with the asteroid layout itself.
The Mining Outpost Layout
The mining shuttle will bring you from cargo to the mining station. Complete with its own production area (don't use it unless the ore deposit machine in cargo is busted), EVA, living quarters, infirmary, mining station coms, and a single bathroom (the only one on the entire asteroid). EVA, the production area, and the shuttle arrival is all located on the right side of the asteroid which will be discussed in more detail later on. If you follow the disposal pipes sprawling across the asteroid you will also find the West and North Mining Outposts. These are great places to refuel oxygen tanks, eat some donk-pockets, and possibly travel using their delivery chutes (which fit both you and ore boxes). Far northwest on the asteroid is the labor camp. This is where prisoners serve out their lives by mining for mostly iron deposits. If you are a miner, avoid this place if you can. Mining into the external access of the labor camp will drain the oxygen, making it so no prisoners can mine without hard suits (and we're not giving them hardsuits). Lastly, slightly east from the labor camp is the abandoned mining station. No one can really say what happened here as the dead don't speak. Here you can find lots of remains (human and otherwise), dead alien larvae, a xeno suit and helmet (now you can look like a xeno too!) located in a small room apparently meant for hydroponics, and lastly a black space suit and helmet next to a suspicious looking toolbox. The space suit in here is not as good as your mining hardsuit so don't bother picking it up. The toolbox on the other hand could be useful to you if you don't mind carrying it around. Now that we have briefly discussed the outposts, let's talk about the layout of the asteroid itself.
The East Side of The Mining Asteroid
The safer section by far, with no hostile alien life whatsoever (under normal circumstances at least), yet also fewer mining rewards. The mineral deposits are much fewer and supposedly there are no secrets on this side of the asteroid. This part of the asteroid is best reserved for those with little to no mining experience or those who have managed to get all valuable resources from the west side of the asteroid (yeah good luck with that).
The West Side of The Mining Station
Sprawling much greater distance than the East Side with much greater reward and danger. Firstly is the far northwest labor outpost that was previously mentioned. Around this section of the asteroid and much of the far west section is mainly covered in iron and few rare minerals. Not a good use of a miner's time. South of the outpost however is a small opening where a few items are located. Human remains, a soviet uniform, and an ushanka. This opening differs greatly from those found throughout the rest of the asteroid in two ways: unlike most openings, this one is filled with oxygen. Good for prisoners who want to look stylish but not for miners who have to deal with an annoying pressure difference. Secondly, this is the only opening will secret goods that will always be there. While most other secrets prefer to stay hidden. This entire west section can be easily identified due to the massive amounts of iron deposits with little else.
The rest of the west side of the asteroid is where experience miners should be spending their time. There are lots of pockets of rich minerals scattered throughout as well as the secrets of the asteroid (explained further below). This comes at a price though as it is filled with hostile xenos. You should try and take the time to walk throughout the entire asteroid until you get a basic idea of its layout. Doing this will show you where to best spend your time and where riches are less likely to be.
The Mining Job
Likely you're just a payed hand for Nanotrasen to collect its precious plasma, diamonds, ect. So the way to do that is, go down to the asteroid via shuttle (located in cargo), suit up, mine, shove those minerals in an ore box, drag the ore box back to the station and place the box next to the ore redemption machine. Empty it and wait for the machine to load your ores and properly smelt them into sheets. You gain points for doing this so be sure to insert your ID into the machine after it smelts everything (and make sure nobody steals those points). Points can be used for the mining vendor discussed below. So what minerals should you get? Well scientists want ten to fifteen uranium, plasma, diamond, and gold. This will be enough to last them the entire round depending on what their working on and R&D may gift you some seriously great mining gear. Roboticists need diamond, uranium, silver, and gold for building mech parts. Ask them at the start of the shift to build you a ripley if there are any competent roboticists. It can greatly speed up the mining process. The Quartermaster (your direct boss) may want plasma sheets to trade in for bonus supply points or potentially gold to make a statue of the HoP (your boss's boss). Everybody on the station could always use more iron, glass, and plasteel, especially station engineers and roboticists. The virologist, chemist, and xenobiologist all appricate having extra plasma. A clown with Bananium is a grateful and dangerous ally by far. Lastly the bartender can use a few sheets of uranium or iron to craft some of his rarest cocktails. All of these are just the basics of what people need to run the station. They could ask you to mine specific minerals for different reasons so try and listen in over coms.
