General questions about mining

Just several questions about mining in General I currently am still a noob at best. My skills say Amateur but I say noob. The unknown, unknown finding is that just cause my skills are not that high or is it common place. Seems like I get a lot of them and they turn out to be smalls which is ok 20 drops and 8-10 are smalls not the best return but I will except it any return I get I am happy with. The next question is areas. Here on Arkadia there is some beach front property. IS it really wise to mine those areas. I have read threads and seen vids that say you can find resources anywhere. Is it smart to do that though. The last question may not have any direct answers but any advice would help. AMP's as an Amateur is it wise to start using AMPs or should I forgo wait till like lvl 10 or 15 before using amps...

 

Beaches do have resources on them, but it might be wise to keep 50 metres (the range of most finders) away from the water's edge because (natch) resources don't spawn underwater. (They do sometimes spawn in places where the water is washing in and out.)

There are also places where there are no or virtually no resources, and this probably varies according to the depth of the finder you are using.

I'm no real expert, but it's probably best to use amps only in places where you know there are resources to be found - found out not using amps, to start with. One consideration about amps is that many resources on Arkadia (and other planets, too) have very poor markup. This means that using amps (which always carry a markup) should probably only be done in places where you know there to be high-MU resources to be had.

Using a rookie finder might be worthwhile for resource mapping purposes, simply because it's cheap. This does, however, only really apply if you're going to mine shallow resources with the bigger kit as well.

Lastly, the notices at the mining HQ on Windy Isles (regarding resource depth on the two islands) are actually fairly accurate.

Just my 2 pec worth!

 

Hi Jasdar, welcome to Arkadia!

Your unknown claims will decrease as your skills improve, though you will always find at least a small number of unknowns.

Mining along the coast depends on the planet you're on, as the developers of certain other popular mining planets have neglected their coastlines and you will find a lot of lysterium and oil (the "default" minerals) along them. Arkadia's coasts on the other hand, are just as rich in minerals as the mainland. I believe that you don't have to move 55m from the water's edge; claims found underwater will be relocated automatically to a place you can reach them (I haven't tested this rigorously but this is how I expect it to work).

I would wait until you're level 10 (or more!) before you start using amps. But just as important is you need to have a bigger pedcard to support amp mining.

I run a mining company where players can mine without needing to invest money in equipment or risking their own peds. Send me a PM in game if you're interested.

 

if you wish to see steadier returns it helps to view things longer term, say over 1000 drops, if you want to improve your chance of steadier returns doing more drops in one session can help, say 100, using amps is only advisable if you have sufficient experience, know the areas you mine, and have sufficient bankroll to finance their use, the worst thing you can do is amp during a period of bad returns, stop using amps, and hit a period of good returns, and repeat this pattern.
if one takes the lvl5 amp as a example, the last/largest of the amps that miners tend to use continuously, 1 double drop costs 5.5 ped, if one does 10x100 drops, add a safety marging of 2x one comes to a minimum bankroll of 11K ped.

as to areas, the best thing to do is to explore, you could check out www.mininglog.com, it has a map, a depth chart, and a mapping app. on calypso, arkadia and rocktropia you can find resources pretty much anywhere, the difference being what you find in a area, this is depends partly on the finder you use, some resources can only be found at greater depths than a fairly new player can reach.

you can not find claims under water, you should not mine closer to water than your finder radius. it is a known fact that claims do not spawn in the water, i have never read or heard that there is some magical system that automatically relocates claims to a place you can reach them, a long time ago you could find claims under water but this was changed many many years ago.

 

It's not magical just a routine of the program. Why wouldn't ores spawn in water? Water is just a terrain feature as far as the game is concerned. I could be wrong but the simplest way to code is usually the right way.

 

[offtopic]
In old times it was vice versa

It was very easy to mine underwater, especially for noobs - you don't need to avoid or fight mobs, if you found Robot Spacecraft robots just drown, no any objects, that will prevent you from extracting claim like stones, trees, buildings etc.
All that was in pre-PhysX times. After PhysX was "added" (we all know how exactly it was implemented ), some peoples had problems with extracting underwater claims (since they don't know what they just need to use FPV) and instead of fixing "cause", MA removed "consequence"...
At the same time peoples had a lot of issue with lost claims, that was inside trees/stones/houses or on "unclimbable" mountains. And that was fixed years later with ability to summon claim. So, I'm not sure if PhysX was the reason to remove it or because it was way to easy to mine underwater (I vote for second option).

Personally I never had any problems with underwater mining and old mining system was great comparing to new one (I'm talking about system, where you need to drop bomb/probe first, detonate it, print claim etc.)

P.S. Not sure how exactly new system work, but easiest way (from developer point of view) just disable ability to drop probes, while your avatar in the water and it's deeper than specific value (it's very easy to check if that's true or not in swamp areas).
[/offtopic]

 

It's actually easy to find out.... will run a test and see if claims spawn underwater.

 

If water not deep - it will (I found claims in swamps both on Caly and Ark, but they was in water, not under).
If water deep - it's just hard to find place close enough to deep water to be able to drop probes.

 

Hey Neil, yeah Nikito is right. They really don't spawn underwater.

 

Actually.... i think you are both right

Claims don't spawn under water, but I think the find rate isn't any lower near water. In the past (many many many years ago), there have been extensive mining tests on CND (now FOMA) to see if mining next the wall would give fewer finds then mining in the open dome. The results were that the amount of finds was the same.

Ofcourse there are thousands of theories about mining, and if you prefer to mine 50 metres away from the water, by all means do that

 

dont we normally run tests before giving out advice as if it is a fact?
others have also told you that one does not find claims under water?
i remember when you could, i remember that it changed, i know you now dont.
harmony mentioned tests done on cnd a long time ago, it may be true that you find a equal amount of claims when mining right against the wall on cnd, but i dont know if those tests were done before or after the change that stopped allowing claims to be found in water.
to test if this theory is right at this point in time one would have to do a complete run mining only on the waters edge, preferably more than one 100 drop run. reducing ones finder radius by 50% for a longer period of time should show results. Of course this type of esoteric research is interesting, but untill it is done is it not safest advice newer players not to mine close to water? there is plenty of ground to mine without taking a risk where the results are not known?

i do sometimes mine too close to the water, i do sometimes find claims near the waters edge, but i dont feel the results are that great nor is that something i would advise others to do, especially if they might not have the budget to allow for many mistakes.

 

I used my TP chip in hell a while back and ended up in limbo outside the domes. You can mine there, and there is a region of 50 or 100m or so around each dome that also contains the ores of that dome. It's probably considered an exploit (unfair advantage over other miners) so I wouldn't do it. So, mining next to the wall at CND and Hell wouldn't be a proper test.

 

A more conclusive test is to clear all claims up to the "you can't mine in this area" boundary by mining them out, then run along the boundary. If you find claims on the boundary then you know you've found claims from under the water, since that was the only area you didn't mine out. I started last night but it was really late and in clearing the area only found a couple claims in 40 drops so i'll have to repeat it when there are actually ores in the area.

 

that is actually pretty clever thinking, the only issue with this is the respawn which can be quite fast for some resources (minutes if not less), clearing a area will not work but if you take it one spot at a time (ie clear and rebomb) and work your way along a coast line like this it might give more accurate results.

 

Guys, let's back to the title here... It's all about, "To mine or not to mine near water front..."

 

One of my best hit rates ever (for a long run) was when I was bored and mined one row of bombs all around the entire coast of Sentosa. I stayed ~ 50m from the edge of the water. I went clockwise and triple bombed.

 

So..... it turns out that claims really can spawn in water... check it: View attachment 7759