Pilot Archive
Thread: Any Asteroid Miners out there? If so, help please...
Weapon 1: Mining laser
Weapon 2: Mining Laser
Weapon 3: Tractor Beam
Hitting 'g' allows you to see the grouping. I have weapons one and two grouped at weapon group one. Then weapon three is in group two. I have group two mapped to my right mouse button. Group one is, of course, mapped with my left mouse button. I follow the big chunk closely. When I hit it with my lasers, I activate my tractor beam at the same time and it sucks up all the rocks before they move away. The ONLY time consuming aspect is the lag created by the blaster bolts from the weak mobs that spawn to attack me. Sometimes, I'll actually disable them so they just sit there doing nothing while I mine. When they blow up, a new spawn may come. But, that's about two minutes left ignored.
So follow the big rock closely. Suck the small pieces up with the tractor beam and get them all in one swipe most of the time. It takes a bit of practice though.
I just love it when I break off two big chunks with one hit. I'll fill my cargo hold quickly using this method.
Message Edited by ThGilsRooc on 08-03-2005 01:09 PM
The best soultion for you is to create a macro. I macro mine all the time and it goes pretty fast.
Macro:
/target asteroid
/pause .2
/follow
this will target the nearest object named asteroid and will aput you on its 6. then all you have to do is turn on your tractor and blow the big roid up, and a good portion of the chunks will be picked up when you blow it up. Optionaly you could set your macro with these 2 lines after /follow for more automation, but i find the tractor noise a bit overwelming so i keymaped the tractor on/off to my joystick.
/pause .2
/toggle tractor on (not sure on actual command, but its close)
in addition to this targeting the roids this wil also target the nearest roid bandits coming after you.
Ship Loadout:
What ever ship you use I would go for a engine with high manuverability with speed being secondary.
Weapon loadouts vary with the area your mining. low threat areas would be 1 mining laser with 1-2 tractor beams depending on ship or vise versa. Medium threat areas I would go with mining laser, tractor beam, and normal blaster. High threat areas same as medium but get escort.
Zodiac-B wrote:
I posted this on the Shipwright forums, but they're all sleeping now. Can someone help me out?
I'm taking information from a couple different threads, which is why I'm starting a new one. Too confusing otherwise...
Here's my setup:
Rhikxyrk Starship
Weapon Slot 1: Blaster
Weapon Slot 2: Mining Laser
Weapon Slot 3: Tractor Beam
I have my Tractor Beam toggled from my keymap to the #6 key on my keyboard.
I am using keyboard for navigation (no joystick).
Issue: I press the left mouse button to fire my weapons. It fires them all in order; Weapon Slot 1, then 2, then 3. Once I have the Medium chunk in sight, I blow it up, then activate my tractor beam by pressing "6". But by the time I activate the beam, the asteriods have already separated and now I'm spending 5 minutes tracking them down. Now... I've heard it is possible to activate the tractor beam, then blow up the medium asteriod, but when I do this, my tractor beam shuts off after I start shooting. Resolution for this is "separate" the weapon slot containing my tractor beamfrom the rest? Can someone explain to me how I would do this?
This is mostly about rigging up a Y-8 but the use of the ship also applies to a fighter miner. the key is to have the tractor beem toggled on at all times. be within 50m-150m of the chunk. aim the beem at the center of rotation and tap the rock with the laser untill it breaks. If done correctly all the little chunks will go into the hold when the chunk breaks.
Guide to fast and efficient Y-8 mineing
Pre requisits:
- 2 accounts 2 computers (someone has to be in the top turret at all times, I can't imagine an actual player wanting to do this)
Equip your Y-8 like this:
- Top turret is the tractor beem
- fixed forward gun is your Y-8 elite mineing laser
- rear mounted wapon you can do with as you please, its mostly useless
- droid progrms: Reactor OL4, Cap OL4, Engine OL 3, Weapon OL 3, Shield shunt 4
- Cargo hold, bigger is better
When you launch:
- 2nd account get in 1 of the 2 opperations chair and run the 4 overloads.
- after over loads are complete move the 2nd account to the upper turret
- Toggle the Tractor beem on with the 2nd account (doing it from the pilot seat will only turn on an imaginary tractor beem that does nothing)
- While looking in first person view pilots chair adjust the tractor beem so that half of the beem runs down the middle-left strutt in the forward window. This approxamatly intersects your reticle's cross hair at 50m-150m from target rock.
- Once the beem is aimed the pilot needs to zoom out to external view. You cant see jack from the interior view.
- use the laser on the big rock to break of a chunk
- Target the chunk and match its speed.
- Optimal distance to target is 50m-150m. if it's farther than 180m, just turn around and break off another chunk. dont bother chaceing anything.
- Aim the beem at the center of rotation, Put the white flashlight on the green lead indicator.
- Tap the chunk with the laser and SLURP 90-100% of the chunk instanly pops in your hold. Most of the time I do not bother picking up the small potatos the splatter around. but if you must you will be at the same speed as the little rocks for EZ pickup with the beem.
If I were to do this in a fighter, I would use auto follow instead of matching target speed. A fighter is better able to adjust speed than the Y-8 and autofollow puts you in the most optomal distance and aimed at the center of rotation.
Message Edited by AzzixxSWG on 08-03-2005 03:39 PM
Phizuol wrote:
Hit the G key and pull the tractor beam out of your firing groups.
Screw the T-beam and load three mining lasers and a good high performance engine like you'd have in your combat fighter. Little more work, but still able to load a hold in about 15 minutes +/- interruptions. Plus in triplicate, those mining lasers are about as effective as a normal blaster.
Use a macro something like
/tar Asteroid
/pause .25;
/follow
Put that on a hot key and just shoot from the keyboard, you'll be pretty much good to go. If your a hot hand, cut the /follow out and just use it to pick the closest asteroid, then match speed, then accelerate slightly if its too far out, you'll have about 80-90% success tagging the fragments.
JanuHull wrote:
Screw the T-beam and load three mining lasers and a good high performance engine like you'd have in your combat fighter. Little more work, but still able to load a hold in about 15 minutes +/- interruptions. Plus in triplicate, those mining lasers are about as effective as a normal blaster.
Use a macro something like
/tar Asteroid
/pause .25;
/follow
Put that on a hot key and just shoot from the keyboard, you'll be pretty much good to go. If your a hot hand, cut the /follow out and just use it to pick the closest asteroid, then match speed, then accelerate slightly if its too far out, you'll have about 80-90% success tagging the fragments.
But why would you want to only get a fraction of what the little rocks are worth and have to individualy aim at each rock now scattered and moveing further and further away from the big rock? When you can just get 100% of all the little rocks in 1 hit and stay close to the big rock?