The Mining Gear
From the equipment lockers in cargo or the outpost, nab Meson Scanner Goggles, a Mining Scanner, and a Pickaxe. Your mining voucher can be used to select a Proto-kinetic Accelerator, Resonator, Advanced Mining Scanner, or a Mining Drone (complete with a welding too!). Choose wisely as these can give you a fast start to mining or a dull one. The HoP also has a spare mining voucher in his locker. An Advanced Scanner and Resonator make a great starting combo that can handle the hostile wildlife and mine at a fast rate. Once you have that sorted out and are on the asteroid, go to EVA and suit up. Mining hardsuit, breath mask, and oxygen tank. Don't forget them. On your way out of the outpost, grab an ore box to pull around. They can hold an infinite amount of minerals for you to empty your mining satchel into. Get mining, drop off what you have after, use the points at the vendor and repeat. Equipment itself and vending rewards can be viewed below.
The Asteroid Wildlife
The western half of the asteroid, filled with goodies of all sorts also houses out local xenos. But a variety of bloodthirsty alien lifeforms populating the caverns shouldn't hold you back from your dreams! You can easily fight them all off if you know how and keep your head on straight. Who knows? In time maybe you will become more of a monster hunting miner then one of the normal variety.
Ores
Mining Equipment Vendor Goods
APLU "Ripley"
At the very start of the shift, it's always a good idea to see if there are any roboticists and ask them to make you a ripley (you can even be lazy and just do it on the mining request console). This will greatly speed up the mining process as not only does a mining ripley take out three rock walls at once, but it automatically puts ores into the ore box (if you put a ore box into the ripley via clamp. Always do this). Hell you can even just walk over ores and pick them up in a ripley! The drill isn't just for mining though. It can take out xeno forces easily. A goliath can be killed with four complete drills from your mech. Basilisks can be killed in three drills. Goldgrubs can be killed in one drill. What about hivelords you ask? Hivelords are the most annoying fucking thing ever in a ripley. You'd be far better off just getting out of the mech and killing them real quick. Remember, you still need a mining scanner to see into the rock walls of the asteroid. Keep a welder around if you can find one (there's always the toolbox on the abandoned outpost) so you can repair the ripley. You can reinforce a ripley three times with Goliath Hides to make it much more robust as well. If you do have a ripley and get in well with scientists, they could also upgrade it in a few ways, consider asking them or stopping by R&D. Lastly, if you're real lucky, there's a chance you will find a APLU "Miner" mech abandoned on the asteroid. It is yours for the taking if you can find it.
Mining Tips!
Mining on The Asteroid
Written By: Annalee Call
Reference
So you've signed up to mine the caverns of the Nanotrasen Claimed Asteroid eh? Well the rewards could be great or few depending on your skill and luck. There are four types of hostile alien life roaming the loosely held together rock that no doubt want nothing more than to bathe in your blood forevermore. Eight types of minerals that can be mined (and one type of explosive) and lastly nineteen toys, edibles, medicals, and equipment that can be dispensed from the mining vendor. First let's get familiar with the asteroid layout itself.
The mining shuttle will bring you from cargo to the mining station. Complete with its own production area (don't use it unless the ore deposit machine in cargo is busted), EVA, living quarters, infirmary, mining station coms, and a single bathroom (the only one on the entire asteroid). EVA, the production area, and the shuttle arrival is all located on the right side of the asteroid which will be discussed in more detail later on. If you follow the disposal pipes sprawling across the asteroid you will also find the West and North Mining Outposts. These are great places to refuel oxygen tanks, eat some donk-pockets, and possibly travel using their delivery chutes (which fit both you and ore boxes). Far northwest on the asteroid is the labor camp. This is where prisoners serve out their lives by mining for mostly iron deposits. If you are a miner, avoid this place if you can. Mining into the external access of the labor camp will drain the oxygen, making it so no prisoners can mine without hard suits (and we're not giving them hardsuits). Lastly, slightly east from the labor camp is the abandoned mining station. No one can really say what happened here as the dead don't speak. Here you can find lots of remains (human and otherwise), dead alien larvae, a xeno suit and helmet (now you can look like a xeno too!) located in a small room apparently meant for hydroponics, and lastly a black space suit and helmet next to a suspicious looking toolbox. The space suit in here is not as good as your mining hardsuit so don't bother picking it up. The toolbox on the other hand could be useful to you if you don't mind carrying it around. Now that we have briefly discussed the outposts, let's talk about the layout of the asteroid itself.
