How do mining skills/professions factor into things? I have been concentrating on hinting but would like to do a bit more mining but I'm really tired of getting useless materials. What would be the drawback of using a better Mineral Finder with low (as in 0) profession levels? Does it work like weapons in that the efficiency will suck until I reach level 4 or so? With a level of 0, would it be good to use a F-101?
for a while (around lvl 12 is when you can start using proper finders) you will go for mostly low tt per stone finds. try to find where the ones are that do have some markup. mine those areas until you notice new resources pop up that you did not get before. work your way up until the tk120 finder, or similar. at that point you will be able to find stuff like terrudite, ignisium, narcanisum, niksarium, megan etc. quite easely. especially if you have kept track of your finds over time, since you will now know a good amount of decent to good markup locations. when you reach the point of the tk320 and similar finder is when the real fun starts in finding the rarest of resources. and this will be what you will be able to do as you progress towards the lvl 40+ finders.
you can move up in finder as you wish, but the differences are minimal until you get to the lvl 12 and higher finders, so using the ones with low markup but that give good skills would be best imo.
(L) finder let you have access to more depth at lower skill requirement, but you need to pay markup for it. UL ones has much longer SIB hence the depth is lower but abit cheaper. cheap UL route: TT>F-103>F-105, you get abit lower depth than using (L) ones but the difference is quite tiny really. change to next finder as soon as you maxed it. imo you only need to use (L) finder and enhancer after you maxed TK120 and TM 4, depth start to make difference in this level, with some enhancer you are able to find rares like redu which has nice markup. Putting enhancer on finders lower than this level are just wasting your money imo.
Keep in mind that just because MA says you can "Use" a finder it most certainly does NOT mean you will be effective with it. Once I learned that I started getting better sorted for more stable returns. The lower finder like 103 and lower add 3 levels to MAX before they will fully produce properly. 104-106 Id say maybe add 5 levels. I haven't figured out the Crap ass L gear yet. I just killed my 11th bigger L finder in a row with no hof's out of any of them. 6 tk 320's 3 terra 4's and 2 vrx 2000's. All my best claims come from UL gear. The key is loss. If you wanna ring bells and see swirlies Valid loss is your friend. If you cant afford that type of play then take your time moving up, stay away from amps, and map everything you find (not on the 3rd party mappers that lump your shit in with everyone else's data)
Thanks for the advice. So stick with the TT finder until I get up a few levels then go to the F-103. As for mapping things, it does not matter all that much when all I get is crappy low depth minerals, does it?
move to f-103 when you maxed it, to f-105 when you maxed it. Mapping is super important to miners even at low depth, tho arkadia mineral distribution is super simple nowdays. LMBL already does all the work for you. What you need is use the right depth to find the minerals you want, just remember deep doesn't mean better.
i have been using paper and pen to map my areas and i will tell you it sucks big time. but mapping is very important. i wish i could get LMBL to work i would use it but i have for over a year now not been able to get it set up to work. i think im just set-up stupid. but yeah a copy of the map and pen lot of X's lol
More then you would think. Changes in the last year or so has moved the material spawns into tighter pockets with more types in a smaller area. Think 3 dimensionally. If you look for things only in your living room you will miss out on the treasures in the basement and the attic where the most valuable things usually get moved to. I don't do what most people do when mining. I carry I think 9 finders on me and use them all. My mapping shows that the spawns are either there or they are not. No sense wasting ped dropping where they are not like in straight line bombing because no matter how many times you drop in an area outside the spawns you will STILL not find anything. That strategy went out the window when VU 10 came. The only value to that style is to generate loss which allows access to the bell ringers lottery.
Sorry for double posting I messed up on the multi quote thingy. You don't have to mark every drop. You just have to track spawn borders and keep a running list of materials in each spawn. If your real technical you can track finders % to find each mat to maximize finding specific things.
Would I be correct in saying that using a finder you do not have the skill for will simply reduce the depth? Does that mean that you still get the same average TT value per drop, but you do not get the better MU results? So, you may end up with Lysterium when you could have had a nice mineral?
If you're talking about using a finder you're not yet in SIB the question is why would you use it? You'll get better depth using a maxed or near maxed finder. Presumably you also miss out on any skill bonus. More depth = higher MU (at least on Ark in most areas). I do have some very weak evidence that finder search radius is reduced if the finder is not maxed, I didn't test enough to be conclusive but if true it would be another reason to use maxed or near maxed finders. If you're below level 7 then your goal should be to skill up as you'll get a lot better MU once you can get down below 500m.
Because the TT finder sucks. It only drops 1-6 probes and the find is hardly worth the effort when you actually get something, and when you get something worth a decent markup you get one of them and never see another one and thus can't sell it.
The Rookie finder is a great tool for gaining skill, and the Ark UL rookie finder is one of the best. Yes the finds will be small, but in volume you will do very well. The finder will allow you to drop many many probes, allowing for many many skill up chances. Risk Vs. Reward.... the amount of probes dropped will increase the size of the claim's potential.... but as most miners will tell you its all about volume. I always suggest to stick with the rookie gear as long as you can. This will allow you to explore a bit, and get to know the "hot spots" Also, do not get rid of your "old" finders... they each have their use. The TT models for example seem to operate from minimum to maximum depth <the Z1 at a high tier is a sick finder, I wish Ark had a UL TT finder>. Each larger finder seems to operate around its average depth to the Maximum. Using this info will allow you to "hone in" on a resource. If you say... goto http://www.mininglog.com/ they list each resource depth. You can use that information, with a bit of exploration, to your advantage when looking for specific resources. So... each finder has its use, and can be made to find a certain resource easier than others. All finders have a use, even the TT one.
I have a little bit different perspective on the rookie finder. I think it's good for 1) learning how to mine without (much) risk and 2) mining on a very tiny budget and that's about it. If either of those apply to you then use the rookie. If you're new to mining I highly recommend figuring out how to use LBML with the rookie then IF you have a big enough ped card, moving to the terramaster 1 (the Ark full size TT finder). Once on that I would move up the SIB ladder (when maxed on a finder look for the next model) to skill up quickly. It really doesn't take too long, just cycle a few thousand ped and you're using decent depth finders. I hate to speak ill of Arkadia tools but the Terramaster 2 is not really a good choice (depth for skill level) unless you want to stick with Arkadia tools in which case go for it. I woudl also generally avoid the UL finders as you're skilling up since they have very long SIB periods so you get lower depth as you're skilling up. Unless you just like UL finders, then go for it!
Lee Zhorgul Salmon recently returned to swirl-mining, and his Mining Record-breaking ATH was using a Ziplex Z5 (L). Some of us are still waiting for the return of tamming, as mentioned in the RT noob tutorials at Gateway.
Next question: If, when you use a bigger finder, you find 10 times as many minerals with each search, that means that there are at least 10 times as many of the same mineral down there to find (assuming both use the same depth). Logically, that would mean I could drop probes 10 times in the same place without any need to move to a different location. Or even better 10 successful searches before moving. But logic be damned, I want to know if it is true. Should I, using a TT finder that drops a lousy 1-3 probes per try, move out of the finders range before attempting another drop?
