A question about rocks....

[Makar40]

I have a contract to mine 25 metal aloys near Outpost 5. I fly out there and start mining, but the rocks are giving me diamonds. Is there any way to tell what stuff an asteroid will give me BEFORE I start mining it?

[Dingo]

nope. but diamonds aren't too shabby.

[Angitherias]

I just eject the mats that I don't want, if need be I'll move to a different asteroid till I get the results I need.

[Marvin]

Add a couple extra cargo bays. You should start picking up what you need before you've filled one bay with anything else.

[Maarschalk]

Yes, there is a way to do selective mining by prepping your cargo bays with the stuff you want.
Say you have 3 Cargo bays and you want to fill them all up with platinum.

Start mining and if the first thing you get is metal leave it in cargo bay 1, then your second bay will fill up with either diamonds or platinum if diamonds then let them be for now in Cargo bay 2 and then your 3rd bay will fill up with platinum. As soon as you have one platinum in cargo bay 3 discard the diamonds in cargo bay 2 and keep discarding Cargo bay 2 till you get platinum in cargo bay 2. Once you have one platinum in Cargo bay 2 discard the metal in cargo bay 1 and keep discarding metal and diamonds till you get platinum in Cargo bay 1. Now all 3 Cargo bays are prepped for platinum and Cargo bay 1 will fill up first with platinum then Cargo bay 2 and finally Cargo bay 3. This is the long and round about way.

The better and faster way is to get a Platinum Minning tractor/beam!......:P:P:P:P:P

[Edited on 12-6-2011 by Maarschalk]

[DaveK]

As Maars said "if you get what you don't want jettson it until the first bit of what you do want appears"