The safer section by far, with no hostile alien life whatsoever (under normal circumstances at least), yet also fewer mining rewards. The mineral deposits are much fewer and supposedly there are no secrets on this side of the asteroid. This part of the asteroid is best reserved for those with little to no mining experience or those who have managed to get all valuable resources from the west side of the asteroid (yeah good luck with that).
Sprawling much greater distance than the East Side with much greater reward and danger. Firstly is the far northwest labor outpost that was previously mentioned. Around this section of the asteroid and much of the far west section is mainly covered in iron and few rare minerals. Not a good use of a miner's time. South of the outpost however is a small opening where a few items are located. Human remains, a soviet uniform, and an ushanka. This opening differs greatly from those found throughout the rest of the asteroid in two ways: unlike most openings, this one is filled with oxygen. Good for prisoners who want to look stylish but not for miners who have to deal with an annoying pressure difference. Secondly, this is the only opening will secret goods that will always be there. While most other secrets prefer to stay hidden. This entire west section can be easily identified due to the massive amounts of iron deposits with little else.
The rest of the west side of the asteroid is where experience miners should be spending their time. There are lots of pockets of rich minerals scattered throughout as well as the secrets of the asteroid (explained further below). This comes at a price though as it is filled with hostile xenos. You should try and take the time to walk throughout the entire asteroid until you get a basic idea of its layout. Doing this will show you where to best spend your time and where riches are less likely to be.
Likely you're just a payed hand for Nanotrasen to collect its precious plasma, diamonds, ect. So the way to do that is, go down to the asteroid via shuttle (located in cargo), suit up, mine, shove those minerals in an ore box, drag the ore box back to the station and place the box next to the ore redemption machine. Empty it and wait for the machine to load your ores and properly smelt them into sheets. You gain points for doing this so be sure to insert your ID into the machine after it smelts everything (and make sure nobody steals those points). Points can be used for the mining vendor discussed below. So what minerals should you get? Well scientists want ten to fifteen uranium, plasma, diamond, and gold. This will be enough to last them the entire round depending on what their working on and R&D may gift you some seriously great mining gear. Roboticists need diamond, uranium, silver, and gold for building mech parts. Ask them at the start of the shift to build you a ripley if there are any competent roboticists. It can greatly speed up the mining process. The Quartermaster (your direct boss) may want plasma sheets to trade in for bonus supply points or potentially gold to make a statue of the HoP (your boss's boss). Everybody on the station could always use more iron, glass, and plasteel, especially station engineers and roboticists. The virologist, chemist, and xenobiologist all appricate having extra plasma. A clown with Bananium is a grateful and dangerous ally by far. Lastly the bartender can use a few sheets of uranium or iron to craft some of his rarest cocktails. All of these are just the basics of what people need to run the station. They could ask you to mine specific minerals for different reasons so try and listen in over coms.
From the equipment lockers in cargo or the outpost, nab Meson Scanner Goggles, a Mining Scanner, and a Pickaxe. Your mining voucher can be used to select a Proto-kinetic Accelerator, Resonator, Advanced Mining Scanner, or a Mining Drone (complete with a welding too!). Choose wisely as these can give you a fast start to mining or a dull one. The HoP also has a spare mining voucher in his locker. An Advanced Scanner and Resonator make a great starting combo that can handle the hostile wildlife and mine at a fast rate. Once you have that sorted out and are on the asteroid, go to EVA and suit up. Mining hardsuit, breath mask, and oxygen tank. Don't forget them. On your way out of the outpost, grab an ore box to pull around. They can hold an infinite amount of minerals for you to empty your mining satchel into. Get mining, drop off what you have after, use the points at the vendor and repeat. Equipment itself and vending rewards can be viewed below.
