How could I talk about roids without a mention about the most infamous rodi of them all.

"Emma Roid" was so named by Acidguru because she was a pain in the arse to all pilots. She is a Semifluxor roid that is particularly dark and is set against a dark background making it hard to see her. She is located in The Reaches (Hyperial Space) on a line in between The Main Gate and the Outer Cloud jumpgates, slightly closer to the Outer Cloud gate and roughly in line with the beacon. You have to detour around her.

Many pilots - particularly noobs - often strike up an intimate association with her.

Mining Basics

Firstly, mining is boring….immensely boring, but it is quite relaxing and allows you to do other things whilst you are parked up to a roid.

Recommended equipment:

• A ship with a reasonable cargo hold.
• 2* bankers (size 2 lasers) - by far the best mining laser.
• A camera (MODx) - essential for approaching roids safely in a heavy ship.
• A rotacol (MODx) - allows you to fly directly to previously located roids.
• An abattis (MODx) - this allows you to take hits from squid for longer.
• Suitable reading material - to occupy yourself whilst mining.
• If you are a smoker then have a large, freshly emptied ash-tray and a good stockpile of cigarettes.

Firstly, this depends on what type of roid you want to find.

Generally I avoided mining in unregulated space due to the hazards involved (pirates, griefers and conflux).

I also didn't mine much in Quantar space, mainly because I hate viewing snot-coloured space and also because docking at Quantar Core in a heavy tow is a pig. I am told there are some really good mining areas in Quantar space, but I don't really know.

As a general guide the following areas are good:

The easiest way to locate some good roids is to check the squad rotacol database on Planet Jumpgate (PJG), get a rotacol and start heading for those areas.

The better roids tend to be on their own away from clusters, but this is not always the case.

Ok, so you buy a rotacol modx and want to use it here's what you do:

• Equip it. It is a modx and won't work from your cargo hold ;) When you launch you will notice that in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen are 3 sets of numbers separated by commas. If there isn't then you haven't got a rotacol equipped.
• Enter a sector where you have coordinates for a roid.
• In chat type /rotacol 12.1 -6.7 9.7 (example coords of course). This seems to be the step most first-timers have problems with..usually for one of two fairly simple reasons. Either they have spelt rotacol incorrectly or they have put commas between the coordinates. It is spelt rotacol. The coords have to have a space between them (which is confudsing cos they are shown with commas in the display at the bottom of the screen).
• Ensure that you radar is not set to only show "Enemy" - Rotacol points are neutral targets and you won't be able to select the rotacol point if you can only select enemy targets.
• Click through your radar targets until you get to the one that says "ROTACOL".
• Orient your ship to the target on the HUD and head for it.

The most important rule here is never fly directly at a roid until you are creeping up to it at slow (<10v) speed from close range. Another important thing is to UTFC (use the fu**ing camera). You can view roids from 10k when zooming in using a camera (the sol one is best).

• When you get to within 10k (this is where a rotacol makes it easier), come to a stop and zoom in with the camera.
  
• Orient your ship towards it, but slightly off (I usually aim under it). This is to help prevent you crashing into the roid and returning to a station in a pod.
  
• Approach the roid at a suitable speed. You will get used to knowing how quickly you can slow down depending on your ship configuration and cargo weight. A Sol tow with 400 units of radioactive ore on board takes about 10k to slow to a stop from half speed (like when you launch).
  
• When you are reasonably close (remember the rotacol point will not necessarily be actually on the roid). Switch the lasers on and approach the roid slowly. You need to get used to how quickly you can slow down on thrusters, but I generally don't approach a roid at more than 10v when in a tow and inside 1000 distance.
  
• When you get to less than 200 distance, slow down to below 3v and approach the roid carefully. At this speed and assuming you have reasonable shields, you shouldn't die if you hit the roid.

This is the simple bit.

Sit their and watch your lasers going. The orange spots that come off the roid can be a bit mesmerising. You should be able to see your cargo indicator in the HUD (top left) shooting up.

As you mine the roid, it heats up and starts to turn dark blue. As this happens the rate at which you can mine decreases. It sometimes help to slightly move your lasers about to mine different bits of the roid. You will notice as it heats up that the cargo counter slows down until it eventually stops. When this happens, you will not get anymore out of the roid.

Notes:

1. If you switch to the map screen, mining stops (although the sound continues).
   
2. If you alt-tab whilst the laser is on, the game may freeze when you come back. If you want to alt-tab, I suggest flicking to the maps screen first, or turning the lasers off. If you forget and when you click back on the game to go back in and you get a black screen, try waiting for up to a minute before you give up and reset your machine as it does sometimes come back.

For most of the mining I did, I was in sectors with nothing larger than c3s. But even multiple c1 - c3s can gradually drain your shields.

Ok, so this is less of a problem if you have more than 2 guns, but since most of the mining I did was in a Sol tow which has only 2 gun mounts, you have to be inventive in dealing with flux.

If you have no other guns than your mining lasers..do this….

If you spawn flux when you first jump in:

• The best thing to do is to invite others to kill them.
• Or you can wait in the gate and hope that they petal themselves.
• Or if someone else is in sector, jump out and back in so that they re-target themselves on them (But remember they might jump out and leave them for you).

If you are already mining and someone else spawns them for you and then leaves them you have a few options:

• Ask for a nice pilot to come and kill them for you. If they do this then I usually give them some cash e.g. 5000cr for multiple squid.
  
• Fire a missile at them (if you have big enough missiles that can kill em, of course. Squid take 3 cutlass to kill). Make sure you are not facing the roid when you launch missiles, cos they can blow up hitting the roid and killing you.
  
• Pull up really close to the roid (so that your nose is close to touching it) and wait until the flux suicides on the roid. This is particularly effective if the roid is large or in a close-packed cluster.

