TUTORIAL: Starting your mining adventure

[Esben]

----WARNING----

If you want to explore the universe yourself to find good areas, equipment etc. stop reading. If you want a quick and easy start to mining your way to glory it's starting here

----WARNING----





1. Introduction
2. The miner, his ship, and his crew
3. The beginning
4. Waypoints and travelling
4.1 Travelling, a small but helpfull tip
5. Maxing cash flow
6. Gettin a station license in Oasis, the way to get rich
7. Conclusion



[align=center]1. Introduction[/align]

As new in this game and absolutely loving the industrial part of the game i did some searching here and there on how to make a good start. With some help from this community i got some nice info and thought; Should anybody else like me join this game i wanna wanna give them the "shortcut" to starting out a profitable mining adventure without getting too lost in the big space. I will in this short guide cover your basic needs to become a good miner with some tips along the way. People reading this will help themselves by allready having watched the tutorials on the site and knowing the basics of the game.
At least:



Navigation





Inventory management and trading





Mining asteroids and planets





[align=center]2. The miner, his ship, and his crew[/align]

As a miner you need a ship suited for mining. To save time going back and forth from station to roids have as many cargo slots as possible. Get 5 ASAP. In the long run you want a mining beam that only mines a specific material. But to start of with the tractor beam/mining laser is fine.

Start setup

3 cargo slots
1 shield booster
1 mining beam
1 Fulcrun drive

Crew: You really want a Science ops. For the sole reason that he reduces the time it takes to mine.




[align=center]3. The beginning[/align]

When you start your new miner. The first thing you wanna do is travel to Rucker.

To do it a bit faster you might wanna mine a few cargos in Sapphire and upgrade your fulcrun drive for longer warps.

This is the route:

Sapphire->Thuban->Pices->Pearl->Rucker
(Read section 4 about travelling)

(Some of the jumpgates are very close to stations or planets and might be a little hard to find)











You want your base here as it is miners paradise. Your reputation in the system will be fair. Meaning you will encounter hostiles rarely and you wont have to pay docking fees in the stations. Get settled in Rucker station in the middle of the system. Find a good roid belt and start mining. When mining make sure to jettison metal. Only go for diamonds and platinum.
Sell it at the station when your cargo is full. And keep repeating to build up your first cash. Use the first cash you get to upgrade you ship to have 5 cargo slots ASAP. And keep building up cash. The first few hours of the game is investment investment investment so tho you feel low on cash you will soon see an explosion in cash flow




[align=center]4. Waypoints and travelling.[/align]

- Waypoints, the miners best friend.

I will here cover how to set waypoints and use them to save a lot of time.

When you have found that asteroid field you want as your second home it's time to set a waypoint. Fly into mining range of one of the asteroids. Now go into the navigation console (F1),
Copy "Current position" into "Destination Position" and click "Add to log" Now give this location a name you can remember, like "my favorite asteroid"



Now lets jump to the station the best way possible:

When jumping to a station, right-click on the station on the navigation map. Close the navigation map. Set your pitch to 0 and press F2. When jumping like this you will get directly into the station when you come out of warp. Or, you will be very close. Simply set Inertial mode and glide into the station. Easy as that.

Now open your navigation map, press "map log" and choose the location you just saved and jump to it. Remember to switch to IDS mode. Now when coming out of jump you will be very close to that asteroid, and within seconds you can mine it



[align=center]4.1 Travelling, a small but helpfull tip[/align]

When warping to a jumpgate:

- Right-click the gate on navigation map
- Set your headin to 180° or 0°
- Set your pitch to 0
- Set inertial mode
- Warp

In this way you will glide directly into the gate when coming out of warp.




[align=center]5. Maxing cash flow[/align]

Now you have a good start. And hopefully 5 cargo slots. Now comes the slow start for the speedy income. Build up some cash. Somewhere between 3 and 4 million.

Now let's get a mining beam harvesting only Platinum.
I found mine in Vega. So we need to do a small but dangerous trip.

Rucker->Virgo->Vega

This is hostile area. And to get the beam you need to be fast!
When you jump into the system make sure to save your progress!!!

Then jump to the station, pay the docking fee and buy a Platinum mining beam. Then get out as fast as possible and get back to Rucker.

If a Platinum beam is not available and you are greedy like me, load progress and try again. The beam was there for me on 2nd try. Costed med 3.4mil

Now when back in Rucker you can start mining only for platinum!

The last bit to do to max cash flow is selling at the right place. Rucker doesent pat too good. Oasis does tho! Very good actually.

So when you cargo is full. Jump through to Pearl. Wich will leave you in oasis region. Scroll out on the map and find the station to the southwest.



This is where you wanna sell. Notice you are in a hostile area! You once again have to be fast!

Here's the real trick:

- Warp to the station
- Press F3
- Open news console
- Check the going rate for platinum

If the rate is less than 6k warp to a neighbouring sector and warp back to station. Never sell if the rate is below 6k. It will most of the time be above so you wont be doing a lot of warping.