The western half of the asteroid, filled with goodies of all sorts also houses out local xenos. But a variety of bloodthirsty alien lifeforms populating the caverns shouldn't hold you back from your dreams! You can easily fight them all off if you know how and keep your head on straight. Who knows? In time maybe you will become more of a monster hunting miner then one of the normal variety.
- Hivelords: The strange hivelord is perhaps the most peculiar lifeform found on the asteroid. Instead of attacking you directly, it spawns broods one after another from its flesh to attack you while the Hivelord keeps its distance. Fortunately each spawn dies with one hit and deal little damage to you. But a constant four on one can overwhelm a miner and tear apart that ripley of yours. The best tactic is to be on a constant offensive with these annoyances. Kill one spawned brood after another with your pickaxe or resonator (don't use the kinetic accelerator on this one, not a fast enough reload time to deal with tall the spawnlings). While you hack away at the hivelord and its spawn, try and corner it. You will be able to finish it off no problem once it has nowhere to run and once it is dead, it will drop its core. A hivelord core when spread onto oneself will restore your health to maximum and even cure diseases or any other aliment you may have. Hardsuit in the way? No a hivelord core works even through your hardsuit so worry not. While it may purge any beneficial chemicals from your system it is truly a remarkable substance we should all use for our station right? Unfortunately the core will spoil after a few minutes, making it useless. All and all, hivelords are a curious and strange alien species, one we will likely not bother to learn about for some time.
- Golaiths: The bane of many careless miners or those caught between a group of them. These giant monsters have a lot of health, an outright painful melee, and lastly a deceptively dangerous ranged tentacle attack that may snare its prey. They move at a slow pace thankfully, and stop every couple of seconds to burrow its tentacles under you (standing on top of these for too long can trap you for a long duration). They are resistant to lasers as well, making a kinetic accelerator a top choice weapon for going against them. Normally it takes six direct shots from a KA to kill them or five crushes of a resonators field. Fighting with a KA is simple: Shoot, step back, shoot, avoid tentacles, repeat. With a resonator, set it to five seconds and try and make a line for the Goliath to walk into. This will take some practice but will kill the Goliath without any harm coming onto yourself. When dead, a Goliath drops a Goliath Plate which can be used to reinforce your hardsuit and helmet
- Basilisks: Four legged beasts with a shorter territory then a Goliath or Hivelord, but one they protect intensely. Basilisks fire freezing beams, cold enough to inflict serious freeze burns while it stalks in to attack its immobilized target. The best tactic to fight these is to just wallop on them. A resonator will finish them off in three field crushes with added hits (keep the timer to three seconds for the love of god). Other than that, Basilisks suffer greatly from explosions, taking over half their health from the weakest of explosions. Upon death, Basilisks drop diamonds. If you have your ore redemption machine properly upgraded from R&D to get more points, you could potentially buy Lazarus Injectors with your points and use them on a Basilisk dead body to bring it back to life. Kill it again (it won't fig
- Goldgrubs: Mostly harmless and fairly rare, these grubs will swallow up any loose, valuable ore they can find and flee when approached by a human. They will smash through solid rock on their path to escape before burrowing into the ground. One tactic is to throw an ore towards it and rush in, killing it while it's busy eating. Kinetic accelerators do nothing against these as their skin is reflective, requiring a pickaxe melee smackdown to ensure a kill. Another option is to attack it in a ripley, which they do not run away from. Upon death they spit up multiple pices of ore, based upon what they ate. Feed them many different types of ore before killing them to spit out more of each type than you gave it. Just don't spook it off afterwards.
- Iron: Worth 1 point and used for a great deal of things.
- Plasteel: Mixed together from iron and plasma so it cannot be redeemed for points. Used for AI cores and reinforcing walls.