First off, if you are doing this to earn quick exp…forget it. The best way to gain exp quickly in the absence of TRI or Faction missions with sill exp is transports (not gonna go into that here as this is about mining).

Secondly, the ship cargo space is limited at low levels, so be prepared to do lots of little runs.

Thirdly, it is good for cash building as there is no outlay each time (as opposed to buying and running commodities), however, the size limitation mentioned above means that it is still not fantastic.

Mining for Medals

As some of you will know, I am a little vain when it comes to medals, so I wanted to get my "mining" medals.

The Miners Heart

The "Miner's Heart" is a basic skill medal that contributes towards a "Skill Star". The amounts required increase with the level of skill to be achieved (not pilot level). This means that when going for your first skill star, you have to mine 1 unit of any ore and sell it. Once you have attained that and are going for the second skill star, you must mine a further 3 units making a total of 4 units. Once you get your 5^th skill star you get a Glory Star. So if you are going for your 3^rd Glory star you are going for your 15^th skill star etc and you must have mined a total of 15² = 225 units.

The Splinters, Shards and Gems medals….(Ore Sale)

The first thing to realise is that the medals are actually "ore sale" medals and not "mining" medals per se. The distinction is an important one as I will show below.

There are 9 medals to get in all. There are 3 Ice Medals, 3 Semifluxor Medals and 3 Radioactive Medals. For each roid type there is a medal for 250, 350 and 450 units sold.

The emphasis here is to show that you have to sell those amounts in 1 sale. This makes it necessary to do it in a tow since it is the only craft with a big enough hold.

It makes sense (if you intend to get all the medals) to mine one type of ore until you have 450 units. When you sell these, you will get all three medals at once.

Be warned….this is not for the faint-hearted and the exp reward for the medals is not huge, but you will make a reasonable sum of money and, more importantly of course, get another dangly thing for your chest ;)

Useful Tricks

• To get lots of missions done, collect more than one type of ore (and enough of each for your mission requirement - remember the amount you have to mine per mission goes up with your level). Then when you go to a station click on that station as the destination and then click on mining missions. Always click on mission 2 and 3 to see what they are before you sell you common metals. If that type of ore is required then select that mission, go to the market and sell the ore. If there is no mission for the type of ore that you have, select the CM mission and sell your CM ore. This sometimes changes what ore is required of mission 2 or 3.
  
• Practice pulling up close to a roid so that your nose is almost touching it, this will improve the chances of flux killing themselves on the roid. It also masks you from other pilots radar (but not flux). This is called "roid hugging" and is often used in other circumstances to ambush people.

• Ok..so why won't this ****** rotacol work? - More people are now familiar with the rotacol modx due to the artefact hunting mission, however, I still get asked how it works. There are a few common problems people have with the rotacol:

  • It is spelt ROTACOL and not rotocol, rotocal, robert etc.
    
  • You must put spaces between the elements of the command and not commas etc. The syntax therefore is /rotacol x y z.
    
  • You must not have ENEMY as the selected radar reporting type. Rotacol Points are not enemy and will not be selectable.
    
  • You can only set 1 rotacol point at a time in any one sector.
    
  • Once you have used the rotacol once and entered a waypoint and targeted it with your radar and you enter a new point, you must de-select the rotacol point in the radar and then re-select it. Only by doing this will it show the new point you have entered.

• Why can't I sell only 8 units of the 24 that I have mined? - this is a deliberate feature of the game to stop people mining lots of ore, docking and then completing lots of missions by selling only part of that ore. The idea would be to mine 24 units dock and take a mining mission for that ore, sell 8 (if that is how much you need) and complete the mission then click on another mining mission, sell another 8 etc and repeat this. If you try to sell only part of the ore you have, the station will automatically force you to sell all the ore of that type that you have. The only way to get around this is to mine different ore types.
  
• Why can't I trade my ore to another pilot? - For the same reasons as above…this is to stop you getting a friendly pilot to assist you in getting mulitple missions. You simply can not trade ore to other pilots.
  
• What's the best type of ore to mine? - This depends on what you want to do. CMs are easy if you just want to get skill medals, ICE is good to start attempting the ore-sale medals as it is light, easily located in relatively safe Solrain space and has a high yield percentage. SFs are good to get Hyperial PR up. RADS are good for money and PMs are good for money and Amananth PR. Pure roids are especially good for money.
  
• How do I search for pure roids? - You've got to remember that space is 3D and so that is why there are 3 coordinates for the rotacol x y and z. The best way is to get hold of a search pattern that some uber-geek mathematician with a profound knowledge of spherical geometry and trigonometry has devised. Such a pattern is available on request by Red Dwarfer Squad Members and possibly our allies.
  
• Does it get any more interesting than this pattern of orange lights? - No
  
• Is the ore in my hold insured if I die? - No

• Is Mining Hazardous to one's health? - Yes…That is why all mining lasers come with a TRI Health Warning sticker on them. The potential effects are:

  • Chest & wallet pain - caused by increased smoking.
    
  • Hallucination - brought on by the hypnotic effect of the orange lights.
    
  • Singing - caused by the extreme boredom of long periods of mining.
    
  • Death by stupidity - caused by hitting a roid too quickly.
    
  • Death by stupidity 2 - singing on the chat channels.
    
  • Extreme violent tendencies - brought on by crashing your tow into an immovable object whilst carry 451 units of ore for the "Nuke Gem" medal.

Although we dwell in a 3D world, we have an abject inability to understand 3D space. Most people are quite happy with 2D co-ordinates (left-right and up-down), but start to foam at the mouth and bleed from the ears when trying to understand the 3^rd Dimension (in and out).

I am one of those people….please search the internet for further help…and remember… "Google is your friend".

NJ_Sid