- Pay docking fee
- Sell platinum
- Get out as fast as possible and resume mining.

Keep doing this untill u can pay for a station license. Then u can safely dock without having to rush out. Remember heading and pitch while doing all this and it should be no problem. Might wanna save progress often tho




[align=center]6. Gettin a station license in Oasis, the way to get rich[/align]

Now you have:

- A mining vessel with 5 cargo slots
- A Platinum Mining Beam
- A Science op (optional but recommended)
- A waypoint to an asteroid to mine fast
- A station license in Oasis
- A shot and fast travel back and forth from Rucker->Oasis

Now it's time to make that station license worth it and expand business! You have made some initial investments and are ready to go large.

Now you mine full cargos of platinum. It will take you around 3 tripes to have around 2mil. Let's invest to cash!

When docked in Oasis look for a Fulcrum Torpedo. It will cost you around 1,5Mil. When you get back to Rucker dock at the center station. Sell it. Notice they will pay around 2,5Mil.
Do a mining run more. Now you can buy 2 Torpedos. I guess you allready now have figured out whats going on

Now you could skip mining and buy/sell torpedos ^^

Within minutes you will have a lot of cash. But hey! Torpedos isnt the only profitable item!! Have a look in Oasis station. There are easy cash to be made here. A little hint: The more you invest, the more you make. I dont need to give you more hints on this little adventure. Your money is allready multiplying fast




[align=center]7. Conclusion[/align]

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. You should now know the basics of travelling fast and smooth. You know how to setup a basic mining routine. You have done your first investments of many to come. You have an income that can easily get you going wherever you want! There are many other profitable trades to be done. You have setup a small trade route that can give you those easy cash you need to get a good ship. And you have only tasted a drop of the ocean! Time to go enjoy Evochron! May you have safe travels and joyfull hours


Esben

[Edited on 10-4-2010 by Esben]

[Von Paulus]

Good tutorial.

[Marvin]

Yeah ... and I didn't know that part about a science officer shortening the time it takes to fill a cargo hold.

[Ravenfeeder]

You don't want to buy a station licence at a station you are going to sell to, it reduces your income by 25 per cent. You only buy a station licence at a station where you wish to purchase, as, again, it reduces your buying costs by 25 per cent.

You'll get more money for your plat etc in Lost Rucker.

If you really want to make some cash look to trading in equipment, and missiles, pays a lot more than mining. With missiles you can fill up your cargo, and missile slots, giving you 13 slots to carry your cargoe of missiles, and, equipment. I've heard that there's a location where you can buy FTs at around 700k. There's plenty of places where you can sell them at 4m plus, that's a 3m plus profit per Ft, with 13 slots to put them in, that's a nice, profit, run.

[Esben]

By doing it this way, as i wrote, on your first day you will easily make 10mil. Then you can start investing.

By buying the station license you avoid being shot down and make every visit to that station a stress.

Now with my 10mil i established myself a trading route.

1 jump
1 warp to station
buy stuff
1 warp
1 jump
1 warp to station
profit 3mil

repeated a few times to have a descent ammount. Now the same trip gives me a profit between 20-30mil. Cuz i can afford filling up my cargo. Takes.. less than a minute.. Now I'm filthy rich ^^

This post however, was not about being elitist and be mr uber in 10 secs. It was to help people get a fast and EASY start to build up their place in the universe. And it is easy. Doesen't take long. And is a helpfull start. But i have played the game 3 times now.. And the proud owner of 500mil.

But again.. The post was about starting up a easy mining adventure. So dont discourage people even before they start... geeeez

[Ravenfeeder]

Telling newbies how to make more money etc is discouraging them?????:o Daftie, I'm trying to help.

Again, with stations, only buy a licence at stations were you want to purchase stuff. If you are stuck in a station, with someone shooting at you, there's a little button called "repair ship" - also, you can move your ship around the central column to a position where they can't shoot at you! In desperadum, if the station is surrounded by red AIs, all shooting at you, save, and hit F7, when you respawn the reds will have vanished, and you'll still be inside the station, all nice and safe.

[Maarschalk]

Very good tutorial. And I think that is what he ment by buying a License at a Station you buy stuff from not sell stuff to.....

[Esben]

Yeah i get the not buying station license.. Just not in this case. You will be far from better of seeling the plat in Rucker.. Without a license there you will be lucky and use many warps to refresh news to get 400k for it.
With a license in Oasis you'll easily get 650k. Without license 850k.

Now the thing is Oasis is flaming hostile. And the standard NPS'c outside are hostile. Even if you selfdestruct and load, there will still be filled with hostiles all around the station that will shoot you on sight ^^. And in your first little mining vessel you wont last a second. Not even if u try coloumn gliding. Ofc you can save/load be quick etc and pay the docking fee and still make more cash. However i was trying to make it easy for people so that they can enjoy the mining without having to stress.