- Sand: Worth 1 point and used for making glass. Glass has a wide range of applications and sand itself can be activated in hand to make sandstone bricks. Bricks can be used to make dirt to grow plants or to make doors from sandstone.
- Gold: Worth 20 points and used for making various electronics.
- Silver: Worth 20 points and used for making dosh, mech, and researching Bluespace.
- Uranium: Worth 20 points and used for delicious cocktails or radioactive doors/walls to kill people.
- Bananium: Worth 30 points, a extremely rare mineral found exclusively in clown-controlled space (none on the mining asteroid) used only for HONK related items such as the H.O.N.K. mech.
- Diamond:
Worth 40 points, used for making mech parts and as well as other industrial uses.- Plasma:
Worth 40 points and the reason we're here. Used in a variety of applications and can be send back in sheets to Centcom for bonus supply points.- Gibtonite: Not worth points. Not allowed back on the station. When mined, if not hit with the mining scanner it will explode in time. The closer to the explosion before being defused, the more potent its power. Must be carried with two hands after diffused and mined. Count to eight flashes of the ore before hitting with your scanner. Gibtonite varies in the number of reactions It has so you may get lower quality ore.
- Stimpack: 50 points. A single stimpack that stimulates your adrenaline to make you run faster in your hardsuit and reduce stun time but is lethal if abused. Use 3 at a time at most. Addiction without anti-toxin will be letal over time. Remember, a hivelord core will purge your body's system of all beneficial and lethal chemicals.
- Stimpack Bundle: 200 points. A box containing 5 stimpacks and enough epi pens to overdose someone and get them addicted. Don't let this someone be you!
- Bottle of Whiskey: 100 points. Half the components for Beepsky Smash and a bottle too!
- Premium Havanian Cigar:
150 points.- Soap:
For cleaning blood trails of unrobust miners downed from savage beasts or slipping living miners so they die from savage beasts. - Wormhole Jaunter: 250 points. A single use device that creates a wormhole set to a random teleport beacon, creates a quick way of getting out of a situation. By far less enjoyable than any teleportation.
- Laser Pointer:
300 points. Stun borgs and blind people by aiming it at their eyes!- Alien Toy:
300 points. A toy facehugger with REAL face-clinging action! Tears breath and gas masks right out of the way and blinds the victim! Why not buy a hundred and put them in medical?- Advanced Scanner:
400 points. Automatically scans nearby asteroid walls for mineral deposits. You need one if you're mining in a mech.- Mining Drone:
500 points. Can be set to collect resources or fight mobs. Usually useless at both.- GAR mesons:
500 points. Significantly more stylish yet still function the same. Can be used to stab people with its pointy end or embed in people via throwing.- Kinetic Accelerator:
750 points. A deadly short-range kinetic shotgun that has no ammo but must be constantly reloaded. Much more damage in a non-pressurized environment to crush rocks or foes.- Resonator:
800 points. A melee device that creates small energy fields that resonate for three to five seconds before detonating, crushing rock or foes. Can be activated without a target to create delayed time traps. Just like the Kinetic Accelerator, it is more effective in a vacuum. Less robust than the KA but mines faster at the same time.- Lazarus Injector:
1000 Points. A miracle injection capable of reviving simple living beings from death, making them friendly to you and the crew. Does not work on humans, monkeys, and other complex living beings. The injector can be EMP'd to make revived mobs hostile to all but you. With this you can revive a goliath and kill it again for additional plates or basilisks for more diamonds.- Diamond-tipped Pickaxe:
1200 Points. Slightly better than the default pickaxe.- Mining Jetpack:
1500 points. Has a special miner paint job and can fit into your backpack too!- Space Cash:
2000 points.- Point Transfer Card:
500 points. A card with 500 points stored for trading amongst coworkers. Simply use an ID over it to claim the points stored.
At the very start of the shift, it's always a good idea to see if there are any roboticists and ask them to make you a ripley (you can even be lazy and just do it on the mining request console). This will greatly speed up the mining process as not only does a mining ripley take out three rock walls at once, but it automatically puts ores into the ore box (if you put a ore box into the ripley via clamp. Always do this). Hell you can even just walk over ores and pick them up in a ripley! The drill isn't just for mining though. It can take out xeno forces easily. A goliath can be killed with four complete drills from your mech. Basilisks can be killed in three drills. Goldgrubs can be killed in one drill. What about hivelords you ask? Hivelords are the most annoying fucking thing ever in a ripley. You'd be far better off just getting out of the mech and killing them real quick. Remember, you still need a mining scanner to see into the rock walls of the asteroid. Keep a welder around if you can find one (there's always the toolbox on the abandoned outpost) so you can repair the ripley. You can reinforce a ripley three times with Goliath Hides to make it much more robust as well. If you do have a ripley and get in well with scientists, they could also upgrade it in a few ways, consider asking them or stopping by R&D. Lastly, if you're real lucky, there's a chance you will find a APLU "Miner" mech abandoned on the asteroid. It is yours for the taking if you can find it.
- Grab a GPS, give it a good tag (something to identify yourself is best), and turn on your suit sensors. This way someone can actually find your body if you die. If you're lucky you may be telescience'd right back to the station. Otherwise your body will rot where it died. Not much fun there.
- Turn on your PDA light, hard suit helmet light, light up your way! There's very little light on the asteroid and if you turn all your lights on you can see a lot further and be a lot more alert.
- All mining xenos only attack your torso and limbs, so upgrading your hardsuit with Goliath Plates before you upgrade your helmet is wise. Humanoids on the other hand, will likely aim for your head. Consider what would be best in your own situation.
- Teamwork is a huge help on the asteroid. You can mine faster and have somebody to watch your back or pull you home if you end up dead. If you decide to always go out on your own, Mining Medics will have jack shit to do and probably kill themselves or go to the bar. Keep that in mind.
- Talking to other miners, cargo staff, or the station in general alleviates the silence and boredom that comes with mining. This at the very least can also help if you die and no one picks you up, as maybe, just maybe, they will realize they should come down and check on you.
- If you are mining with a pickaxe, be sure to keep it in your non-active hand. This will make it so you can walk into ores and rock to automatically start mining it.
- If you run out of Donk Pockets, consider making Wish Soup. It's made of 20 units of water and nothing else, but has a 25% chance to contain nutriment you can actually use. You can make it without a microwave, you just need something to hold the water in.
- The Proto-Kinetic Accelerator can destroy electrified grills without needing pair on insulated gloves and can obliterate a space carp or blob spore in just one hit (assuming you're in space).
- If you are planning on bringin
g a Goliath back to life via Lazarus Injector and bringing it back to the station as your new best bud, remember that you can't drag a living goliath around but you can drag its corpse.- Goliath plates add +10% melee resistance each time when applied to a rig. The plates will stack until they reach 80% making you a nice space proof riot suit.
- Security jumpsuits give a +10 melee resistance to everywhere but your head. Nag the QM or HoP to give you one. If not then nag security!
- Augmentations are VERY useful to miners, as healing with a welder is ultimately easier. Plus they work different than armor when it comes to protection, instead reducing all bute damage taken by an augmented body part by 5 (4 for burn). Watch out for EMP's though…
- Proto Accelerators can be used as infinite tools to navigate space, each time you fire, it'll throw you in the opposite direction.
- A normal Hivelord has a max of four broodlings but a sentient Hivelord has a much higher maximum. See if you can co
nvince xenobiology to give you a sentience potion.- If you are dealing with annoying pressure with airlocks, constantly pushing you outside when you want inside, first try pushing your ore box in. Once its inside, continue the struggle with getting yourself inside and try to shut the airlock behind you so it won't have a chance to suck you back outside.
Since you will be getting thousands of points and will get bored of everything in the vendor. What else is there to do? The real reason so many workers continue to mine is rumors of secrets hidden on the asteroid. On an average shift, there is supposedly four secrets on the asteroid in total. None of which will ever be on the East side for some odd reason.
Special thanks to Adams, Elwood for creating the starting essential guide to mining! - Talking to other miners, cargo staff, or the station in general alleviates the silence and boredom that comes with mining. This at the very least can also help if you die and no one picks you up, as maybe, just maybe, they will realize they should come down and check on you.