Now about discouraging people.. I will try to put it this way instead: When i spend some time to write a tutorial/guide about mining, it's to help people interested in mining. Then someone jumps the thread and "between the line" writes
"mining sux, trade instead". Now the station license thing is a good advice But people might want to buy one in this case to ease things up a bit.

But what you did in this case was going:

1: You can tweak this guide doing x
2: The guide is useless ur better of trading

Prolly wasnt what you ment just how i percieved it ^^ Sorry bout that. Lez move on and expand the guide so we ALL get satisfied

I would like to expand the guide just a notch and put a fast trading run into it that will boost peoples cash-flow in seconds and make them filthy rich. But is it ok to do that or will one just become unpopular doing so?




[Edited on 10-3-2010 by Esben]

[Maarschalk]

Yes, Pearl is very hostile I'm up to 80% with navy now and the hostility is less but still fierce at some times...:P:P:P:P

[Marvin]

Ebsen, the easiest thing to do is to go ahead and make applicable changes to your tutorial. You've already explained the difference of opinion between your post and Raven's comments ... now add your explanation to the body of the tutorial.

[Suranis]

Nice tutorial. I'm at the point in the quest that I've visited a warzone, but i think i might travel back to Sapphire and do some mining using this guide. Using a science officer was excellent advice too

[MindYerBeak]

Thanks for the tutorial, good sir. Making it a Stickey wouldn't be a bad thing.

[Esben]

I have updated the tutorial. There is a new section making the station license worth it! Heheh. And now some basic trading to boost economy has been implemented. So i think both me and Ravenfeeder can agree this tutorial should provide a fast, easy, fun and good start to new pilots ^^ The station license is no longer a "if" but a "when". Might be some tweaking there to do.
But in my head there isn't wasted more than around 400k in this way. Who cares about 400k when minutes later you making millions?

But im not even a week old in this game and i think ive found a good way to start out. Of course there is faster ways to start out that will be even faster. But this tutorial provides some basic travelling and mining tips and doesent just throw you into a gold mine.

Now i just need to make some screenshots to add a visual level to the tutorial and i think i can consider it done

[Esben]

There! Think it's done now

[SeeJay]

Nice work Esben!

[MindYerBeak]

Excellent, good sir, as good as a nice hot cuppa tea any day.

Ta very muchly.

[Whytephyre]

Why not travel from sapphire to thuban, then virgo, then rucker? It would be a bit faster, and definately safer as you avoid pearl...

Otherwise, very sound advice.

A tip: there is a field of all plat asteroids in pearl...

[DaveK]

Thanks Esben - the friendly nature of the players (except Romulan ) plus the willingness of many tofreely offer advice and help or create helpful and useful tutorials is an amazing and welcome aspect of Evochron.

[Blackguard6]

Super helpful. I have been trying to figure out how to mine and this was perfect!

[Stardog765]

New player here. Thanks so much for the great tutorial.
I have a question though. Being a new player I obviously cant defend myself very well yet.
When I make the jump to thuban sector I am immediately attacked. Red contacts everywhere.
Am I doing something wrong or missing a step?
How is everyone getting through thuban without becoming stardust?

Thanks again!

[MMaggio]

When you get to Thuban, I would not advise lingering!
If you need more time picking your next jump, just put the hammer down and run!

[Atollski]

Try putting your energy into weapons - you should then recharge for the next jump much quicker, so you can get right out of there!

[Marvin]

Afterburner is your friend. Don't hesitate. Hit A/B as soon as you exit the jumpgate. At 2400, you're safe.

[Stardog765]

Put the hammer down and run! Yes I think that is a good option for me!
The problem is I am so much a nood that it takes me a while to figure out where the next gate is.

While we are talking about this and thank you so much for the help. I love this game!
Can you explain to me the difference between jump gates and just using my jump drive to get around? Are the games the only way to get to the other sectors? See when I first looked at this game I thought when I am on the nav map and zoomed out that that is the whole thing now it seems that when you are zoomed out on the nav map that is just the whole of my current sector yes? which is made up of many systems indicated by the squares on the map?
Or am I totally off here. I am trying to get a handle on the scope of the game and how to navigate in it. I have watched the great tutorial videos and such but they dont really go into that much detail for super noobs like myself

Sorry for asking such elementary questions and I really do appreciate your time in responding.

[SeeJay]

Hi stardog.

You don't need jumgates to travel, but they take you from one sytem to another in one jump.
You can fly anywhere you want with your thrusters and jumpdrive but it takes a longer time.

A jumpdrive works similar to a jumpgate, but a class 1 jumpdrive take you 1 sector/jump.
A class 2 jumpdrive takes you 2 sectors/jump ...
A jumpgate takes you several 100 or even 1000 sectors away. There are also wormholes
and blackholes that works similar as a jumpgate. Blackholes are a bit tricky to enter thou.

1 sector consists of -100000 to +100000 positions in all directions. Think of a sector as a city,
and a position in it as the street adress.
Hope this helps a bit. You can also check my site for further help. It is a spoiler thou.

See you out there i hope.